Written by Douglas Batchelor, CEO of The League Against Cruel Sports on 22 April, 2011 : 09:58 This piece of writing is taken from the League Against Cruel Sport’s blog on it’s website.

The evidence this week suggests that the government still don’t get how people feel about the countryside. While MPs are away from Westminster and are engaged on a cross party battle on whether or not to support AV as a voting system, someone has decided that this might be the best time to let some bad news slip under the radar.

The Cabinet Office ‘Red Tape Challenge’ has quietly introduced an environment red tape section and it’s not good news if what you are in support of is wildlife habitat and conservation and access to the countryside. Right at the top of the list of ‘Red Tape’ are Countryside & Rights of Way Act and the Wildlife & Countryside Act. The pro-bloodsports lobby must be sitting there thinking that at last, payback time for all their efforts.

The vast majority of the general public will have no idea what the two key Acts actually do and it is always tempting to say yes to any red tape cutting exercise.

The Countryside & Rights of Way (CROW) Act set into place a restricted but nonetheless much welcomed right of access for the general public to large areas of the countryside and at the same time it placed limits on landowners’ powers to restrict access.

The CROW Act also made provision for Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), both of which make provisions that protect wildlife habitats and places of natural beauty.

Tearing up the CROW Act would be a giant leap backwards for public access to the countryside and for the protection of the UKs threatened wildlife and their habitats.

Next on the red tape list was the Wildlife & Countryside Act. The Act sets out the measures and areas of protection for birds and other animals, and for plants. While not protecting all birds from being used as live targets for sport, the Act does provide some measure of protection and limits the times of year at which birds can be shot and nests can be disturbed or eggs taken.

It is a travesty of spin that the two Acts are presented as ‘red tape’, the suggestion being quite clearly that there are no principles involved and that wildlife and countryside should go back to the days when the lords of the land decided who could do what, where and when. The rest of the population were to be treated as poachers and could be forcibly removed if found to be on the land without the landlord’s permission. As for the wildlife, they were there as targets for bloodsports and certainly not there for public enjoyment.

You would have thought that government would have at least begun to understand that there are clear dangers associated with deregulation, particularly in areas where greed and competition lead to excess.

In the absence of regulation the city, or at least some people in it, have cost the country billions. In the countryside the same will hold true. In the absence of regulation such as the Wildlife & Countryside and CROW Acts our countryside will become the private preserve of the bloodsports supporters. Endangered habitats and species will be ruthlessly exterminated if they in any way interfere with hunting and shooting for sport.

We are already hearing from people in the bloodsports lobby who want to be allowed to kill raptors and want to hunt, trap and kill otters now that they are at last beginning to make a come back. Doing away with what little protection there is for wildlife and habitats and by doing away with the public right to access the land where habitats and animals and birds are endangered, the bloodsports lobby – if they get their way – will effectively be able to do what they like behind the closed doors and gates of the countryside.

In a democracy there is a clear choice between regulation and freedom. It cannot be true that all regulation is bad, and it equally is clearly not true that all regulation is good. But that said, a freedom from regulation for those who seek to hunt, shoot and kill for sport is not a human right. There is no requirement on society that we tolerate and accept cruelty to animals for sport. We do not have to stand idly by while people destroy wildlife and rare habitats and we do not have to accept that we the public have no right of access to the land to see what is going on.

Left to their own devices the red tape cutters will turn the clock back to the dark ages when the vast majority had no right of access to land and our wildlife and wildlife habitats had no protection in law. That’s why we’re supporting the 38degrees campaign to protect this important legislation.

Oddly enough the environment red tape consultation seems to be different to the others. Retail, hospitality, road transport, fisheries and manufacturing all have clear timetables for comment and for Ministers to respond with their plans. Environment is well hidden on the Red Tape website. Have a look and you will see what I mean.

My guess is that having got a bloody nose over their Forestry Commission plans, the government and the DEFRA ministers in particular don’t want another furore on their hands. But that is what they will get, whether they like it or not, over what looks very much like the proposed scrapping of the Wildlife & Countryside Act and the CROW Act.

Finally it is well worthwhile taking a good look at two (1, 2) recent articles about farmers, TB reactors and cattle identity swapping.

Animals testing positive for bTB are sent for slaughter and the farmer is compensated according to the value of the animal to be slaughtered. Identification for testing is based on the number on the animals ear tags, usually a large easy to read plastic tag in one ear and a smaller metal one in the other ear.

A failure to properly identify an animal, a failure to properly record a cattle movement and a failure to send the right animal for slaughter are all criminal offences which can attract a six month prison sentence or £5,000 fine. Swapping tags, and taking high value compensation while sending a low value substitute for slaughter but keeping the more valuable infected animal, lets the guilty play the compensation game again with the same reactor cow at the next test. It is a very silly thing to do and risks the spread of bTB to other cattle in the herd and to neighbouring herds, but still people who are desperate enough for the money do it.

Meanwhile the farming unions are still hell bent on blaming badgers for the spread of bTB. The cases above make it quite clear that the authorities should be looking closer to home for sources of infection. With proposed cuts to the staffing of local authority trading standards departments responsible for checking livestock identity and movement records (all that red tape!), it will be all too easy for the criminally minded to go on blaming badgers while simultaneously fleecing the public purse to fund their compensation based crime spree and infecting their neighbours herd with bTB. Not all red tape is a bad thing!