Wildlife and Conservation Review of 2001
this recognition, other casualties were political - the then agriculture minister Nick Brown - and
governmental - the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food. It has long seemed anachronistic
that one industry - agriculture - should have its own Ministry, and this position of power has allowed
agricultural policy and practice to achieve its current levels of unsustainability, in the environmental
sense. So it came as no surprise, and was little lamented, that a government reorganisation subsumed
MAFF into much of the former Department of the Environment, to produce the Department of the
Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). We must hope that this succeeds in integrating the
approach to all rural affairs, and acts as a joined-up part of Government, delivering rural and
environmental benefits to everyone.
And then we have the adverse environmental impacts of the epidemic. These are many, but include:
• pollution, from burning pyres, burial sites, and disinfectant;
• the loss of stock animals, for several months at least, which are necessary as an ecological
management tool. This may be permanent in the case of farmers who go out of stock
completely, or who go out of business, but even if it is only short-term, there are concerns
for vulnerable populations of invertebrates which require the right conditions every year in
order to survive;
• conversely, overgrazing of areas on which stock were trapped by movement restrictions.
Such effects are largely short-term, but longer-term impacts are also possible through nutrient
enrichment and severe trampling and poaching;
• an enforced break in wildlife monitoring programmes, which are so important in determining
conservation policy and priorities;
• the temporary cessation of other conservation management work (eg deer culling) could
lead to already serious problems getting even worse.
However, it should also be recognised that there were some possible environmental benefits to
come out of the horrors of FMD, Most immediate was the lack of disturbance during access
restrictions, which may have contributed to a series of unusual breeding bird successes, as discussed
earlier. In the medium term, we can hope that in restocking the uplands, in particular, the opportunity
is taken to adopt a more sustainable policy. It has long been recognised that the Common Agricultural
Policy headage payments promote overstocking, which has led to widespread Heather loss in the
uplands, with impacts on a range of wildlife features. And in the longer term, if a new agricultural
policy framework is developed which recognises the need to safeguard the environment, then the 6
million animals may not have died in vain. Reorganisation of agricultural support, where we were
spending £230 million a year protecting the rural environment, but £5 billion a year destroying it,
is an absolute priority.
Meanwhile investigations into the outbreak continue. How did it arrive? The theory now is that it
was introduced into the pigs in Northumberland via their swill, which incorporated restaurant food
waste, which may have included illegally imported (and hence untested and contaminated) meat. It
is believed that the farmer at the source of the outbreak may have harboured the disease for some
time before it came to light, and indeed it is suggested that it was out of control before it had even
been detected. The farmer was successfully prosecuted on animal health charges in 2002.
The whole sad story provides lessons for everyone to learn.
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Essex Naturalist (New Series) 19 (2002)