A new Act of Parliament threatens to place yet more burdens on our fragile natural environment.
Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) is a problem plant for horse owners, but wildlife and countryside organisations are united in their view that the action proposed by the Act will not protect horses from Ragwort, but will put the environment at risk at cost to the Council Tax payer.
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| Six spot burnet
(Zygaena filipendulae)
© Roger Key |
Ragwort is a very important plant for invertebrates in the UK.
At least 30 insect species (and 14 fungi species) are entirely reliant on Ragwort, and about a third of the insects are scarce or rare. Ragwort is also a critically important nectar source for hundreds of species of butterflies, bees, moths, flies and other invertebrates, helping to maintain what remains of their much declined populations in the UK countryside. In some instances the presence of Ragwort may be the only source of nectar for a Biodiversity Action Plan species. A number of look-alike plants also support rare and endangered species such as the Tansy beetle (Chrysolina graminis).
The Ragwort Control Bill is implemented through a Code of Practice that provides guidance on how to prevent the spread of Ragwort. The code can be seen at:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/farm/wildlife/weeds/pdf/cop_ragwort.pdf
Buglife and Wildlife and Countryside Link were consulted in the drafting of the new code. There has been some progress towards ensuring the Code does not destroy the biodiversity associated with ragwort. For instance the Code now states that it ‘does not propose the eradication of common ragwort but promotes a strategic approach to control the spread of common ragwort where it poses a threat to the health and welfare of grazing animals and the production of feed or forage.’ However, Buglife and other wildlife charities remain very concerned that the anti-Ragwort campaign will cause real damage to what is left of the UK’s wildlife.
Concerns are that the anti-Ragwort campaign will result in a new wave of wildflower destruction as land managers set about the countryside with broad-spectrum herbicides. Unfortunately, this prediction is already being fulfilled. St. Neots Common SSSI, Cambridgeshire was a beautiful flower-rich meadow but has now been stripped of many of the flowers because the commoners wanted to sell hay for horses and sprayed the SSSI with herbicide. Meanwhile in Norfolk Richard Mabey, vice-president of the Open Spaces Society, author and countryside columnist, was horrified by the state of Fair Green in Diss "The whole area had been sprayed or spot-weeded with systemic broadleaf herbicide. All the flowers were killed and contorted, the grass parched. Hardly an amenity for anyone or anything". Again, the anti-Ragwort campaign was to blame.
The danger remains that all land within 100 metres of fields used for grazing or for producing hay or silage (almost all grassland) will become Ragwort zero tolerance zones at immense cost to the Council Tax payer and already pressured wildlife.
To justify this draconian approach to one of our native plants and its fauna one might think that there must be an escalating problem with a good basis in scientific data. However claims about the numbers of horses dying and the increase in Ragwort abundance appear to be unscientific and highly speculative.
Ingested Ragwort causes liver damage to horses which avoid eating live Ragwort unless there are no other options. Most Ragwort poisoning is the result of the use of contaminated hay. The appropriate solutions to the problem are; firstly the proper implementation of Agriculture Act 1970 and Feeding Stuffs Regulations 2000 in which regulation 14 makes it an offence to sell feeding stuff contaminated with dangerous material; and secondly improved management of horse pastures, using established management techniques (e.g. rotation and reduced grazing pressure) to minimise the Ragwort content.
Wildlife and Countryside Link (of which Buglife is a member) concluded in its position statement that 'in the absence of any evidence that Ragwort is increasing and reliable data on the frequency of horse deaths Wildlife and Countryside Link will not endorse the Code'.
The Wildlife and Countryside Link statement was successful in raising the issue of the potential damage to wildlife. In the House of Lords debate on 17 October 2003 Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville stated that:-
'A recent review by Buglife-the Invertebrate Conservation Trust identified 30 invertebrates as being confined to Ragwort. Three beetles and four flies were nationally scarce, and one of the flies may deserve red data book status. Lest all that seem de minimis, certain groups of such insects particularly associated with ancient trees use Ragwort as a nectar source, especially when the mid-season sources of nectar are scarce.'
Buglife will be working with our partners in Wildlife and Countryside Link to ensure that Defra and local councils implement the elements of the Code that could safeguard biodiversity and therefore limit the potential damage to wildlife.
If your local council mounts an eradicate Ragwort campaign please write to them and point out that this is against the Ragwort Code, which requires that a risk assessment is made in each case to ensure that there is a genuine risk to animal welfare and that the action will not damage the environment.
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