Owen Paterson speaks to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during his term as Northern Ireland Secretary
The woman who oversaw the forest sell-off debacle has been axed in David Cameron’s Cabinet reshuffle.
Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman has been replaced by former Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson, a keen horseman and opponent of bureaucracy.
Caroline Spelman’s reign at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs saw one of the coalition Government’s biggest u-turns as it backpedalled on plans to sell off publicly owned forests and woodland, prompting half a million people to sign a petition opposing the plans.
Ms Spelman incurred the wrath of middle England as well as outdoor enthusiasts with the proposals to dispose of Forestry Commission land in England.
The outcry led to the setting up of the Independent Commission on Forestry, which not only recommended keeping the public forest estate, but extending access to other woodland south of the border.
Ms Spelman’s replacement at Smith Square is the managing director of a family leather firm. The MP for North Shropshire is a firm advocate of badger culling as a controversial measure to limit bovine tuberculosis.
Axed Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman
He also favours increased shale-gas exploration and his constituency website declares: “Owen is a passionate supporter of localism, free enterprise and less interference in people’s lives. He believes that taxation and bureaucracy should be minimised to give people the best chance to exercise their talents.”
Mr Paterson is married to Rose, daughter of the 4th Viscount Ridley and has two sons and a daughter.
dodgethebullets
07 September 2012The official policy in Britain (and the rest of the European Union) is to eradicate bovine TB from cattle. This is laid out in 'The Bovine TB Eradication Programme For England' (DEFRA 2011b ). It is true that disease eradication has been achieved for smallpox in humans, and has recently been claimed for rinderpest in cattle. These diseases, however, have single maintenance hosts and hence eradication is a meaninful objective (CFSPH, 2008 ). But no disease with multiple maintenance hosts has ever been eradicated - and may never be. Moreover global eradication programmes are extremely expensive and can have very adverse side-effects, especially in relation to diverting resources from effective control methods (see Caplan, 2009 on 'Is eradication ethical?').
Even disease elimination - namely reduction to zero in the incidence of infection within a specified geographical area - is impractical when you have several wild maintenance hosts as with bovine TB. TB infected cattle can be removed using the 'test and cull' approach, with affected herds put under movement restriction and re-tested periodically to eliminate cattle that may shed the organism. But this approach cannot be used for wildlife reservoir species, which in Britain means badgers and fallow deer. Because sick badgers are more likely to get culled, large scale pro-active culls (actually a misuse of the term 'cull') may sometimes reduce the disease prevalence in badgers (Corner et al., 2008 ), but cannot possibly eliminate infections in a wild population, therefore given these facts, could it be the UK government has adopted a dysfunctional disease control policy merely to placate wealthy livestock farmers and avoid spending money?
If so, it is almost as unfair to farmers as it is to the badgers...
http://www.rspca.org.uk/ImageLocator/LocateAsset?asset=document&assetId=1232729824096&mode=prd
https://www.facebook.com/stop.the.cull
Graham
07 September 2012We're out of the frying pan into the fire. Do we get to guess whether this "keen horseman" is a fox hunter? His whole profile reeks of class division and privilege. I doubt he has ever read the Krebbs Report.
Mr Greer Hart, senior
10 September 2012I am not coming from a Leftist political standpoint, but I would have thought that the Conservatives would have really wakened up to why they are so unpopular in many areas of this country. They and certain members of the other main parties, signify the Oxbridge graduate dominance of our political scene in the UK. Their type is okay for Brideshead Revisited etc., but not for the real world of what it is to live various rundown parts of the UK. They typify the continued ownership of the landscape by people who have ruled over us since 1066, and even spread into Scotland where still decide what is going to live and die on our abused landscape.
In a nutshell, they should be where they are and it is time they collectively moved on, and let those who know how to manage the countryside of Britain get on with the job. The toff landowners and the minions, with their tally ho and status quo, are a gross anachronism. The hunts have been found to have spread serious worm infections around the countryside which attack the human liver (hydatid worm), and now there is some evidence that they may also be responsible for bTB spread. We live in an age when people are more knowledgeable about what goes in the countryside and want to conserve wildlife for practical and humane reasons. I find it offensive that the new bloke on the job is such a crass defender of absolutism with regard to badgers and anything else that seeks to take the correct course with regard to protecting the natural environment. His sort typifies what we have to endure from poorly informed and obstinate politicians. The majority do not want a badger cull from the general and what counts, public.
dodgethebullets
11 September 2012Independent scientific studies have shown that culling would be of little help in reducing bovine TB, and even suggest that it could make things worse in some areas. To hear the facts, press play on the video below.
If you want the government to make the sensible choice. Sign the Petition
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhojkHMyaJg&feature=share
http://www.justdosomething.org.uk/