Stars rewilding forests are contributing to the loss of grazing grass vital for food security, says farming union chief. The Telegraph has more.
Celebrities who plant trees to salve their conscience are contributing to the loss of British grazing grass, the President of the National Farmers Union has said.
Minette Batters said that the value of cattle and grasslands in helping to limit climate change and provide food security was being overlooked by a “ghastly conversation of trees versus meat”.
“Vast tracts of the country that should be growing grass are growing trees, now,” she told a sustainable farming conference this week.
“We’ve got celebrities salving their conscience by planting blimming trees and they should be growing grass. And then you should be having livestock that eats grass.”
Ms. Batters did not name which celebrities she had in mind. Last year, Ed Sheeran said that he planned to “plant as many trees as possible” to help offset his carbon footprint.
The singer, who owns a 16-acre estate in Suffolk, told the BBC: “I’m trying to buy as much land as possible and plant as many trees as possible. I am trying to rewild as much of the UK as I can. I love my county and I love wildlife and the environment.”
Supermodel Kate Moss has also said that she wants to “build a forest” on land she has bought in the Cotswolds, while singer Geri Halliwell has spoken about her own rewilding plans, including planting trees.
Worth reading in full.
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Putting to one side, the idiocy of (a) claiming that one can ‘limit climate change’ by growing grass or trees (which both need carbon to grow), or (b) offsetting one’s ‘carbon footprint’, why do these issues come down to either / or? Again, as these people usually do, they skirt round the real causes. If we weren’t continually building more ‘ticky-tacky’ houses (all driven by the engine of unending immigration into an already overcrowded island), and concreting over driveways etc, we’d have less pressure on our environment and wildlife. Also, thinking back, I don’t recall the NFU objecting to all those ghastly conifer forests planted by the Forestry Commission in previous decades. Many farmers were (and still are) only too happy to sell off land when making a living off the land is so difficult. At least these celebs who want to plant trees are more discerning about what they grow.
If one actually reads the book ‘Wilding’ by Isabella Tree you discover that their experiment resulted in an improvement in the pasture quality of their land and that they have free-ranging cattle that provide an income from their high quality meat. That, and a habitat for endangered flora and fauna. It is possible to have both.
Britain is only “overcrowded” because successive governments since the 1970s have failed to build sufficient housing to meet demand, apparently to give home owners the illusion of prosperity as their houses increase in value. This has become less of a political advantage as the percentage of home owners has decreased, and will likely decrease further as the economic crisis worsens. I understand that property development is dominated by four large companies who deliberately go slow with building on land where they already have planning permission so as to force up prices increasing their profit. The government needs to get serious about the ponzi scheme of ever higher property prices.
The immigration to the UK does little more than make up for the children killed every year in Britain. With the demographic crisis of an ageing population, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that we will be getting less wealthy and/or less British for some years to come (and one of the things that struck me about the 2011 census was that the number of “white British” people had actually decreased over a decade). Japan have decided to be poorer, with low immigration despite their demographic crisis. Whether this is the least bad option I don’t know, we will find out in the coming years. Meanwhile, according to Mark Steyn (on GB News), Scotland apparently has a birth rate of 1.29 No two ways about it, we are in a real mess, and the government seems to be conspiring with foreign agents to destroy our prosperity (though it is doubtful that we could avoid an economic hit now even with proper government in the interests of the working man).
I take your point about the NFU keeping schtum about conifer plantations but at least somebody is speaking up on a subject of relevance. Celebs we can say with almost certainty know sod all about most things but do like to be seen and heard jumping on the latest ‘woke’ fad.
The NFU need to keep raising issues such as this and re-educating people on the utter madness of net zero.
I stopped listening to ‘slebs’ decades ago. I have zero respect for anyone who does listen to them. These sleb worshipers obviously have no thoughts of their own, and should be ignored, as much as the next hollywood brain-dead, infantile comic book film.
Why do celebrities think anyone is interest in their opinions? You probably not allow to be a celebrity unless you hold certain opinions.
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Too many rich people now snapping up land and pricing it far out of the reach of ordinary people.
I also heard the government was encouraging farmers to retire and sell to them, I suppose the government wants to control what use it is put to. Do we trust them to do the right thing? Of course not. Most likely it will be set aside for wind or solar farms, housing etc.
As for the whole scam of so-called carbon offsetting, it is a piece with the Age of Stupid.
“Carbon offsetting,” – the most blatant piece of fraud in perhaps the whole of the net Zero Con.