Welsh gamebird release
proposals breach
human rights law
Conor O'Gorman
Tens-of-thousands have said no to proposals to restrict gamebird releasing in Wales and BASC’s Act Now campaign culminated in a stinging response to Natural Resources Wales. Conor O’Gorman recounts the campaign as it happened.
On 20 June 2023, a 12-week consultation closed on proposals to introduce a licensing system for the release of pheasants and red-legged partridge in Wales.
The proposals were issued by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) on behalf of an anti-shooting Welsh government. To be fair, I think they expected a meek response from the shooting community. Not so it would seem, given that NRW have reported 42,000 complete responses to the consultation.
Firstly, they were counting on our collective apathy towards responding to government consultations. Secondly, the proposals and survey questions were confusing and ambiguous – cloaking a de facto plan to ban gamebird releasing in Wales.
Alive to the threat and drawing on our Fighting Fund, BASC launched a massive Act Now campaign to raise awareness of the proposals, exposing them as a clear attack on game shooting and encouraging people everywhere to have their say.
BASC staff and volunteers across the organisation campaigned relentlessly for 12 weeks raising awareness and generating responses from the rural community, the trade and visitors to shows and events.
BASC’s communications team pushed the campaign messages via the press, social media and several waves of online calls to action.
The BASC Wales team organised briefings to shoots and businesses and worked closely with other rural organisations and supportive members of the Senedd, which resulted in a series of packed public events across Wales.
Under pressure
Natural Resources Wales was soon overwhelmed by survey responses and emails. Under pressure, the Welsh government minister driving the proposals stated in an outburst that she did not think that “killing anything as a sport or leisure is anything that any civilised society should support” and that we needed to “change our behaviour”.
This was the point that the penny dropped for many on the sidelines of the debate. The news of the proposals reached far and wide and we know that tens-of-thousands of people responded to the consultation.
Moreover, many more thousands wrote to their MPs and members of the Senedd. That has helped make our voice heard in every part of Welsh government, reverberating the message that the shooting community is a force to be reckoned with.
We set out to beat the antis at their own game and I think the results of the public opinion survey will be in our favour. A huge thank you to everyone who got involved.
Your support gives us a fighting chance for the next round of battle; the opposition won’t easily give up on their efforts to shut down game shooting in Wales.
BASC's response
That brings me to BASC’s response to the consultation.
Drawing on our in-house expertise and, having had the consultation reviewed externally by lawyers, we believe there are strong grounds to legally challenge the licensing proposals should the Welsh government ignore the results and plough on regardless.
Namely, we believe that the licensing proposals are unlawful as they interfere disproportionately with landowners’ right to land and are in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. This is due to the fact that there no appeal mechanism for decision making on licensing applications.
But that is not all.
We have submitted arguments challenging the proposals from every angle in our detailed consultation response, which you can download here.
BASC’s response also outlines why there are no grounds to make gamebird releasing a criminal offence in Wales. We expose that cited evidence has been cherry-picked, with environmental impacts exaggerated and benefits downplayed, that there will be an adverse impact on the use of the Welsh language, and that imposing a ban would see Natural Resources Wales failing in its legal duty to regulate proportionately.
Thank you again for defending shooting in Wales. Wherever the fight is next, we will be there and I hope we can count on your support.
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