RSPB ‘uses jargon’ to hide its failures on black grouse

The RSPB has again been accused of incompetence and receiving unjustified grants in its ineffective attempts to make a meaningful impact on the black grouse population of North Wales (News, 24 July). 

The Campaign for the Protection of Moorland Communities (C4PMC), a group dedicated to protecting moorland communities and driven grouse shooting, has taken aim at the RSPB for a litany of failures, often at public cost. 

C4PMC highlights a series of nebulous but ultimately successful grant applications made to the Welsh government and the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), which have netted the RSPB more than £1.1 million. But despite this enormous sum, the projects have delivered minimal tangible results, as black grouse in North Wales are closer than ever to local extinction. 

C4PMC seeks to expose a culture of unsubstantiated grant-chasing by the charity, which has more than 2,000 employees and turns over £165 million per year. C4PMC points to grant applications by RSPB that are filled with “endless management and conservation industry jargon, intended to sound impressive, but designed to mystify and conceal”. 

Some of the phrases included in successful grant applications for hundreds of thousands of pounds include terms such as “nature-based solution landscape vision” and “encompassing evidence-based and adaptive management and enhancing connectivity”. 

Among the cascade of obfuscating conservation terminology on the grant applications, the RSPB subtly admits that if it does receive the grants it will be impossible for the success of the projects the money funds to be determined on reasonable timescales. 

On one application the RSPB says: “Due to the ecology of this species, it will be difficult to assess the impact the project is having on the population of black grouse within the two-year lifespan of the project. 

“Furthermore, the uplands in Wales have been created over thousands of years ,thus the management of these dramatic ecosystems must also look long-term and encourage management plans which span decades, with results that can’t be seen for years.” 

C4PMC believes this paragraph is a clear abdication of responsibility by the RSPB to commit to demonstrating a marked improvement to the population of black grouse as a result of funding. 

The RSPB was contacted for comment and had yet to respond as Shooting Times was going to press.