DarkstarIII Posted August 2, 2007 Report Share Posted August 2, 2007 Recently I have heard that there is a problem with grazing horses in the culswick area due to some crofting legislation... anyone know anything about it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crofter Posted August 2, 2007 Report Share Posted August 2, 2007 Probably this is because you are supposed to use your croft to produce something. Breeding ponies is OK because you are producing foals, but grazing horses will not be considered the best use of the croft. Harness the horses onto some implement and they will become a working animal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostrider Posted August 2, 2007 Report Share Posted August 2, 2007 I'd very much doubt any particular legislation is peculiar to Culswick, it's more likely to be Highlands & Islands wide or nothing. If Culswick is the only area where it is a "problem", most likely someone with an "interest" in the area is stirring. The Commission do not as a rule enforce the "land use" legislation particularly rigidly, preferring to use a common sense and case by case approach. If they did otherwise there would be an endless number of occupiers getting hauled over the coals for one thing or another. However, if someone lodges an official complaint about land use, they are duty bound to follow it up and enforce it to the letter. It's more than their jobs are worth not to. One work round any such problem is to obtain unregistered land, only a percentage of land is Commission registered. The Commission have no jurisdiction over unregistered land so anyone can graze or cultivate it any way they please (within reason). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkstarIII Posted August 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2007 I think it is something to do with crofters get paid not to have animals on the land at certain times of the year..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostrider Posted August 5, 2007 Report Share Posted August 5, 2007 ^^ There is, or at least there was, certain "enviornmental" schemes that occupiers could sign up for that included grazing and/or mowing restrictions. Those were/are blanket schemes though, they applied to any sort of grazing or mowing, not just grazing by horses. They were/are also entirely voluntary, if a land occupier was "lucky" enough to have land that was growing certain plants, be of a certain "type", or frequented by certain species of wildlife, which was flavour of the month with some Edinburgh pen pusher. Then, they could, if they wanted to, sign up to "manage" that piece(s) of land in a certain pen pusher approved way, for which they'd be paid a suitable pittance. The reason any land is affected in such a way though is entirely down to each individual occupier though, they either accept the big man's few pitiful pennies and do what you're told, let the "pretty" flowers have peace to run amok and take over, or some "valuable" animal/bird species to take over certain plot(s) for certain periods. Or, they think that in no way is the hassle and inconvenience worth the eventual cheque, and carry on grazing and mowing as it best suits them and as they see fit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frances144 Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 I hate ESA. I have watched one person starve his animals (keep them on a small patch of ground - they were forced to eat the earth and had bloody scabby mouths from it and a condition score of 0-1 in August) while his fields grew and grew with beautiful flowers. The vet when he saw these animals said he had been walking through this person's land to go fishing and had thought "he has nice flowers!". Basically your animals can starve if you have a bad grass growing year because you have been paid to keep everything off the land. I would never agree to this scheme. Fx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddie Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 The fact that come crofters take up the ESA schemes is not an option they can take or leave. With subsidies being cut back (not that I am in favour of that system either) the crofter has to take advantage of any scheme going to make ends meet. Not all ESA schemes have been a disaster and indeed many wild flower and birds have recovered to former levels in some areas and that can only provide to nurture natures food chain etc. The so called pen pushers would in no way condone any crofter keeping land for ESA when his animals are starving. That is purely down to pathetic animal husbandry by the crofter in question. I think a balance could be reached between grazing and set-aside where we could return to the days when not every park in Shetland is covered in sheeps s###. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostrider Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 Not all ESA schemes have been a disaster and indeed many wild flower and birds have recovered to former levels in some areas and that can only provide to nurture natures food chain etc. Which former level? Why this current desire to freeze some things at a certain point in time and evolution? What gives the plant/animal species combination present here at one point in time a right to preservation that all other past ones, and the future ones that would have been created if things followed the natural process, but now cannot ever exist, don't have? The vast majority of plants and wildlife currently present arrived, established and waxed and waned entirely due to the interference of humans, one way or another, since the first one set foot. Different agricultural practices have always encouraged the introduction and flourishing of certain species, and the demise of others, it has happened time and time again all through the thousands of years of history human agriculture has been here. Agriculture is a constant process of evolution, and to a much lesser degree our climate is the same, the face of the countryside is constantly changing as a result of both. Why all of a sudden is it flavour of the month to try and freeze frame that evolution, as that is all ESA's are doing? IMHO mixing the brand on "enviornmentalism" ESA's push, with agriculture is wholly incompatible. Either one exists to the detriment of the other, as Frances' example points out, or both are pretty laclustre efforts. Right now Edinburgh are getting away with paying a number of people an insulting pittance to be part-time untrained nature wardens. If they want to go with this kind of "enviornmentalism" they need to do it right. Give the land occupier a stark choice, either wholly an agriculturalist or wholly an enviornmentalist, and if (s)he chooses the latter, train them for it, and pay them the going rate. The status quo is just a bargain basement hotch potch nothingness. Agriculture is in the mire it's in in no small part due to ill thought out, short term-made-permanent, half baked, uninformed "schemes", ESA's are just one more to add to a very long list which will only achieve minimal "good" with hindsight, if any. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crofter Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 I know someone who was paid to manage one of his parks to encourage a rare flower to grow, basically lock the sheep out for a couple of months.... The flower had grown there for years quite happily but once the grazing regime was changed the grass choked it out and it doesn't grow there any more! Crazy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddie Posted August 10, 2007 Report Share Posted August 10, 2007 You canna 'freeze' nature and to say you can is utter nonsense, and to follow on by saying 'Agriculture is a constant process of evolution, and to a much lesser degree our climate is the same, the face of the countryside is constantly changing as a result of both' . The two points are totally contradicting each other. Because if ESA schemes can 'Freeze' nature then how are they part of agriculture! You would have great difficulty in seperating the good agriculturalist/ enviornmentalist. More power tae da wild flooers alang side da kye in sheep dats whit I say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostrider Posted August 10, 2007 Report Share Posted August 10, 2007 ^^^I agree, you can't freeze nature, but freezing nature is exactly what the ESA's are setting out to try and do. In any case, I wasn't talking about freezing nature anyway, I was talking about freezing the "natural process", which is the broader spectrum of the combined effect of nature, climate, humans and wildlife on the countryside. The countryside reached it's present incarnation due to natural process, via the evolvment of countless previous incarnations brought about by the same process. Why are certain pen pusher selected aspects of the present, and recent past incarnations of that natural process so special they need the legal process and governmental bribery to "preserve" them was my question. What is so special about them? Weren't previous incarnations equally special, wouldn't potential future incarnations which now never will exist due to the current "big brother" interference have been equally special? Agreed as well, a good agriculturalist is also a good enviornmentalist, the kind of enviornmentalists and agriculturalists ESA's are spawning however are both very poor. While a certain amount of the core thinking behind ISA's may be laudable, the means and methods chosen by those placed to do so, of putting it in to effect alongside agriculture and agriculturalists has ensured a high level of incompatibility between teh two disciplines. Wild flowers have always co-existed with lifestock, if they hadn't there would have been none centuries ago. Cattle eat very very few species of flowers, so they're hardly an issue, and sheep don't eat most flowers to destruction, and, as Crofter points out, some flower species actually benefit from normal grazing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkstarIII Posted August 13, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 13, 2007 I think that it is about time equestrianism is taken seriously in shetland.. and I dont mean a wee patch of grass next to the clickimin.. at the end of the day, there are more and more horses coming here and it is getting as important as football, hockey, netball and all the other sports that are played here... it should be recognised as a sport and more provisions for grazing should be met... I have never seen a place so anal when it comes to allowing horses on land.. I would have had a nice house down culswick with nice stables and my life would have been peachy but could I get grazing... could I frack! sheep? and what joy do sheep bring? can children get hours of fun out of a sheep? and when it comes to "ruining fences" ... I have never seen a horse "ruin a fence" yet.. I have however seen sheep lean and lie against fences... fleece lying all over the place and the girse covered in sheep sharn.. aye... well if I ever get a croft.. or a piece of land, I know what I will be having on it! and if you want flowers... grow them in your garden... not in perfectly good parks that animals can graze on! And before anyone says it.. well there are plenty of shetland ponies... they are looked upon as "working the land" because they are being bred in most cases... so hence they are allowed on "croft land".... If I ever win the lottery.. I will build a big equestrian centre for all the people who are finding it tough to get grazing, quality riding, Riding for the disabled, christmas parties and fancy dress for the kids and facilities in a safe, atmosphere.. because quite frankly a peerie corner of a park at a roundabout.. its pathetic! whilst what does all the other sports get??? look at the clickimin.. at the facilities for every other sport.. and what does equestrianism get.. hmmmm ... not to mention the folk that complain that riders have to go on the roads.. well give them something better then... i.e. indoor school, outdoor all weather floodlit riding arenas.. they have it on the mainland... why not here.. ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fjool Posted August 13, 2007 Report Share Posted August 13, 2007 and what joy do sheep bring?People like eating sheep. Perhaps if people liked eating horses, there'd be more space available for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkstarIII Posted August 13, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 13, 2007 Whit sharn.. its a sport here like any other... I dont think reestit horse would go down too well.. and I am quite sure that somerfield could come up with the goodies when it comes to a bit of lamb! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twerto Posted August 13, 2007 Report Share Posted August 13, 2007 darkstar could be on to something, I would of thought crofters would get more at market for a bit of horse meat than they would lamb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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