Dartmoor is perilous. When, in The Hound of the Baskervilles, Dr Watson looked out over the Great Grimpen Mire, he was horrified to see a stranded pony sucked to its death. Today the threat to Dartmoor\u2019s wild ponies comes from another quagmire \u2013 officialdom. Natural England, the official body which is supposed to look after the interests of rural England, is ordering farmers in the national park to cut back on winter grazing in order (it argues) to protect the environment. Campaigners say that 90 per cent of the 1,000 or so wild ponies which live on the moor will be culled as a result.<\/p>\n
Natural England\u2019s staff hate being branded pony killers. They say that they are flexible people who just want the best for Dartmoor\u2019s landscape which in parts (they claim) has been wrecked by high numbers of sheep, cows and ponies. If taxpayers are to go on giving grants to protect, then it\u2019s only fair that farmers who get them stop doing damage, they add. If farmers choose to get rid of ponies rather than more profitable sheep and cows then \u201cthat is their choice\u201d. <\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the crunch. Natural England aren\u2019t ordering the ponies to be shot. They say they have nothing against them. But they are creating conditions in which other people \u2013 the farmers who care for the pony herds \u2013 may soon have no choice other than get rid of them on Natural England\u2019s behalf, to enforce its rules It\u2019s a cruel version of the logic which has made the organisation whipping boy of builders and developers and country people, who say fixed rules produce absurd outcomes \u2013 the most notorious being the vastly expensive bat tunnel on HS2<\/a>. Natural England\u2019s chair, Tony Juniper, has struggled to shake off the body\u2019s \u201cblocker\u201d image<\/a>, and even he has conceded the \u00a3100m that was parcelled off for the kilometre-long bat shed \u201ccould have been put to better uses\u201d. <\/p>\n In any case, we have to follow the science, Natural England say, which sounds right \u2013 except that, as is always the way, there\u2019s a debate about where the science leads. An independent report about the management of Dartmoor, commissioned by the government in 2023 and backed by a panel of scientists and land management experts was clear. \u201cDartmoor\u2019s pony population is invaluable for conservation grazing and genetically important,\u201d it found. \u201cPonies and cattle should not be linked for the calculation of stocking rates and NE should not take actions likely to result in a reduction in their numbers.\u201d <\/p>\n So why is Natural England now asking for the opposite? There\u2019s an unresolved debate about how to manage moorland<\/a>. Some scientists who have studied Dartmoor say its problems come as much from too little grazing, not too much: thick, dull Molinia grass has swept across the area, swamping all other plants. Slashing the numbers of grazing ponies might make this worse. Or maybe it won\u2019t as Natural England\u2019s science team have decided. Even the organisation\u2019s staff say there\u2019s a need to try out different approaches and that perhaps different forms of grazing might not require sharp reductions in numbers after all. <\/p>\n