P.S. "Roots of Blood" on the Woodland Trust's fox-hunting policy


"Roots of Blood" devotes several pages to the Woodland Trust's policy of allowing fox-hunters access to a limited number of its 1,000-plus sites (and provides a handy list of the sites involved). A major concern of these pages is the curious change in the Trust's public statements on its policy between the summer of 2001 ("We do not allow fox hunting on our sites. On a small minority of sites which happen to be surrounded by hunting land we permit not more than three members of the hunt to retrieve their hounds if they have followed a fox into the wood") and the spring of 2002 ("...we do not normally grant any access whatsoever to hunts. However, in a small number of cases where woods were hunted regularly prior to their acquisition by the Trust, applications for limited access will generally be granted, provided it does not damage the conservation of the wood and subject to certain conditions. These permit only three members of the hunt to follow the hounds into the woods.").

That is a pretty basic shift. Oddly though, what "Roots of Blood" fails to mention is that, according to a newsgroup message by its owner "Amacmil304" over a year earlier, on 1 June 2000 the "Public Enquiries Officer of the Woodland Trust has admitted by letter that the Woodland Trust allows fox-hunting in about 8% of its woodlands" (there's that word "admits" again).

What on earth was going on?

What follows is basically educated guesswork on my part, and funnily enough, even the Woodland Trust may not be entirely sure. I think the problem arose because the Woodland Trust's policy on fox-hunting is not entirely a Woodland Trust policy.

Numerous other conservation landowners (e.g. the National Trust and several county Wildlife Trusts) allow access to some of their sites for fox-hunts and I suspect that they all impose similar conditions. They will all have faced the same problem of having the chance to acquire a prime site on condition that "traditional" fox hunting is allowed to continue there. At some point, a bright conservationist will have realised that "access for fox-hunts" can be interpreted in different ways, and lawyers for the conservationists will have had discussions with lawyers for the hunters' governing body, resulting in severe restrictions on hunt access. If you look at the restrictions as quoted on "Roots of Blood" (only three of the hunt to follow the hounds; no stopping-up of earths, or use of guns or terriers etc.) you'll see that basically all the hunts can do is send enough people into the conservation land to keep an eye on the hounds and retrieve them if they catch the fox or it goes to ground. The Woodland Trust, like the other conservation organisations in the same situation, evidently decided that these restrictions were the best deal available in the absence of any action by governments to ban "sport" fox-hunting (and there are restrictions on campaigning by organisations with charitable status- the main reason why bodies which concentrate on campaigning for changes in the law tend not to be charities).

Fast-forward to 2000. The Woodland Trust has acquired about 1,000 sites, of which a few dozen are subject to fox-hunt access. Anybody asking about the Trust's policy on fox-hunting is told about this by the Public Enquiries Officer. Amacmil304, on seeing this official statement, decides to shout about it on the Internet.

A year later, with fox-hunting a hot political topic, the Trust decides to publicise its policy a bit more widely, and somebody who's been given the job of writing a public statement asks the innocent question "what's the thinking behind all these restrictions". Somebody who should have known better replies that basically all the hunts can do is retrieve the hounds. Oops- slight touch of the Chinese Whispers there: "Hey, we don't really allow fox-hunting at all- basically all the hunts can do is retrieve the hounds". It's good enough for top-level Trust officials like Douglas Seddon. It's good enough to go on the website. Evidently, however, it turns out not to be good enough for at least one reader.

The influential complainant probably wasn't Amacmil304. I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually a hunter- concerned that the conservationists were working up to a sneaky ban. Whoever it was, by the spring of 2002 the "no hunting" claim had, very properly, been withdrawn.

So- more than one major nature conservation organisation allows fox hunting on limited areas of its land, under severe restrictions. As I have outlined above, I suspect that this is the best compromise they could get without a government ban. As for my comments on the Woodland Trust specifically- I can't guarantee that they are accurate, they are based on my interpretation of the "Roots of Blood" evidence in the light of certain things I know from my time working for the Trust. The most important of those things is what I know of the people I worked with- that they were people of good will, genuinely enthusiastic for the aims of the organisation, but occasionally perhaps a bit too enthusiastic. Always willing, however, to accept legitimate criticism and to correct their mistakes.