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Land Owners Lose 60-Acre Farm to Rare Birds

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Harbour FarmKenneth and Dierdre Hicks said they are devastated over having to leave 60-acre Harbour Farm in Bembridge, on the Isle of Wight, and being denied the chance to pass it on to their three sons because of an EU Special Protection Area (SPA) law. The couple contends that the rights of birds is being put about the rights of humans.

The couple’s ordeal began when the RSPB, England’s largest nature conservation charity, asked the Environment Agency (EA), which manages Britain’s waterways, to allow increased flooding from the nearby Eastern Yar river to encourage more breeding sites for rare species.

Under the plan, raised water levels will flood the farm and surrounding areas to create breeding grounds for wildfowl that includes brent geese, widgeons, shovellers, lapwings, and redshanks.

The saga has been ongoing. In October 1998, the land was designated part of an EU Special Protection Area. Immediately afterwards, the Hicks family sold 420 acres of the farm to the RSPB to help comply with EU regulations. Kenneth Hicks said he is surprised about the new plan that will flood their remaining land after being so accommodating from the start.

The RSPB said the SPA was operating non-optimally and raising water levels on its land thereby flooding the adjacent farm was the “final piece in the jigsaw.”

The RSPB maintains that its role is the management and restoration of our own part of this potentially exceptional wildlife site.

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1 COMMENT

  1. Our EPA is out of control as well, here is my question” who are you saving it for and why?” The same people who say evolution is real are the same people sticking their noses into the natural order of things. Humans are a important part of the natural order on this planet.  If we are a part of nature and not from Mars or something then the activities of one species generates conditions that effect other species. It’s all been going on since the world began to support life. The better adaptive species survives. Natural selection is the way of nature. Oh but here come the people who know better than nature, we are preventing the natural order and changing things better left alone. On the other hand it can be argued that mankind will find a balance with nature and this is just part of the process. Here’s the thing about nature it will decide and you don’t even have a vote in the matter. So if you no longer want to be the dominant species on the planet just keep it up. That’s where the question stems from “who are you saving it for?” When animals are more important than people you find yourself on a slippery slope, soon all species are considered equal with humans. I guess the humane thing to do is to mess with everything, think we can control natural selection, control the climate, pick the winners and losers, (cause this always works out so well for us). What a bull headed ego driven bunch of twits. If we are to survive we are going to have to understand our place in the order of things. So far you’ve learned nothing, and you will reap what you’ve sown.

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