EXPOSED:
Natural England is on a collision course with Britain’s 4 million anglers, over proposals which will change the face of their sport.
An investigation by the Pike Anglers Club confirms the powerful conservation quango plans to seek a ban on live baiting.
Officials want the final say over just about everything anglers do – ranging from where, when and how we can fish, to which fish belong in our rivers and even whether angling clubs can remove snags or trim bankside trees.
Natural England wants to take control of the way fisheries are managed, imposing draconian controls on our sport. There’ll be glib talk of angling’s importance to the economy and the benefits it brings, in a blur of Whitehall spin.
But an application using Freedom of Information laws has uncovered a paper trail of policy papers, documents and e-mails between officials stretching back two years.
It all makes for shocking reading, as the true agenda emerges. As threats go, it overshadows clubs banning live baiting, pike culls or even conservation groups buying up waters and turfing anglers out to make way for the bird watchers and picnic tables.
It’s angling’s ground zero. It’s the debate which will define the future shape of our sport in the 21st Century. It’s the battle that we can’t afford to lose.
Natural England first came onto our radar when it called for a ban on live baiting during the Environment Agency’s consultation over so-called fish removal by-laws.
While the EA came down firmly on the side of live baiting after listening to what angling had to say on the subject, Natural England won’t be satisfied until it’s banned.
The argument’s hardly a new one. Anglers live baiting routinely move fish from one water to another. However this practice was completely legal until a decade or two ago, so banning it now smacks of stable doors and bolting horses.
But banning live baiting is just the start of it, as far as Natural England’s concerned. The powerful quango, which advises government agencies on everything from environmentally-friendly farming policy to conserving rare bats, wants to restrict the stocking of bream and carp and let nature take its course instead of allowing those controlling fisheries to manage them.
They want us to welcome canoeists and swimmers to our waters – and even prevent club working parties from cutting back vegetation or removing snags.
See the PAC website for more on these proposals. Click here
