Shooting's Secret Value Revealed

[stockybasher]

Just been reading this :

Natural Capital: Shooting's Hidden Value Revealed

8 Apr 2024

Ian Danby, Head of Biodiversity at the British Association for Shooting & Conservation (BASC) gives us some key insights into the findings from the inaugural BASC report on the Natural Capital benefits of shooting which was published in March 2024.

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Cover image: Matt Kidd

Shooting in the UK is diverse and provides recreation for many people across the country. However, historically there has been a lack of clarity around the wider financial value of its environmental and social benefits. These benefits, once quantified, would represent a powerful tool in fighting for the future of sustainable shooting and conservation.

So, as the leading membership organisation in the sector, BASC set out to determine the benefits to society that come from the influence of shooting on the environment, and how policymakers, landowners and farmers can use those benefits in the land-management choices they make.

We developed our report using the best data available to BASC and our partners at environmental economics consultancy eftec and Strutt & Parker to ensure robust outputs.

Carbon capture

For the purposes of analysis, we defined Natural Capital as the sum of financial and social benefits we get from our natural environment. For example, the extent and condition of woodland habitat determines how much timber, biodiversity, carbon capture, clean air and clean water it delivers.

Additionally, our countryside provides recreation, health and wellbeing benefits. This concept has increasingly shaped both international and national environmental policies and is at the core of the government’s England Environmental Improvement Plan and the forthcoming equivalent in Scotland.

Natural capital has impacted on land managers in a material way. Payments are available under agri-environment schemes for farmers to deliver public goods like biodiversity, recreation, clean air, and water. Private natural capital markets pay for benefits like carbon capture and biodiversity offsetting.

£1.1 billion in benefits

Our findings indicate that there are four overarching groups of benefits for which we were able to estimate a figure, which total in excess of £1.1 billion per annum in 2023 prices. For contrast, national statistics estimate the total income from farming in the UK was £7.9 billion in 2022.

Firstly, our research highlighted that the carbon sequestration benefits of shooting’s management of land and species across woodland, wetland and saltmarsh had never been assessed and valued before. The capture, removal, and storage of atmospheric carbon is critical to mitigating the impacts of climate change and our report valued the benefit from shooting’s habitat creation and management, alongside deer and grey squirrel management, at £382 million.

Savings in NHS care

Secondly, the public health savings for NHS and local authority budgets are valued at £64.3 million. It is comprised of physical health benefits (£20m) and mental health benefits (£6.7m) for those involved in shooting.

There is an additional benefit (£37.6m) from air pollutants removed by woodland created and managed for shooting.

The third benefit is the largest in monetary terms - the recreational value generated by those who shoot or support shooting, such as beaters and pickers. This comes in at £571.7 million from over three million days of activity spread across rural parts of the UK. Additionally, the public still benefit from an enhanced recreational experience from accessing more diverse and rich habitats as a result of shooting, valued at £35.9 million. Taken together, these figures give a total estimated benefit of £607 million.

Food and forestry

Finally, the benefits for food production and forestry productivity that come from shooting are approximately £100 million. Shooting itself harvests high quality animal protein worth over £44 million. The management of species to minimise crop losses for farmers is worth £43 million a year. Similarly, the management of deer and grey squirrels avoids foresters losing over £12 million in timber output.

In addition to these four quantifiable benefits there are two others that it is not currently possible to value financially. Firstly, there is water storage from woodland managed for shooting, which improves water quality and reduces flood risk, and is estimated at 18 million cubic metres. The second is that land used for game and waterfowl shooting has a much higher level of overlap with priority habitats than average, at 20-28 per cent of the land coverage.

We believe that this report has revealed for the first time the widespread natural capital benefits provided by shooting for society. Shooting is providing carbon benefits through habitat creation, management, and protection. It is improving health and wellbeing for the public and participants in shooting. It is providing a recreational benefit for both those who shoot and those that do not. And it is providing food and materials by supporting farm and forestry efficiency, as well as putting low-fat high-protein meat onto dinner tables.

Shooting's contribution to the environment and society

Overall, it is an impressive, if not yet fully recognised, contribution to the environment and society. Shooting can often be considered too narrowly. However, this report clearly indicates its value across much wider policy priorities for governments. It provides us with compelling reasons why it is in the public’s interest to have sustainable shooting contributing towards these public benefits.

What is striking is how balanced the public benefits from shooting are. Many forms of recreation come with health and wellbeing benefits, but how many also give society a substantial carbon benefit, result in a sustainable food supply and help our farms and foresters produce food and materials? In this respect shooting is unique.

At BASC, we are focused on highlighting and sharing these benefits so that sustainable shooting will provide more for current and future generations.

To read the full natural capital report itself, along with a summary of the key benefits shooting delivers, visit basc.org.uk/research/natural-capital.

If you would like to join the fight for the future of sustainable shooting and conservation to continue delivering these financial and social benefits, then become a member of BASC today. It is simple to join - just go to basc.org.uk/join or call +44 (0)1244 573 030.

[Fellside]

The ‘natural capital’ and benefits to the ‘public good’ re biodiversity are well know to many of us. However this needs to be widely publicised in PR terms to Mr and Mrs general public - especially in light of the RSPB statement re net wildlife benefits of farm shoots! 

On a separate note thanks for sharing stockybasher - and well done to BASC so far. Needs further PR work though.