In article ,
Malcolm writes:
|
| It's legal with the landowner's permission and until recently without.
| One of the unspeakable legislation changes of recent years has been
| to make wild plants effectively property, in the same way that wild
| animals were by that Norman land reiver.
|
| Don't don't get caught by some offensively bureaucratic dog in the
| manger.
|
| Given the scale of physical removal of primroses in many areas in
| England in the last 20 or more years, making them rare where they were
| once plentiful, it would seem to me quite reasonable to legislate to
| protect what is left.

It would be, if that were what had been done. It hasn't. The law
is designed to PERMIT most of the sort of damage that has seriously
damaged primrose populations, while removing traditional rights from
the public. It did close one abuse, but one that could have been
much more easily closed in other ways, without the harmful effects.

Exactly like the enclosures and game laws, and it could well have
comparable effects on the environment in the long term.

As every ECOLOGIST has pointed out, the problem with the reduction
of things like primroses has NOT been their removal by the public
for private use. But what does science have to do with the laws
and government of this country?


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.