In article , Nick Maclaren
writes
In article ,
Malcolm wrote:

I haven't noticed any ecologist (with or without capital letters) saying
anything here about the removal of primroses by the public for private
use. My phrase "scale of physical removal" refers to the digging up of
every plant in a wood, or along a roadside bank, for commercial
purposes. Such activities are more than sufficient to make the plant
rare where once it was plentiful.

Is this your only source of information?

No.

It isn't mine.

I'm sure it isn't.

You are perfectly correct that such activities are a secondary (and,
yes, it is VERY secondary) cause of making plants such as primroses
rare.

I've nowhere said anything about primary or secondary causes. However,
as you seem to think that ranking causes is important, I can say that I
regard the mass uprooting of primroses as most definitely a major
(primary if you prefer to use that word) cause of the disappearance of
the species from many sites in southern England. Perhaps your sources of
information do not extend to knowledge of such activity or of any places
where this has occurred. Mine, sadly, do.

But that infamous Act goes to great trouble not to stop that
practice, as you know perfectly well. The vast majority of such
activities are done by or with the permission of the landowner.

Why are you so bothered about the law that you call it, variously,
"infamous" and "obscene" and other completely meaningless, in the
context, epithets?

If there was any serious intent to stop despoilation, then such
commercial cropping would have been brought under the planning laws.
But that was blocked for years on the grounds that it would interfere
with landowners rights. I can't remember whether the last half-hearted
proposal to put it in went through or not, but it was phrased so as
to have minimal effect.

And now it is "half-hearted".

That ghastly Act was not designed to provide ecological protection, so
much as to introduce extra property rights by the back door, in the
same way as the Enclosure Acts and so on.

And now it is "ghastly".

Your interpretation of what the Act was "designed" to do is not one that
I recognise and nor, I have to say, would it be recognised as such by
anyone else with whom I have ever discussed it. You seem to have a
hang-up about the wildlife conservation law in this country which, while
not perfect, has nothing whatsoever to do with the introduction of
"extra property rights by the back door". That is just utter rubbish.

There was and is NO other
reason for banning the collection of ALL plants, however common and
resistant to harm from collection, and whether for private use or not.

And that is one of the more ridiculous statements that even you have
ever made on the subject :-(

--
Malcolm