News

NEW CHAIRMAN FOR THE MOORLAND ASSOCIATION

29th May 2001

Air Commodore Simon Bostock has been elected Chairman of the Moorland Association, taking overall responsibility for the direction and activities of this membership organisation representing the owners and managers of 750,000 of the 800,000 acres of heather moorland remaining in England and Wales. He replaces Sir Anthony Milbank who has retired after serving the Association as its Chairman for 15 years.

Air Cdre. Bostock has been on the Moorland Association Committee since his retirement in 1996 after a successful 34-year career in the Royal Air Force. For the past two years he has been the Association’s representative on the National Countryside Access Forum, as well as its Area Representative for moors in the Nidderdale AONB.

He has managed the family’s Dallowgill Estate, which is commercially viable with grouse shooting providing the principle source of income, since his retirement. Working with English Nature and the Northern Uplands Moorland Regeneration Project, he has put in place a number of enhancement schemes, including tree planting, heather conservation and regeneration, bracken control and the re-creation of an area of scrub and native woodland in the hope of attracting back to Dallowgill, the rare Black Grouse.

Said Simon Bostock; “I am committed to the future of our heather uplands and their wildlife and I am delighted to have been elected Chairman of the Moorland Association. There are many issues of concern at present, and I look forward to a positive dialogue to resolve these with the Government, the Countryside Agency and the nature conservation bodies. I see the role of the Moorland Association as pressing home at every opportunity the many positive benefits of grouse moor management, for it is the revenue from grouse shooting that has preserved, and continues to preserve, our heather moorland at little or no cost to the tax payer.”

“Our aim must surely be to preserve for posterity these uniquely beautiful places and their wildlife, and for this we must continue to build a constructive partnership between all those who manage and care for them.” He added.