Crofters credited with saving the corncrake (UK)

[Donna]

WITHOUT the help of crofters, the distinctive rasping call of the corncrake could have fallen silent in Scotland, the Scottish Crofting Federation annual gathering in Oban was told.
According to RSPB Scotland but for the intervention of crofters and farmers the corncrake could have been all but wiped out following the dramatic declines in population across the UK during the 20th century.

A shy and elusive species, corncrakes are frequently heard but not seen, preferring instead to seek cover in nettle beds or the waving grasses of hay meadows. However, a loss of this habitat and changes in farming methods saw numbers decrease significantly.

That this bird can still be heard at all is thanks to the vital work undertaken by the farmers and crofters, says RSPB Scotland.

Corncrake numbers have increased in Scotland from fewer than 500 in 1993 to over 1,200 today. But their continued survival depends upon the cattle-based and mixed farming and crofting systems that provide the habitat they need, and is by no means guaranteed.

Speaking of the need to reform the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) to better target funds towards crofting, Vicki Swales, head of land use policy for RSPB Scotland, said: "The CAP doesn't fit crofting. It fails to recognise the high nature value of such farming systems and the contribution they make to our natural and cultural heritage.

"The majority of CAP support favours large scale, intensive farms rather than extensively managed family farms and crofts.

"Reform of the CAP is currently under discussion in Brussels. With the CAP budget likely to be cut and the reasons for providing public funds to farming under scrutiny, there is growing interest in supporting those farming systems that deliver greatest public benefit."

Vicki Swales continued: "RSPB Scotland is calling for an overhaul of the CAP and for a new system of payments, including payments for High Nature Value farming and crofting. Alongside payments for rural development, this would help to secure the future both of crofting and amazing birds like the corncrake."

Corncrakes spend the winter in Africa, returning to the UK in spring. The males' rasping call gives them their scientific names, Crex crex.

They used to be widespread across the UK, but 150 years ago numbers started declining. By the 1990s, there were less than 500, almost all on the Scottish islands.

Here, crofting management systems continued to provide the conditions required by corncrakes, and so served directly to prevent the national extinction of this species.