Conservative's Conflict of Interest

To boost its meagre earnings, the Benyon family has been flogging off some of the sand and gravel which underlies its land to a quarrying company, Hanson Aggregates. Its current scheme, extracting 2m tonnes from an area called Benyon's Inclosure (the name suggests a history of booting off commoners), has been sharply criticised by the local wildlife trust and local councils for its likely impacts on wildlife and biodiversity.

Benyon's Inclosure is designated as a site of importance for nature conservation. It contains pockets of ancient woodland, including rare alder carr (swamp forest), heath and dry acid grassland. According to the Hampshire Wildlife Trust and the borough and parish councils, the new works, covering 88 hectares (217 acres), and the estate's plan to use the area for commercial forestry when the extraction has finished, will destroy irreplaceable ancient woodland, cause the permanent loss of heathland and prevent the restoration of native forest. The protected species surveys, the borough council claims, were inadequate. So too, according to the wildlife trust, is the plan to recreate some habitat on nine hectares of land when the quarrying comes to an end.

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A big estate allegedly trashes the environment: there's nothing remarkable about that, you might think. Until you discover that Benyon is the minister responsible for wildlife and biodiversity.

Benyon has already demonstrated that he has little comprehension of or interest in his brief. In September last year he revealed a breathtaking ignorance of both ecology and his department's own guidelines when he announced on Facebook that he was waging war on people who allowed ragwort to grow on their land. Ecologists pointed out that it is an important part of our native flora, supporting at least 30 species of insect and 14 species of fungi.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/apr/20/richard-benyons-inclosure-quarry