2 hours ago 
BBC
Downing Street has said the animals are harmless nether the Labour Government
A enactment is increasing implicit the imaginable cull of Dartmoor's elevation ponies arsenic campaigners pass Natural England's attack to conserving the scenery could "devastate" the endangered breed.
Campaigners said requirements to chopped livestock grazing connected the moor's commons, nether caller contracts from the government's conservation agency, could pb to the removal - and apt cull - of up to 90% elevation ponies.
Conservative person Kemi Badenoch described it arsenic "total madness".
Natural England insisted it wanted to support numbers of the semi-wild ponies connected the moor "for generations to come", portion a Downing Street spokeswoman said the Labour authorities would not let a cull and insisted the animals were safe.
Dartmoor elevation ponies person been connected the scenery for 4,500 years but numbers person declined - determination were 6,000 connected Dartmoor 25 years agone but present determination are little than 1,000.
Natural England is including the ponies successful livestock counts nether its caller moorland agri-environmental schemes that supply payments for farmers for grazing upland successful ways that payment nature.
Campaigners warned the caller schemes would chopped livestock, including elevation ponies, by 56% to 89%.
They besides said erstwhile cuts – which the ponies were protected from successful the past – had not boosted biodiversity connected Dartmoor.
Dartmoor Hill Pony Association said the determination would unit commoners, who person rights to enactment livestock connected the commons of the moor, to take betwixt commercialized sheep and cattle, and the ponies for which they person traditionally been guardians.
The nonaccomplishment of elevation ponies would beryllium damaging for the biodiversity of the landscape, arsenic they are the champion grazer of the "monoculture" Molinia writer that has travel to predominate the moor, Joss Hibbs, caput of the DHPA which represents commoners, said.
She warned that if commoners chose commercialized livestock to gain a living, the ponies would beryllium lost, and if they chose the ponies they would go unviable and the farms would spell - which would successful crook pb to the nonaccomplishment of the ponies which are safeguarded by the farmers.
Hibbs said: "Natural England's attack volition devastate the Dartmoor elevation pony population, it volition marque farms financially unviable and it's highly doubtful determination volition beryllium immoderate biology benefit."
Devon-based Friends of the Dartmoor Hill Pony foundation has called for long-term, ineligible extortion of the remaining elevation pony herds successful designation of their uncommon status, and a abstracted agreed moor-wide herd size, arsenic was successful spot with erstwhile contracts.
Campaigners besides said Natural England should hold for the outcomes of the Land Use Management Group acceptable up to instrumentality the recommendations of a government-commissioned reappraisal successful 2023, which is drafting up a onshore usage program for Dartmoor by 2027.
Badenoch said: "This is full madness from different unaccountable quango.
"Keir Starmer is connected his mode to making his past acts successful bureau - the shameful underfunding of our subject and the wide slaughter of Dartmoor ponies."
A Downing Street spokeswoman said the ponies played "a captious relation successful the wellness of its moorland habitats" and that they were "part of the taste landscape".
She said: "So, fto maine beryllium precise wide connected this - this authorities volition not let a cull of Dartmoor ponies and we don't negociate feral pony populations by culling successful this country.
"Natural England has not recommended a cull of Dartmoor ponies and it does not person the powerfulness to bid a cull and has not advised one."
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) said: "In enactment with the Independent Review of Protected Site Management connected Dartmoor, we are moving with partners, including the Dartmoor Hill Pony Association to assistance guarantee that we support numbers of semi-wild ponies connected the moor for generations to come."
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