Dog RoseGeorge Ernest Arbuthnot MA, MABPT, IFA is a member of the Association of Blind Piano Tuners and also of the International Federation of Aromatherapists (or possibly the Irish Farmers Association).
Not to be outdone, places as well as people can join this letters-after-your-name game. So we are told that Blacka Moor is no longer just, as we’ve always known it, honestly and unpretentiously a Public Open Space. Now it has become (courtesy of the all-embracing conservation industry) Blacka Moor SSSI, SPA, SAC. It pays to be sceptical about all of this. In practical terms it seems that being a Public Open Space means you can avoid being messed around by managers and their livestock. But once you get these letters this entitles you to managers fully-trained in the latest cock-up theories who can install barbed wire and awkward gates and various other barriers. You can put cattle all over the land who leave substantial calling cards all over the paths. You can get farm subsidies to pay for deskjobs - but not, it seems, for on-site workers.
But how do you get these designations? I’ve had it said to me that we can’t go on doing what we’ve always done here and the landowner has to take certain measures because of special European status such as Special Area of Conservation. This has European force. What does this conjure up? A grand authority figure in Brussels or Strasburg exercising supreme judgement and issuing benign dictats in the interests of the continent and the planet? All nonsense of course.
A little understanding of bureaucracies gives a more accurate picture. Somebody with a job title a tidy desk and an empty in-tray starts to worry about whether his job will continue. He sends out a consultation sheet asking various local conservation organisations to nominate areas for a special new designation. Search your minds he tells them to find places to add to the list. There could be sites for you to manage in future.
Not to be outdone, places as well as people can join this letters-after-your-name game. So we are told that Blacka Moor is no longer just, as we’ve always known it, honestly and unpretentiously a Public Open Space. Now it has become (courtesy of the all-embracing conservation industry) Blacka Moor SSSI, SPA, SAC. It pays to be sceptical about all of this. In practical terms it seems that being a Public Open Space means you can avoid being messed around by managers and their livestock. But once you get these letters this entitles you to managers fully-trained in the latest cock-up theories who can install barbed wire and awkward gates and various other barriers. You can put cattle all over the land who leave substantial calling cards all over the paths. You can get farm subsidies to pay for deskjobs - but not, it seems, for on-site workers.
But how do you get these designations? I’ve had it said to me that we can’t go on doing what we’ve always done here and the landowner has to take certain measures because of special European status such as Special Area of Conservation. This has European force. What does this conjure up? A grand authority figure in Brussels or Strasburg exercising supreme judgement and issuing benign dictats in the interests of the continent and the planet? All nonsense of course.
A little understanding of bureaucracies gives a more accurate picture. Somebody with a job title a tidy desk and an empty in-tray starts to worry about whether his job will continue. He sends out a consultation sheet asking various local conservation organisations to nominate areas for a special new designation. Search your minds he tells them to find places to add to the list. There could be sites for you to manage in future.
Is this a caricature? Well, each case should be looked at on its merits and when you see a fiddle you should believe your eyes and not be persuaded it’s a church organ.
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