SWT's Agenda 2

"You can't leave it alone. It's got to be managed."

Hmmm. It's sometimes said and more often implied.

Statements like “this land has always been managed and therefore must continue to be managed” are very misleading. The difference between “managing” , say, 500 years ago and managing in 2008 are prodigious.

The word ‘manage’ comes from the Latin manus – the hand. When I’m working in my vegetable patch I’m managing it. I’m using my hands and changing things. This is what has happened historically all over Britain and it’s nothing like what we see today – management as the production of management plans and directives in offices and workstations – top down commands to be implemented by someone else who’s usually not been involved in deciding what’s to be done.

That way of organising things is better called managerialism, the adopting of inappropriate business methods to doing basic jobs. And when it happens badly as it has on Blacka there’s a built in disconnect between the two parts of the job. The managers are justifying their existence producing reams of paperwork. The team sent down to perform a task may only come here two or three times a year and so have no real ongoing involvement or genuine interest in the site and don’t empathise with the values of those who use and cherish the site. Result poor workmanship.