Friday 23 January 2009

Chance to Play God



Tomorrow* SWT's second birch persecution day takes place on Bole Hill. Volunteers have been invited to assist in the destruction and presumably finish off the day in style by dancing on the graves of all unwelcome natural regeneration.


The stated aim of this exercise is to deal with birch's capacity to spread onto heather moorland and thus impair the purity of this starkly artificial vegetation. And in many places you can see young trees sprouting amidst the heather. Then why is it that these young trees are not the targets of the work and usually remain behind when the birch bashers move on?

Blacka Blogger can reveal the answer to this mystery. The fact is it's not much fun uprooting small trees but a lot of primitive satisfaction can be gained from having go at much larger trees in the woods with a chain saw.
These woods incidentally are favoured territory for the red deer who like the density and cover provided when they harbour there during the day. A short walk through the woods yesterday revealed the signs of their recent presence.


Landscapes as they keep telling us must be managed and kept down and learn to know their place. Otherwise they might go wild and do what nature wants. And what would conservationists do then?
* this SWT event is actually on Sunday

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