One of the agenda items put forward for the February 10th RAG (and also for several before that unsuccessfully) by FoBM was Evaluation of Cattle Grazing. Why? Because the controversial and unpopular practice of putting cattle on the moor had received very little proper examination. Whenever SWT talk about this they say words to the effect that ...oh we’ve talked and talked on this and we have to move on....or ...it’s had so much discussion and we hadn’t seemed to be getting anywhere. This is a cunning ploy. Yes people have tried to raise it on numerous occasions but SWT have refused to be pinned down about the specifics – that’s why people have continued to raise it. So they wriggle out of it in the aforementioned way – it’s a common practice among the beleaguered deskbound advocates of the unjustifiable.
Over many years now they have never been able to communicate effectively the supposed benefits of putting cows on Blacka. In fact I'm sure they just don’t know if such benefits exist. Anyway the response this time was they would put it on the agenda under 'Cattle Monitoring' – not the same thing perhaps? The way that this was planned was the old chestnut of putting people in groups and asking them to write down the pros and cons of cattle for visitors.
Hold on said one regular user of the moor, what about your evaluation? Presumably you wanted them to do a job before you put them on. So have you been monitoring and recording what they’ve done? By now you should be seeing some sort of results to justify continuing. Well no, they didn’t seem to be able to do that. But, continued the questioner if I was being funded to do some task or research I would expect to have to show some positive results to release funds to continue, etc. Ah but you see you can’t do that over just a couple of years says SWT. And of course we’re into ecology here aren’t we, and these SWT people are the only ones who could really be expected to understand the difficult ecological issues. Well so much for trying to avoid embarrassment. So people come along to these meetings in their own time to be told by (young and inexperienced) SWT they’re not qualified to understand why this is being done and just not up to scrutinising the project.
So who is doing the scrutinising? SWT themselves and Natural England? God help us all. It was their officers who were part of the original plan – saying 'it's just what's done'! Are they going to give an independent view?
Beware of rule by bureaucrats, especially those who claim to have 'expertise'. It's a case of we know best and how do we know we know best? Because we've done the assessments with the help of others who know best (because it was their idea). This more or less defines Conservation Accountability.
Over many years now they have never been able to communicate effectively the supposed benefits of putting cows on Blacka. In fact I'm sure they just don’t know if such benefits exist. Anyway the response this time was they would put it on the agenda under 'Cattle Monitoring' – not the same thing perhaps? The way that this was planned was the old chestnut of putting people in groups and asking them to write down the pros and cons of cattle for visitors.
Hold on said one regular user of the moor, what about your evaluation? Presumably you wanted them to do a job before you put them on. So have you been monitoring and recording what they’ve done? By now you should be seeing some sort of results to justify continuing. Well no, they didn’t seem to be able to do that. But, continued the questioner if I was being funded to do some task or research I would expect to have to show some positive results to release funds to continue, etc. Ah but you see you can’t do that over just a couple of years says SWT. And of course we’re into ecology here aren’t we, and these SWT people are the only ones who could really be expected to understand the difficult ecological issues. Well so much for trying to avoid embarrassment. So people come along to these meetings in their own time to be told by (young and inexperienced) SWT they’re not qualified to understand why this is being done and just not up to scrutinising the project.
So who is doing the scrutinising? SWT themselves and Natural England? God help us all. It was their officers who were part of the original plan – saying 'it's just what's done'! Are they going to give an independent view?
Beware of rule by bureaucrats, especially those who claim to have 'expertise'. It's a case of we know best and how do we know we know best? Because we've done the assessments with the help of others who know best (because it was their idea). This more or less defines Conservation Accountability.
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