The fourth of five meetings put on by the Eastern Moors Partnership was pretty depressing. A look at the attendance list confirmed the dominance of managers of one sort or another. Five farmers (or graziers), several conservation bureaucrats and various people associated with PDNPA, RSPB and National Trust. So no surprise that they drooled over the prospect of more management. Why should anyone be surprised that managers vote for more management?
It's always entertaining talking to farmers. One last night was enthusing about the moors as being great simply because they were featureless and without trees. Apparently it adds to the diversity of our landscapes. Diversity! Yes because there's nowhere else like it. You mean no other part of the world has people daft enough to allow room for this kind of tedium? ...... and so on.
Still, having to sit through all their love for each other's management roles it was hard to keep to the original intention of just listening. I think the tipping point comes when you hear people referring to these moors as wild or even wilderness and going uncorrected by people who should know better. It makes you wonder if some people ever use their eyes and if those who do ever consider what it is they have seen. I doubt that any of them allowed themselves to consider my plea that the last thing people from the hyper-managed urban world could be inspired by on setting out for the great escape to the country, was more managed experiences and the frightening weight of paperwork inspired by Unnatural England and various other bureaucracies. Our landscape is submerged under a blanket bog of documentation.
The story that is being told here by RSPB managers is that the moors are not what they could be and that they will improve even to doubters like me with, guess what, more management. That management is about 'getting the hydrology right' and getting the conservation grazing right. It just can't be an option at this stage to leave things to go their own way. That, so they say, would lead to the wrong kind of thing growing - and, so they don't say, to a lack of work for managers.
It's always entertaining talking to farmers. One last night was enthusing about the moors as being great simply because they were featureless and without trees. Apparently it adds to the diversity of our landscapes. Diversity! Yes because there's nowhere else like it. You mean no other part of the world has people daft enough to allow room for this kind of tedium? ...... and so on.
Still, having to sit through all their love for each other's management roles it was hard to keep to the original intention of just listening. I think the tipping point comes when you hear people referring to these moors as wild or even wilderness and going uncorrected by people who should know better. It makes you wonder if some people ever use their eyes and if those who do ever consider what it is they have seen. I doubt that any of them allowed themselves to consider my plea that the last thing people from the hyper-managed urban world could be inspired by on setting out for the great escape to the country, was more managed experiences and the frightening weight of paperwork inspired by Unnatural England and various other bureaucracies. Our landscape is submerged under a blanket bog of documentation.
The story that is being told here by RSPB managers is that the moors are not what they could be and that they will improve even to doubters like me with, guess what, more management. That management is about 'getting the hydrology right' and getting the conservation grazing right. It just can't be an option at this stage to leave things to go their own way. That, so they say, would lead to the wrong kind of thing growing - and, so they don't say, to a lack of work for managers.
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