Dispatched

I watched the Channel 4 Dispatches on International Conservation thinking there might possibly be some feint parallels with the home-grown conservation industry. As it turned out there were more than I expected. The programme, presented by Oliver Steeds, was mostly about WWF and certain clichés common to similar TV exposés were not entirely absent. But it was hard to fault the conclusions below drawn from Steeds' commentary:

“conservation does not need fleets of 4X4s and big corporate offices....It works better when done locally and on a small scale................Get it right and the involvement of large conservation organisations may not be needed at all...............But then why would they want to do themselves out of a job?........bloated complacent and compromised by their relations with big business......Insatiable hunger for funds......Become arrogant and cut off from the local people they depend on for success..................appeal to the sentimentalist agendas of big corporate donors”

Not all statements are relevant to wildlife trusts in Britain but many come pretty close. Sheffield Wildlife Trust certainly has a fleet of vehicles emblazoned with its own insignia. It has an office culture centred remotely in its own headquarters while being largely absent on the ground. It operate weekdays 9 to 5 and is always looking to expand into new areas even while leaving much to be desired on the sites like Blacka which it's had for years. It avidly chases funding opportunities through grants and increasingly woos corporate donors employing PR and presentational approaches that would benefit from some scrutiny. And as implied by Steeds, central to their operation are their own jobs.

But any similar examination of the UK conservation industry would need to be more tenacious in dissecting the part played by that arch-quango (Un)Natural England, the use of environmental subsidies to the farming industry for managing artificial landscapes even on public land, and the way that a dubious biodiversity agenda is used to hoodwink fellow bureaucrats and the general public into coughing up even more public funds.

As for Conservation's Dirty Secrets, try walking on the paths on Blacka. See below.