The Red Deer Product

I recently and belatedly discovered an article in the Independent's travel section from last November from a writer called Mark Rowe on the subject of the Eastern Moors. It confirmed something that I had vaguely suspected for a long time. The article is one of those over-egged lyrical style pieces which you find in travel journalism, shallow and lacking any serious examination of their subject. The journalist evidently came up for the day, saw very little because of bad weather and was off back to London by the next but one train. So he relied heavily on hearsay from his informants at EMP anxious to do some self promotion. The accompanying pictures flatter the scenery and my guess is you would see it as in the photos at most one or two days in the year if you were lucky. He may posibly have seen deer but prefers to say he went to a spot that 'offers excellent sightings'. Doubtless the pictures were from EMP’s promotion album. The writer travelled up by train and spent a couple of hours on the site having made an appointment with local officials, in this case Danny Udall of EMP and Mike Innerdale of the National Trust whose link with Blacka Moor is that he is married to Blacka's reserve manager for Sheffield Wildlife Trust (confirming my long held suspicion that there is something particularly cosy about the local conservation industry.)

Anyway the thing that I thought would interest readers of this blog is something that illustrates the local managers' attitude to the red deer.



It's a quote within the Independent article from Mike Innerdale:

"We want to tell the story of the red deer, from the fell to the product – we don't want to hide anything. The intention is to sell the meat in our shops," said Mike Innerdale, Peak District general manager for the National Trust.

This is the managed exploitation that modern conservation is all about.

I can just imagine that the NT farm shop is in danger of running out so word goes out to shoot a stag. In fact you could make it a lot easier if you somewhat domesticated them through fencing and managed feeding. Management is what these people are about. This is like much of the local conservation compromise. These people are about as lacking in true respect for wild nature as you could get. They are in the conservation business for what they can get out of it and it’s no part of their agenda to promote the integrity of a more natural landscape nor the wilder animal life that thrives there.

Local conservation is about being in control. It's about farming, comfortable jobs and money – whether from grants or commercial exploitation.