Thursday 7 June 2012

Chair of Natural England

Poul Christensen is the Chair of Natural England. People will have to decide whether he is the kind of person we need. Natural England is a pretty unaccountable body and its key decision makers get to play god with our landscape. Among his latest pronouncements is one about large farms. He thinks they are a good idea. At the moment I don't know how big is his family farm in Oxfordshire nor how much CAP money it gets. It's a fair guess it's not a small one.
Big farms mean more distance from the decision making. So does more EU subsidy. The further away you get, the less you really care is my observation. On the Sheffield Moors there are places which hardly get visited at all, even by the managers. I remember how touchy Nigel Doar was when I asked him how many times he had visited Blacka. It results in no real affection for a place and no daily care and leaving half finished jobs for months.

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