Confirmed.....

It's a question of bending over backwards to be fair. Anyone can be wrong, or present a distorted view. Even those on the side of the angels. Or, in this case, the flowers and the most beautiful around on the Blacka Moor site. But the evidence confirms what we say.
The conservation management must, if it has any credibility at all, be there to preserve, or conserve, that natural beauty which is most worth conserving. You cannot avoid making value judgements and those who claim you can are deceiving themselves. The bog asphodel flower is not endangered but it is scarce and much valued. People make special trips to see it. So you would expect that any scheme of management would allow for that. If you decide not to intervene that's another thing and you would expect there to be winners and losers - that would be the price. But once you intervene especially against the advice of those who know the site it is your responsibility not to damage the special features by that intervention. That is exactly what Sheffield Wildlife Trust has done and it has done so knowingly and forewarned. By their dogmatic following of the conservation grazing agenda they have impaired the natural beauty of the site in numerous ways. But the example of bog asphodel perhaps exemplifies this more clearly than any.

The last year that Blacka was free of cattle was 2010 and the photographs of an area where the bog asphodel occurs demonstrate that the display was stunning.

The following year, 2011, cattle trampled all over the area and the display was miserable. This year, to be as fair as possible, I've deliberately waited longer to give the flowers chance to appear before commenting; but despite that the effect of further trampling has resulted in a much reduced spectacle from that in 2010. This is the best it will get and the best it's been. I know the institutional thinking of the wildlife trust and other conservationists, people I've no hesitation in describing as philistines. They will say that the plants remain so there's nothing to worry about. Would they say the same if a group of walkers had deliberately trampled on this spot? Or if a dog owner's carelessness allowed disturbance of the nests of ground nesting birds?

Anyway the picture below shows the site today, exactly the same spot as the 2010 photograph above, and you can see the same heather clump at the top. There are still some flowers there but what is there to inspire a love of nature? There's also plenty of evidence of cattle trampling and chewing and defecating. Is this the best that these conservation charities can do, subsidised by our taxes for ten years via Natural England and the Common Agricultural Policy?