Free and Unfettered

Land controlled by those inhabiting or working within remote systems be they bureaucracies, aristocracies, quangocracies or even eurocracies is hardly likely to reflect a high priority on the lure of natural beauty. And all four of these are involved in the decision to create a devalued vegetation profile on Blacka and the over-managed moors around. To the bureaucrats (and quangocrats) the land must conform to Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition: we know the agricultural bit means it has to look like farmland; the 'environmental' is a sop, probably reducible to anything not likely to invoke environmental disaster rather than definable excellence. So it's farmland that it has to be, ignoring the lesson that the majority of our landscapes's decline has been down to 20th century farming practices.

So let's look some more at what's on offer at the moment on the one side, the unmanaged side, of this land and on the other, the managed which has received 10 years worth of agricultural subsidies from the monies we've paid into the European CAP fund plus the advice given by our own dearly loved and obstinately impenetrable Natural England and the dazzling expertise and competence of our local 'wildlife' trust.

The photograph above shows the divide between the managed and the unmanaged. On the left of the wall is what has become agricultural land and further on another wall and fence crosses from left to right sbeyond which is more agricultural land, grazed by sheep. This has been a good season for wild plant life. Any gardener coping with weeds on wet days will confirm this. But we don't come to Blacka for a garden experience. Even the grazed land shows some much longer grass than in previous drier summers. But that's nothing compared with the profusion of vitality in the free unmanaged and unfettered area to the west (right) of the wall where nature has been given its head.

Can anyone but the most obdurate farmer say that this is not a thousand times better than grass that's been cropped and crapped over?

Is it better to see the free character of each species at its best or to crush it?

Which side of the fence is it better to be on?