Gatekeeping

All these fences and walls we've paid for on Blacka are grand for those who like fences and walls but most of us don't. We can admire the craftsmanship and hard work in construction but prefer the freedom to wander unrestricted. Around my garden I would love this. You and I have recently paid some £35 per metre for more than 330 metres of stone walling to keep cattle in*, cattle many of us don't want - 761 users of Blacka once signed a petition  to have them kept out.

Walls and fences mean gates as well.

Gates are good places to concentrate the traffic which walkers know means extra erosion, and mud when conditions are damp. Gates are particularly noisy too. Try sliding through when you're wanting to observe some wildlife without distracting animals or birds. Those long handles are meant for horse riders who don't want to dismount. They are often stiff and the extra effort needed to move them causes a grating sound that carries quite a distance. That bird or animal you may be following on a nature reserve doesn't hang around.

One young bird did decide a gatepost was a good lookout. It looked like a young chat - Whinchat or Stonechat - but could have been something else. Not much different to this group making the clicking sound familiar to those who've watched Bogart in The Caine Mutiny.

Gates are valued by the managers and farmers for messages letting the public know they can't do just what they want. Usually it's 'don't do this or that' carefully wrapped up in management speak. Or it can be a reminder that we are privileged to use this land and we should thank the conservation managers. We have no alternative but to use gates so you can't avoid it and they know it's a prime propaganda opportunity. No wonder some get so irritated they tear it down. The wildlife trust is especially fond of the A4 laminated notice stapled to gate posts and even trees. It looks pretty amateurish, the kind of thing a youth club would use. And they get into a mess because people don't believe what they say, with some reason. This one first appeared back in April signalling to the concerned users of paths that they are putting farm cows on the moor, something that SWT know is not popular.

So the notice explained why they are doing it using whatever dodgy reason they could think of while conveniently missing out the real reason (the farm subsidy they get). In order to sugar the pill they use their clumsy presentation skills to add a picture at the top to show that the cows will be those cuddly highland cows that people like so much. Except that the cows when they come are not those at all.

Understanding their own reputation for misleading the public one of their staff comes along with a pair of nail scissors and cuts out the misleading picture! But doesn't cut out the misleading sentences nor replace them with the real explanation for the presence of cows: the £12k per year C.A.P. farm subsidy.

But does anyone expect the truth these days - even on a gatepost?


* This money actually comes as conscience money from industrial polluters. Nevertheless it's public money which would otherwise come to the public purse. Note the smart PR exercise/greenwash.