Disfunctional (2)

Another example of the scarcely believable wrongheadedness in SWT’s management is revealed by the way that the managers dealt with that old chestnut of an issue, the bog flowers. I’ve mentioned bog asphodel a number of times here. There is one particular spot on Blacka which has for a number of years produced a quite spectacular display of these flowers in July. Once SWT brought cows onto the site this display was trashed on a yearly basis through trampling and defecation. There were still flowers around dispersed in other parts but the utterly magnificent spectacle was gone and the visitor experience was severely diminished. 

Sitting in their offices well distanced from the outside world SWT caught wind of this threat to their management policy. This could damage their reputation as a supposed wildlife friendly organisation. So they collected together some of their number and came out with clipboards to count the ‘spikes’ of the plant. Their story is now that there were some 1600 spikes of bog asphodel on Cowsick. This then is the way they intend to deal with this issue. It has never been my contention that the plant was wiped out by cows but they have tried to turn it into that. They could themselves have come along and seen the situation but as we know their interest is not in the natural beauty of the site and when challenged come back to the bean-counting biodiversity defence that has stymied all debate on the quality of the natural world they are responsible for and its appeal, or lack of it, to real people. The future of natural sites like this relies on people coming along and loving what they see. SWT's management does nothing for that it's grounded in a lack of lack imagination and affection for natural beauty, the Gradgrindism flaw.

Having said that, who believes these people? They have lied their way through the past 12 years of management here and done their level best to put themselves beyond scrutiny and accountability. Who else would have sent a group of heavy footed employees to trample across a sensitive natural site just to prove a point that had never been contested? The answer is – only those who know they are struggling to justify their existence.