Rationalising the Vista

Rationalisation is a term in psychiatry meaning the concealment of your true motivation by making your actions seem more acceptable. It's largely concerned with areas of thinking on the border of the subconscious. I mention this because there's a lot of it going on in the draft management plan of SRWT. Reasons are given for plans that are in fact phoney grounds and not the primary motive at all. There's a lot of it.

One already discussed is the claim that they are right to stop nature being allowed to do what it wishes on a nature reserve because bad men in raincoats might be hiding behind trees ready to jump out shouting "Boo" at any passing women. (Try looking up the word dendrophobia.) Disbelief followed by hilarity was the reaction of several women I know who heard this. The true motivation was always known. Fighting nature with cows and fences provides much more opportunity for managers to manage and make a career out of it.

Another interesting bit of rationalising concerns views. Blacka looks out over parts of Sheffield and north eastern Derbyshire. The story told by SRWT is that without the constant war on nature, with chain saws and barbed wire and cattle grazing these views would be lost. This is nonsense but some might find it plausible. The inference they want us to make is that only cows or sheep can keep views from disappearing.

We know they are committed to cows and sheep and the substantial grants that come with them so they would want us to think that. I find that when you put it to people with all the factors explained they say they would prefer it to be as natural as possible and accept that more trees would eventually spread. But they would also like to come across open spaces that can be quite small every so often. Suddenly emerging into a space from where you see a distant view is much more enjoyable than being unnaturally open all the time with largely monoculture vegetation around you. The problem with the conservation industry is that they are all or nothing. A huge area has to be set aside for their heathland fetish and cows, sheep, fences and all the rest that goes with them. The simple way of doing things won't do.
What's that?
Well you set up a default of nature going its own way. Then you make exceptions in carefully chosen parts. Every two years a team roots up small trees in one of these limited areas before they become fully established to maintain some openness in otherwise wooded and natural landscapes; that's done after consultation and with intelligent judgement, of which, I admit, there's not much to be seen.

But of course we should always hope that nature is self regulating. What about the influence of wild animals such as deer? The management mafia is so inconsistent that at one time they warn us that deer might become so numerous that they need managing (aka shooting) while at other times they say grazing animals (like deer) are needed to stop too many trees growing.