SRWT and the Community

More excerpts from the response to SRWT's draft management plan
Excerpts quoted from the plan in red.

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From 6.4.3 Community Engagement
 “Aim 13 Promote recreational access to the reserve, and public participation in its management”
 The Reserve Advisory Group.

 " Originally set up as a consultation and advice mechanism and not a decision making body, the group frequently became deadlocked with participants unable to reach a common viewpoint, making participation both frustrating and unproductive for RAG members. This atmosphere of disagreement felt unwelcoming to newcomers and was even intimidating to some regular participants. Additionally, the format of regular evening meetings may have contributed to them not being representative of the full range of reserves users and different interest groups. " 

Shameful, but predictable. The spin here suggests there is some blame attached to certain members of the public. The truth is that local people who came along in good faith were appalled by the lies they were told by SWT reserve managers and decided to have no further part in the RAG.

SRWT’s unacceptable spin seriously downplays SWTs own culpable role in making the RAG an inadequate consultation body once they realised it was unlikely to rubber-stamp their own plans. But then we should expect that those who have misled the public habitually over many years will blame and deny at will. Managers have consistently over the whole period of its existence tried to avoid responding to questions, have corrupted minutes of meetings, withheld information and misrepresented and sometimes maligned those who have expressed an independent view. We know that the reason for SWT abandoning the RAG was a calculated ploy to avoid public scrutiny of what they were planning. No meetings during the two years before the publication of this plan and during that period a 10 years contract was agreed to graze farm animals over most of the site.

This is what we get when we hand over public assets to private business with no adequate safeguards.

“A Blacka Moor Users' Forum, held twice a year, either on site or at suitable indoor venue. The Forum would provide the general public with an opportunity to raise and discuss any issue relating to the use and management of the reserve as well as provide the Trust with the opportunity to listen to a wide range of reserve users' views and update people on the delivery of the management plan. The Forum would be open to all, with guest speakers, local experts and group representatives invited to contribute to specific topics as appropriate 

A Blacka Moor Conservation Group held 3-4 times a year, comprising representatives of special interest groups, individuals and Wildlife Trust supporters, working collaboratively with the Trust to deliver the Blacka Moor Management Plan (once finalised and adopted). The group would meet either on site or at suitable indoor venue,” 

Once this plan has been signed off there will be no incentive for the public to engage as all the major decisions will have been taken. The most important of all - the ten year grazing contract has already been put in place. So there's little point in this at all unless the whole of this plan is to be discussed including the full conservation industry agenda, conservation grazing and all management plans. I absolutely reject the idea of two forums. Conservation people should be accountable to the public and seen to be. Conservation of the kind practiced here is a bureaucratic construct and there are already numerous meetings of officers across Sheffield Moors Partnership, many of whom have all but lost touch with the sites they are responsible for and the people who use them. These managers and officers spend too much time already talking to each other and are out of touch. I put forward an alternative RAG format several years ago. That involved nominated representatives of each interested group plus members of the public. It avoided any exclusions and would have had a truly independent chair. There should be one group only. There should be no suspicion of an ‘in-group’ removed from public scrutiny and public engagement. This ‘conservation group' looks to be anti-democratic, unaccountable and lacking transparency; it would probably only duplicate meetings between conservation industry managers across the Sheffield Moors Partnership. It also reinforces the assumption of conservation ascendancy on public recreation land. This land is primarily for recreation and the plan here continues the erosion of that principle.