Three's Too Many

It's not beyond the wit of man but it may be beyond that of local managers (or directors, to name no names).

Finding a middle ground between two points of view is a challenge but when dogma throws a third into the ring the task is beyond the mental capacity available to local HR departments in the conservation industry; it's made even more tricky when venality becomes a factor. The steel spanner in these works is the ideological commitment to farming every bit of the landscape, a spanner buffed up by a tempting prospect of large agri-environment grants.

The subject needing compromise is well-known on this site, similarly described as what is the land at Blacka to be held for, what is its role or purpose? And the two rival perspectives are recreation and conservation. Each one of these needs and deserves the closest and most rigorous scrutiny.

To J G Graves, when he gave Blacka to the public eighty years ago he defined that purpose in his legally binding covenant as a public walks and pleasure ground, to be held in perpetuity. Nobody reading the covenant could come away believing that he saw the future of the place as open to exploitation either direct or indirect. Reference to 'its natural state' seem to point unquestionably to nature and natural forces being in control. The idea that the interposition of the word 'present' changes anything has little relevance and those interventionists desperately looking for justification for their venal purposes from this one word are, as usual, being disingenuous. Nothing at all suggests that a violent campaign of natural repression should be applied to the land Graves was giving to us.

SRWT came along seventy years later as incomers and with no longstanding association or prior knowledge of Blacka. For them it is a nature reserve, a term they've defined in their own peculiarly self serving way. That's enough of a potential for conflict already. Just possibly some sort of compromise might be worked out given goodwill, superior judgement, an intention to put aside assumptions based on dogma, and industry obsessions and a preparedness to engage in intelligent discussions leading to a consensus.  But they are not content.

Because they bring a third element into the arena. Farming.

Those who thought conservation was about holding out against exploitation were in for a rude shock. They want to make a living out of it. And that means cows and sheep. When they bring in animals selectively bred for their voracious compulsion to turn anything growing into meat, what chance does nature have?