Wool Is Being Pulled ..

If we don't allow ourselves to look and see and believe what our eyes tell us then there's no hope left: here, it's only our own fault if we let the wool get pulled over our eyes.

There are many miles of railway embankment, roadside verges and abandoned wasteland with more value for wildlife, the environment and ecology than this section of Blacka. Yet this gets the managers lashings of public money in the form of grants all justified by the most spurious environmental designations. Don't take my word for it. Just look. It's plain to see. But do believe your eyes - not the wideboy stories that are told by the 'professionals'.

Of all the issues around the management of Blacka as a nature reserve nothing shows up the phoniness of the local conservation industry more acutely than the deplorable state of this sheep enclosure.

Not even the chain-saw obsession with clearing native woodland.
Nor the crass anti-democratic policy of excluding from consultations those who have an alternative view.
Nor the cowpat-and-barbed-wire infestation they choose to call conservation grazing on the heathland.

No, bad as these are, it's the failure to even begin to think about whether they should continue to have sheep grazing on these upland slopes that marks out the conservation agenda as being utterly bankrupt. I just say come and look at it.

Any genuine nature reserve would allow and encourage natural vegetation to thrive, not import the woolly slugs to scoff every wild flower before it blooms and deposit the waste liberally so as to make it near impossible to keep your shoes out of it. And is there a coherent policy which explains how this management impacts on  flood protection strategies in the valleys? Management of this kind creates serious soil compaction on higher land leading to water running off rather than being absorbed.

And if the conservation mafia had not got control and the site was restored to the original and legal purpose of a 'public walks and pleasure ground' it could be a venue for many enjoyable recreational activities including kite flying and family picnics: five years ago paragliders who used the site just two or three times a year were told they could no longer use the site  - for 'conservation' reasons! We have to put up with the impact of sheep 365 days a year and huge amounts of public subsidy for fences, stone walls and agri-environment grants. Nothing could be more perverse.

If anyone's tempted to believe that the local conservation industry is on the right track they should visit here and see for themselves.

But as a taster see this link:

https://picasaweb.google.com/102888525503996952067/WhatSheepDo?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIywgNqAvqLTUg&feat=directlink