Little and Large

Some of the largest and some of the smallest of Blacka Moor's wildlife experience real January weather for the first time.

At the Old Wall Caff there was brisk business and competition for the best places. With colder times to come it's as well to stock up when you've got the chance. Some may only live a few months so this winter may be the only they see.

Red deer are our largest wild animals, but not all of them are large. The young deer are having their first taste of a favourite occupation. Their elders have often before used this sheltered spot to await the rising sun after a clear night in winter.

They will need to get closer together when the hardest frosts arrive although they've already developed thicker coats which get more untidy the better they do the job.

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Perhaps I should add that I must be one of very few people of my generation never to have seen the film Bambi. The idea of cartoon sentimentality, or any other kind, has always repelled me and I would still avoid it like the plague.   And yet, and yet... These live and genuine wild creatures this morning were affecting as anything seen on Blacka.

Is this where the dangers of exploiting wildlife for one's own reasons starts?

In Spite Of .................

The best things about Blacka are those things that have happened of their own accord or in spite of any programme of management. This scene is the better for the removal of the power lines something that SWT's manager initially opposed. It was Friends of Blacka Moor who argued for it.

It was when their management failed and their stewardship agreement with Natural England was not complied with that we could enjoy a variety of attractions. Flowers, grasses waving in the wind, a more natural aspect numerous delightful unplanned and natural felicities. The unmanaged is everything on this site despite the propaganda put out by the petty functionaries of the conservation industry. What did they do to bring back the deer? 

What did they do to instigate the removal of the power lines? So non-intervention in their case applies only when it’s something worthwhile. Intervention is what they do when they change things for the worse. So much for the words of the Natural England officer who said in public that Blacka Moor is “nothing without conservation”. Not much agreement there then! To me the unmanaged is everything. To them it’s nothing without management (aka conservation.)

What credibility does a so called profession have when it spews forth such garbage? The conservation industry is in effect little more trustworthy than the PR department of a supermarket which would have us believe the world would implode without their promotions bogoffs and loyalty cards. One thing they have in common is that ‘every little helps’ – keep chugging away with message, bit by bit and people will fall in line and believe them. Some pretty nasty precedents for this kind of brainwashing.

Intervention and non intervention as opposed positions make an appearance in the submissions to the so-called ‘consultation’ by the National Trust on the High Peak uplands which inevitably has influenced the Sheffield Moors. Amid the predictable rent-a-comment contributions from the shooting industry a few respondents are recorded as asking for non intervention. The NT management responds with a most unsatisfactory statement, thus.

Non-intervention 

This is where land is left unmanaged and nature allowed to run its course. The moorlands of the High Peak are semi-natural, being a product of human intervention, and because of the cultural, historical and social importance of the moors, we are unlikely to allow non-intervention to take place for the foreseeable future unless as part of a controlled experiment. Furthermore, the habitats and species on the moors are, in the main, sustained by interventions such as grazing and therefore these practices are important in this respect.
Nevertheless, it may be appropriate to establish a non-intervention reference area, all other factors considered, to demonstrate the advantages or disadvantages of non-intervention.

More on this....

Quiet, Please.

They are happy times when you are walking among the trees and quite suddenly become aware that you are not alone. You stop and remain still for a while until they no longer look set to flee. You then risk a few more steps to get a better view.

 It means next time you are walking in the trees you walk slower and more quietly, taking care not to frighten off whatever or whoever may already be there.

Guns in Control

In the USA the question is about gun control. A question that should be asked in Britain is whether we wish to have our landscape, especially its more remote parts, designed and its appearance prescribed by a gun culture of our own. The way our hills look has much to do with the demands of two groups whose interests and agendas often overlap: the farmers and the shooters. Both groups are determined promoters of their own interests. The shooters claim their needs coincide with what’s best for the countryside and for Britain. They would say that of course; but that doesn’t stop them saying it. That claim is highly contentious. Their sport, shooting grouse, demands a treeless waste, a regime of burning heather, a campaign of persecuting (aka ‘managing’) wildlife. The persecution they go in for is of those wild animals that might  possibly endanger the lives of game birds before the shooters themselves get a chance to kill them. Note carefully the language used, proof of the involvement of public relations consultants. Game birds are now more often called ground-nesting birds. Culling, itself a euphemism, is now called managing. In fact the whole industry is promoted as one giant euphemistic lie: the story being that without the management and without the kind altruistic shooters selflessly performing a public duty, our upland landscape would somehow become a ghastly place to which nobody would want to go.

In the centre of the Peak District is the area known as the High Peak dominated by the bleak plateau of Kinder and even bleaker high land aptly named Bleaklow. The management of these areas is now in the hands of the National Trust. When the National Trust was considering its approach to future management a few months ago it held a consultation. The responses to that consultation suggest that the most determined responders were the vested interests of the shooting lobby plus perhaps a few others who’ve swallowed their propaganda –often given airtime by the BBC and other organs in the media.

The result is that our countryside gets shaped and managed in the interests of the shooting lobby. The National Trust is like Natural England in this. The people who tend to get positions at the top of these organisations are friends of the shooting and culling lobby. Below are some examples of the specious arguments thrown at any consultation regarding our uplands. There’s no doubt that what happens and what’s decided in the High Peak is a strong influence on what happens on Sheffield Moors and of course also on Blacka Moor:

 _______________________________________________________________

What would you like to see more of?

Some typical comments:

Field sports which provide the only financially sustainable way of maintaining our uplands which are not a natural environment.

Managed moorland (farmed and shot) which will encourage diversity and healthy population.

Restoring Heather, developing shoot opportunities.

Managed moorland (farmed and shot) which will encourage diversity and healthy population.

Much more burning on the moors. Much more bracken control. More control of

foxes and crows.

Predator control - fundamentally important for ground nesting bird populations.

These people get their way with National Trust managers who allow and encourage shooting on their land even rationalising it through statements like this:

NT recognises the importance of legal predator control for shooting and farming interests and for the conservation of ground nesting birds.We also recognise that deer and squirrel management have a role in establishing new woodlands. Control needs to be sustained and well timed to be effective. Evidence suggests that the targeted control of crows, magpies and foxes is likely to be effective in protecting ground nesting birds but is inconclusive on the effects of controlling stoats and weasels.

Dimensions

Landscapes where birds are the only moving wildlife that you see have a dimension missing. It is nearly ten years since the deer first made themselves known on Blacka and the place has been immeasurably richer for their presence. They remind us that the other much smaller mammals are also present, less visible and even more intent on avoiding attention. Badgers, hares, moles, voles and weasels are all here. Wild mammals bring a place to life and warm our human spirits through their total independence from our concerns and our activities. That's not to downplay the birds, simply to remind us that they are only one element along with the invertebrates and others and on to the natural vegetation of which the trees are crucial for the value of the landscape. the largest of their kind as the deer are of theirs.

From teenage years on I've walked along many of Britain's most trodden footpaths, very occasionally seeing wild mammals but never deer until they arrived on Blacka. That's no surprise.  It's only in recent years that deer have started to regain a hold. Now of course some of those coming from those sections of country life that were responsible for the decline in wildlife are pushing for control, and we know what control means.

This morning was better looking with a combination of sun and mist. Being Sunday it was also hit and miss. Mostly quiet but with a sudden unwelcome racket from a group of motor bikes. This startled a visiting mixed herd of deer who came running across the moor looking for security and hoping to join the regular hinds who were browsing on the other side of the hill.

Unintentionally we were standing in the middle as each group looked across to the other.

To see the hills full of life like this when previously there had been a relative impoverishment reminds us that only by bringing nature back and shackling management rather than the other way round can we achieve an experience of many dimensions.

Jenkins' Ear

I don’t want to leave the subject of the National Trust just yet. It’s the senior charity in the country dealing with land and buildings and its adopted patrician air demands we should expect good judgement and high standards. But I believe that, locally at least, it bears some responsibility for the poor management of local sites even those they are not official keepers of. As an NT member I’ve earned a say though I’ve noticed they are not in the habit of soliciting members’ opinions in relation to local consultations. NT does not manage Blacka, SWT does, but it has a very strong influence both through personal relations between managers and in the fact that NT is involved in management of land all round Blacka. NT is also the leader in the Sheffield Moors Partnership whose intention it is to impose uniformity of a approach to all constituent parts.

Given the amount of public money going into the land management they are responsible for the question who decides how our money is spent? Who decides what kind of appearance our landscape should have and what kind of wildlife should enjoy it? How much say do we have in it?

This is the essence of the question posed by the most prominent public figure of the National Trust in the article I quoted in the post two days ago.

Sir Simon Jenkins, NT’s very articulate and outspoken Chair, wanted to know why the public in particular the majority urban population were not being asked what their money should be spent on. Who decides how the £3 billion plus gets spent that goes on CAP farming subsidies (and more on things like Higher Level Stewardship). The message of his article is that we should all be holding to account those landowners who receive masses of subsidy and that we should insist that they keep their land looking beautiful.

And not to forget he’s talking mainly about farming on private land. He’s concerned about the quality of the work that we get from those receiving public subsidies for what they do on their own land. He’s saying that he expects a high standard of work and that it should also look good. With all that money coming from CAP to the landowner we the public have a right to expect great things when we walk in the countryside. Nobody can accuse Jenkins of not appreciating what’s attractive and worthwhile in the countryside. His books on English Churches and Country Houses are much praised guides to those buildings and testament to  a fine and educated judgement. As he says we should now expect certain farmers he identifies to set about sorting out their ‘manky’ hedges and keeping their sheep looking smart implying that he’s not been much impressed up to now.

I would love to hear what he would say about some of the sights he would find on land on and around Blacka Moor. What would he make of the livestock defecation, the destruction of wildflowers, the war waged on trees, the large scale poisoning of vegetation, the depressingly low standards of workmanship and management, the anti nature agenda. And this is not the responsibility of private landowners it is on public land and influenced and encouraged by the same National Trust of which he is the most senior figure. I wonder how much he gets as Chair?  And does he really believe that the public should be fully involved in the decisions about what kind of landscape we should have. Because if he does I would like to know what his reaction would have been to my call for a proper debate over the future of such a large area of public land as the Sheffield Moors – and let’s add in the High Peak area too; the National Trust has gone about their new management strategy in both areas in tandem. Because there has been no serious debate however much paperwork and self justification the local apparatchiks have produced to obfuscate their line managers and political masters. And some of us who follow his articles and books know that Jenkins is keen on local decision making yet we know down here that any local element to these processes has been phoney, a calculated bamboozlement disguising top down decision making.

I would be quite happy to support Simon Jenkins' campaign against pylons and wind turbines bestriding the Welsh hills ( as well as his other campaign against city skyscrapers) if he will support those of us who want a more natural and more wooded landscape in our uplands. At the very least he could promote a proper debate about it. After all that seems to be the implication of what he is saying in his article of 2005.

Back in April I made a plea to the SMP through the NT that a full scale debate was necessary on the uplands. The substantial area of Peak District land up for consideration raises all sorts of questions which the local officers just did not want to discuss. So what happened to the message in the article? Or did the local officers and the middle managers in the National Trust make sure that this never reached Jenkins’ Ear?

With Mum

This year will be the tenth anniversary of red deer appearing on Blacka and it is worth reminding ourselves what it is that has attracted them to our favourite place when other parts of the local landscape are not so blessed. In fact deer like just those features that appeal to us, the informal, unplanned and unpredictable aspects that we value so highly and which are under threat from the obsessive interventionists, they are the elements that have attracted these animals. Should that be a surprise? Is it really to be considered remarkable that wild animals prefer wild land? 

However much money has been invested in printing ink and press releases by the conservation and farming industries to proclaim the opposite they will never persuade a sceptical public that management, meddling farming and interfering are better for wildlife.

The last twelve months has established the deer on the site to a greater degree, somewhat helped when those appalling cattle were removed in August, having the effect of giving the deer freer rein with the space to themselves. A bonus was the delight of seeing young deer and watching them grow. Once again this morning the calves were keeping close to the hinds in a moderate sized group.