Tussocks and Dung

The pasture land, or inbye land, which is given over to farm livestock is in the top part of Blacka. All of Blacka should be predominantly for the enjoyment of visitors but as it is managed nobody could say that about the pasture land. Unless, that is, your hobby is photographing or recording the distribution of farm animal excrement.
I’ve not yet met such a person but we live in funny times and odd things do happen. Not much though as odd as this place being designated part of a SSSI with requirements that it’s managed by conservationists in the way that it is, making it unnatural and about as uninspiring as a 5 year management plan. I’ve sometimes tried to think of a way to make this place entertaining within the terms of its present conservation management. One idea was to blindfold a walker, turn him round, and lay bets on how many seconds before his boot came down in a cowpat; or, alternatively, sheep faeces.
Stakes and rewards for the two would be differential.
But the presence of the cattle is a great example of the scam of conservation grazing. Because the livestock are not there primarily for the benefit of the grazier who owns the animals. They are there to fulfil the grand scheme of managing for wildlife - allegedly for upland breeding birds. This is about as thorough a piece of nonsense as you can get. The officers who decide these things make it up as they go according to what grants are available. A couple of years ago a Natural England officer suggested keeping the cattle on the inbye land over winter ‘to deal with the tussocks’. This immediately became policy and lovers of cow pats have thanked her ever since. Yet where is the evidence that tussocks are bad or a lack of tussocks is good? A friend whose tolerance is greater than mine saw another conservationist on BBC television’s Countryfile programme saying that tussocks are grand things for ground nesting birds. Now my attention has been drawn by one of Mark’s recent articles that “rough tussocky grassland” is just what barn owls need because it is ideal for field voles much valued food supply for the owls. See this page on the website of the Barn Owl Trust. But then we always knew that conservationists were making things up as they went along and that the confidence with which they implied they know best is assumed and phoney.

Dim View

Not a promising day with morning drizzle and persistent gloom. The bare fact that today has two and a quarter minutes more daylight than yesterday hardly registers on the senses. A stag quietly browsed among heather birch and flattened bracken. Badgers are supposed to come out at dusk to feed but the fellow today had decided that the whole day qualified as dusk.


Badgers can be fairly easy to get close to if you are down wind as we were. Their sense of smell is very powerful but sight and hearing are compensatingly poor. Which is why the dog's barking had no effect on him.

Developing Through Natural Processes

The response of Mark Fisher to news that SWT is planning to cut more trees this time in the woodland can be accessed in full under the previous post. There are important strategic and philosophical issues in what is happening here and I had touched on some of them in the post itself. Mark's perspective is from a greater knowledge than mine of the way the conservation industry works and the ecology of these areas. The very best aspects of Blacka are what has developed naturally in the years since grouse moor style management ceased.
This has left us with a refreshingly wild character that increasing interventions can only damage. The return of red deer has been the reward we've had for all those years of allowing nature to develop naturally.

Some of what Mark says about the woodland plans is reproduced below:

Isn’t this just another example of funding availability driving wildlife trust management? Perhaps SWT have been talking to the other SWT – Staffordshire WT – as they also “discovered” the Woodland Birds Grants in their determination to justify to objectors what is primarily a deforestation to open habitat at Gib Torr to create even MORE moorland!!

This is another example of SWT (Sheffield WT that is) making out that they walk on water – everything they do is marvellous, and that they are but the saviours of our natural heritage. Their focus on Blacka has very much been about the dogma of moorland management and the persecution of trees. That Blacka is designated as “Dwarf shrub heath – upland” pretty much relegates the woodland to obscurity in their approach. Worse still, that designation could be used as a pretext to further persecute the woodland, as a requirement of that designation is that there should be no more than 20% of scattered trees on Blacka. The word scattered is underlined in the Common Standards Monitoring.

As you know, the Forestry Commission is well aware of the value of the woodlands on Blacka, and the RSPB person that they brought in to look at the woodland said there already was a lot of woodland bird interest, indicating that there is NO NEED to interfere. I hesitate to use anything from English Nature in support of my point, but SWT needs to take notice of the objectives that were set by EN for the woodland on Blacka:
“The woodlands will be allowed to develop through natural processes wherever possible”
“Some limited supplementary planting may be required to increase the stocking of native species”
“..we would expect the area of semi-natural woodland to be maintained, with established targets for both canopy and understorey cover. A proportion of standing dead trees and lying dead wood should be retained on site and there should be signs of natural regeneration of native species. Species composition is important, and the long-term target should be at least 90% of cover in any one layer of site native or acceptable naturalized species, with 80% of ground flora cover referable to the relevant NVC community”

I just wonder what SWT really know about the woodland on Blacka. Can they ever get over themselves and allow the woodland to develop through natural processes.

Bird Gardening?

SWT has not given up on its plans to further interfere with the woodland by chain saw warfare. More felling. They would like to be able to show they have local people on their side probably because they need to show that there is support for their plans in order to qualify for the grants available. The grants come via the Forestry Commission and RSPB collaboration and the idea is that they re-design the woodland to provide just the kind of habitat - trees spaced out just so- in the way that the wee birdies are supposed to prefer. SWT has been trying to persuade me that this in the interests of everyone, of the woodland itself and of the woodland birdlife but I remain sceptical. This is public money being provided for this project and the plan is to improve on nature. As with the heathland management the presumption is that nature cannot be trusted to go its own way. It might do the wrong thing. And targets are what we are about these days, not just in the NHS but also it seems in our wild woods. I'm not sure whether the managers get a bonus for each time a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker visits but it's a bit like that.

My reservations are several:

1 An artificial habitat will be created where the situation at the moment is that natural vegetation, natural woodland cannot be said to have failed. The whole of Blacka is becoming increasingly artificial with artificial heathland and artificial pasture land. Now the one part of Blacka where nature has been allowed to be largely free from intrusive agendas would be managed.
2 It is conceded that birdlife on Blacka is doing well without the need for this kind of management. It is odd to have money spent where there is success now. Other places in the country are not doing well. Spend the money there instead.
3 The process is usually very disruptive. The way that SWT is organised it's often not the people who tell you about these things that actually do the work.
4 The story that these birds depend on a certain pattern of woodland seems to be a theory. How well has it been tested and has it been peer reviewed?
5 Once this has been done what next? We seem to have a never ending series of interventions and tinkerings in a site where we decided there should be minimum intervention.

Cracking

Two days ago the ground was rock hard, after cold nights and drying winds. Yesterday we had non-stop rain much of it heavy with flooded paths. Overnight clear skies brought plunging temperatures again and a sharp frost. Thin icy crusts everywhere make walking an activity requiring skill and judgement.


It's also noisy as ice cracks with each step.If the four large stags had not seen us they would certainly have heard us; but they agreed to stay around watching our progress for a short while.

Another morning when sunrise addicts were disappointed. The clouds around dawn only cleared later in the morning unfairly rewarding those who stay longer in bed.

"Wild and Open"

The Eastern Moors Partnership (EMP) has sent in a report to Sheffield City Council that has not, so far, been discussed within the council - not by elected members anyway. This follows the public meetings held during August at which the Sheffield Moors (Houndkirk, Burbage and Hathersage Moors) were brought into the discussions. No decision had been take by the council at that time to hand this large area of land to EMP nor has yet been. The way the Sheffield Moors were brought into the consultation was not satisfactory as I've said before so it's been necessary to watch pretty carefully the way the issue goes from here. I've already asked the South West Community Assembly to be involved in any discussions about the eventual fate of the Sheffield Moors. It’s necessary to remember that EMP are not and cannot be totally detached and dispassionate about this. Like most organizations they wish to embed themselves in the fabric of society and the way conservation organizations do this is by acquiring land and making their management of it appear indispensable. Statements they make should always be read with this in mind and accompanied by a measure of scepticism.

The report sent to SCC from the EMP refers to the ‘guiding management principles’ that they have introduced for the Eastern Moors Estate (not the Sheffield Moors as yet) and the very first of these is:

1 The wild and open nature of the site should not be compromised

Immediately something has to be questioned. If you ask ten people what ‘wild and open’ means you’ll probably get 10 different answers. That’s lucky for the managers because they can interpret it any way they like. Does it mean anything or not? ‘Wild and Open’? Can land that has for generations been managed as a grouse moor be described as wild and open? It may be open but it’s certainly not wild and never will be as long as it continues to be look like an artificial grouse moor just perfectly designed for a shooting party. Neither will it even look wild if trees are actively discouraged by a grazing scheme. So ‘wild’ and ‘open’ are actually contradictory. It can be one thing or it can be the other.

The authors rely on the fact that very few people look critically at their statements and quite a fair proportion of the public will themselves refer to these moors as a wilderness. Ignorance is bliss. Usually these problems of perception are skated over by those who manage. Once you go into discussing the real nature of the land you risk encouraging calls for nature to be allowed to go its own way and the whole edifice of assumptions that have been fostered by present conservation policy is undermined. So with this in mind what should we make of "wild and open"? How calculated is this? The words "should not be compromised" attached to the phrase "wild and open" that is so meaningless is a typical tactic of the political managerial class. The second half of the sentence gives an impression of decisiveness but we don't know what they are being decisive about.

This is why any plans must be closely scrutinised and, partly, why the letter to Nick Clegg has been written.

Blacka Moor's Member of Parliament

On Wednesday, only slightly late, came my Christmas card from my MP, Nick Clegg. With it was a letter explaining various things he felt the need to explain and in which recipients were invited to write to him. As ever this blog is conscientious and seeing as Blacka Moor has never, to my knowledge, written to any Deputy PM before, this opportunity has been taken. The letter begins below:

Dear Nick Clegg,

Thank you for your Christmas card and letter to constituents received this week. In returning your greetings I would like to take up your invitation to contact you and therefore raise the following matter with you, regarding the government’s localism agenda.

I have read reports and articles about the localism plans and also seen Select Committee appearances by the Secretary of State and the Minister for Decentralisation and the Minister for Housing and Local Government but so far have not been aware that my particular concerns are being voiced. I have not as yet seen any similar appearances by the Secretary of State for the Environment nor those representing other departments also affected by localism.

I’m apprehensive that the government’s model of localism will in specific situations finish up by actually disempowering local communities in favour of organisations which may present themselves as community focused but which are in reality more centralised and less accountable than local government itself. I have some direct experience of a situation within your own Sheffield Hallam constituency which I believe is relevant to this. Similar anxieties could be linked in relation to National Nature Reserves (NNRs).

The letter continues and can be read in full here