Self Assessment

Funny old world it is with reality and virtuality fighting for dominance. Some of us, who lived much of our lives before the information and digital revolutions took over, still don’t fully get it. We struggle to accommodate our thinking to the change. We sort of know but are slow and clumsy and still somewhat disbelieving. Paperwork and presentational skills, marketing hype and being a step ahead in the game of spin are all parts of this virtualization as is getting the message across online and in the media - however much or little it reflects the reality.

But who cares about reality when you can achieve your goals by making things up and presenting it well. And the text of many presentations is written by people who are employed to do only that and have minimal contact with the material and process they’re describing. After all most people’s contact with wildlife is through the media in one form or another. If you're in a job where your business is being responsible for something on the ground like a national park or a nature reserve there's still a lot you can get away with by prioritisng the narrative that sounds good, tweaking the message, inflated claims and clever presentation skills; much of this can be accomplished with a minimum of resources devoted to the 'real work'. But then in this weird office world what is 'real'? The thought sometimes comes to me when writing this blog. But this is only a mild form of the disease when compared to the way the big players go about things.

These reflections follow reading the recent article by Mark Fisher, the revelation that Sheffield Wildlife Trust have been claiming money for work they've not done and the publication of EMP’s consultation document. In fact it’s everywhere and we had rather hoped that this place was a sanctuary. Even as we open the gate onto the moor we can't miss that notice telling us that “Highland Cattle are Grazing the Heathland of Blacka”. I wouldn’t know who wrote the words ‘crapping over’ as a substitute for ‘grazing’ but it was closer to reality than the virtual message of the original. Only one highland is there – the others are a mixed bag.

Mark’s article starts by telling us that The Peak District has won what I suppose must be called a “prestigious” diploma from the Council of Europe. The first paragraph of his article is a dry classic, ending as it does. For some of us self assessment is about filling in a tax form. Conservation people get to write their own script and then review it. Just imagine an author, film director or composer being given the chance to pen their own reviews with no independent voice being heard – leading of course to writing a cheque to yourself, something I’m beginning to think is commonplace in the conservation industry.

Preciousness, Mushrooms and that other stuff

What it comes down to is the insistence that all we have now we must hold on to at whatever price. And that prospect of gains unknown and unquantified but potentially inspiring must be in all places repulsed. Supposedly this is in the interests of biodiversity. In reality it is in the interests of comfortable 9 to 5 weekday jobs environmental and farm subsidies, reluctance to be challenged and made to think too much.

I am not a biodiversity denier, the latest apparel of the right-wing climate change sceptics. But all new ways of seeing, all new legitimate targets are pounced on hungrily by those bandwaggon riders seeking an advantage before the rug is pulled. It may not be world wide but locally it's a biodiversity scam crafted to trouser farm subsidies.

Take the recent Eastern Moors Management Plan (Consultation draft). Among its numerous depressing statements, documenting interventions all over the place, is one to the effect that "some grasslands support important fungi and so will be managed with these in mind. They require short grass and so will be grazed by sheep". So in order put a few waxcaps under prime protection ( and I don't deny they can be really pretty) a whole system needs to be put in place with departments of Natural England alerted to bring on funding arrangements to enable certain farmers to provide woolly defecaters to cover the whole area with s**t. Blacka's grass also has waxcaps and they did not vanish when the sheep were away on holiday, but if they had been harder to find the gain in wild flowers was compensation.

As it happens I don't believe the theory anyway. Fungi grow underground. It's only the fruiting body that emerges above. Spores may not travel so far in the wind if the grass is longer but the idea you have institute a whole regime of farm style management to stop the waxcaps dying out is risible. The main argument, though, has to be about what is being missed by not allowing nature to go its own way. Unmanaged land and woodland bring their own species which have just as high a claim to have a place, even more so in fact because they are not managed. Let's have places where managers are conspicuous by their absence - and not just because they are in the office planning more intervention.

Quality

It's regrettable that landscape quality so rarely gets discussed. When people are so privileged as to be invited to contribute to consultations this seems to be well down the ranking order of items for discussion. Yet it is the single subject that has so inspired painters over many hundreds of years and probably still remains a favourite of amateur painters today.

When I raised the question of Burbage Moor at a meeting last year, daring to suggest that its artificial treeless state was unfortunate, some noises from the grouse moor lovers made me think I had strayed onto a forbidden subject. Perhaps the same die hards choose to consider empty moors as 'wild'.



The appeal of Blacka is partly that it changes season on season and year on year. Its mix of mature, leggy shrubs, young trees, bracken and established woodland gives it variety and also mystery as there are places some would call overgrown where wildlife of many kinds can find its own level. The thought that certain moors will look the same for hundreds of years is enough to bring on a fit of depression. Where would you choose to live? Somewhere that has exactly the same view 300 days in the year and decade after decade? Or a living vibrant place with windows looking out onto trees reflecting the seasons and shared with wild animals?

Crop and Crap

Conservation grazing as currently favoured by the challenged local conservation workers could well be called Crop and Crap Management. Grass grows tall and with integrity all over the countryside where you allow it - often with wild flowers mixed in. This cannot be allowed of course. Such simple attractiveness is unacceptable - no job for managers.
Bring in cows, the landscape navvies to engineer away such bad ideas of nature. The result is visible along the paths. To the side the straight cropped edges of the now short grass blades are everywhere.
So need we ask what happened to the rest of the growth?

Ordures of the Day

A profoundly agreeable selection this morning.

Enjoy!

Public Money and Public Scrutiny

No secret that this blog maintains much of the management decision making at Blacka is about getting hold of grants especially farm and environmental subsidies. Also interesting is the discovery that the Countryside Stewardship Agreement was signed in 2002 even though it was never discussed at the lengthy Icarus consultation in 2006. I have regularly said that the major problem with handing over public land to private organisations is that there is no longer a possibility of genuine public scrutiny. We have found that Sheffield Wildlife Trust can simply say what they want and disclose information or not when asked by people who otherwise would have a right to know. Through Freedon of Information request to Natural England we can now read the text of that Countryside Stewardship Agreement. You can access the papers here though you will have to open a zip file. Amongst other stipulations it insists that:

"Grazing must take place for at least 12 weeks between 1 April and 31 August."

This is of course a major contentious item for the public. The grazing and farmification of Blacka was just what we had resisited. But it was on this that Sheffield Wildlife Trust depended to get its grant.
But what happens if they don't comply with this requirement and for one reason or another do not or cannot graze?
Well apparently they just carry on getting the money. This can be seen in another document from the same FoI request. It shows that a similar amount has been paid for each of the years from 2007. Extract below:


AREA AMOUNT PAID
Enhancing lowland heath SK2880 7714 71.85 £3,592.50 Dec-07
Enhancing lowland heath SK2880 4267 19.22 £961.00 Dec-07
TOTAL £4,553.50


Enhancing lowland heath SK2880 7714 61.14 £3,057.00 Nov-08
Enhancing lowland heath SK2880 4267 6.51 £325.50 Nov-08
Enhancing lowland heath SK2880 9040 10.74 £535.50 Nov-08
Enhancing lowland heath SK2880 5665 12.71 £635.50 Nov-08
TOTAL £4,553.50


Enhancing lowland heath SK2880 7714 61.14 £3,057.00 Oct-09
Enhancing lowland heath SK2880 4267 6.51 £325.50 Oct-09
Enhancing lowland heath SK2880 9040 10.64 £535.50 Oct-09
Enhancing lowland heath SK2880 5665 12.71 £635.50 Oct-09
Enhancing lowland heath SK2881 6515 0.07 £3.50 Oct-09
TOTAL £4,557.00


Enhancing lowland heath SK2880 7714 61.04 £3,052.00 Oct-10
Enhancing lowland heath SK2880 4267 6.55 £327.50 Oct-10
Enhancing lowland heath SK2880 9040 10.67 £533.50 Oct-10
Enhancing lowland heath SK2880 5665 12.54 £627.00 Oct-10
Enhancing lowland heath SK2881 6515 0.07 £3.50 Oct-10
TOTAL £4,543.50

Yet payments were made after claims went in for two years on this chart when no grazing happened. The details show clearly that the payments were made even when the main condition for the payment was not complied with. Do we really have this sort of money in the public purse to pay out on an operation that is useless anyway and didn’t even happen? In 2008 and in 2010 there were no cattle on what they choose to call the ‘lowland heath’ (at 1100 feet, for goodness sake??)– and in my view the place was much the better for it. I have the photos to show that.

I am now awaiting a response from the Rural Payments Agency regarding Single Farm Scheme payments. It will be interesting to see if further payments were made in the same years.

Inflation

It seems somehow suitable that Blacka should suffer an invasion from the ballooning fraternity. Wildlife and farmlife too are among the victims of inflation in the conservation industry. As the huge intrusive thing loomed over the hillside the sheep took flight as have deer on previous occasions. Tranquillity is not a major concern of wildlife trusts unless it affects their chosen species, or their remote office work. They are too busy over promoting themselves. That is what they are good at. It brings them acceptance and accolades from those who read their self appraisals yet never visit the sites they manage. An example near the beginning in this article.




There are days when you would be better off seeking tranquillity in the supermarket car park; at least there you would not suffer the stress and frustration of having your expectations dashed. Helicopter flights, sudden roars from overhead balloons and mad shouting bikers can wreck your chances of getting some peace. But then if only those responsible would spend some of their resources in promoting the best aspects of these sites instead of those that bring in grants we might get somewhere.