Mark Fisher's comments about the documents coming from the Sheffield Moors Partnership Action Planning session in July were spot on. The language used by the local conservation office holders betrays their whole attitude. By their words we know them. He singles out the constant use of words like 'wild' to describe what is the very reverse of wild.
The wild and open nature
Wilderness of landscape
A cherished, wild land landscape
The moors will remain a wild and natural landscape
The Sheffield Moors will be recognised as a diverse and wild landscape
The wild and open nature of the site
wild character and felling [sic] of wilderness
An index to assess landscape character and “wildness”
a diverse network of access routes (from well maintained to wild)
It's all utterly phoney and utterly self serving. If they don't know these words are inappropriate they should not be in their jobs.
It goes back to the days when products first started to appear on supermarket shelves saying 'Natural'. The ones that were least natural were the ones that shouted the word in biggest letters.
In the Eastern Moors Partnership's Draft Management Plan there is similar profligacy. They set out to press buttons by using words that score credit points rather than doing the hard slog and the homework of analysing and communicating a message that is meaningful and worthwhile. If you've not got the material and policy right then this is what you do. You paper over the cracks with extravagant vocabulary each word of which lights a red bulb.
Instead of a cool and reasoning approach it's full of second rate sales hype. Scorecard:
amazing 6
stunning 2 (in two lines)
sustainable 6
accessible 4
connectivity 4
inspiring 4
wild/wilderness 5
wellbeing 2
rich 4
exemplar 3
distinctive 1 (must try harder)
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Surface
Let us make SWT happy by welcoming something they have done. The praise may be qualified but you can't have everything. At the bottom of the bridleway leading down from Devil's Elbow to Shorts Lane, a morass of many years has now had some repairs applied to it. The surface seems to be of gritstone. Let us hope it will stand up to the rains. Ten years ago they had the opportunity to this but rejected it in favour of surfacing another track that had no problems at all. They had received £750,000 from the lottery and wanted a nice easy project to show off to visitors who had not seen the perfectly good track before. They made the mistake then of putting in drainage cross pieces made of concrete kerbstones, which of course are still there. But the fact that we've had to wait ten years for something to be done here should not be allowed to temper any joy ..... something about a sinner and , er repenteth?
This time they have compressed the new surface - presumably with a small JCB. I wonder if that's why they replaced the old wooden sleeper bridge with a new less attractive wider one - to get the machine across the stream?
Conservation Speak 1
No man is an island and no bureaucracy it seems is on its own these days. So curmudgeonly feelings towards the abuses of vocabulary seen among the local conservation folk should allow for the fact that they are ‘part of a culture’ that’s existing in the wider community. But what are we to make of people who invent a word like patrollee? This is not fiction. I’ve not had an authoritative definition of the word but believe it’s meant to be a new term for someone who patrols on a nature reserve. What exactly is wrong with patroller I don’t know. As far as I can tell it’s been coined by someone at Sheffield Wildlife Trust who will not be named to spare blushes. I get this word chucked back at me when I contact them to mention something they really ought to do – ‘one of our patrollees will deal with it’. I think they’re trying to give the impression they have an enthusiastic force of volunteers waiting to pounce on problems helping SWT tick a few community involvement boxes. My guess is there might at most be two but that could be an overestimate.
I wonder how many of the dodgy new words appearing have been invented by bureaucrats who spend just too much of their time attending meetings and are given to composing euphemistic ways of referring to mundane things? Meetings are a case in point: how many ‘attendees’ were at the last one? There’s a word that should never have risen from the cesspit of management speak. Attenders, please. This is the one that spawned the mutant patrollee and others. ‘EE’ is a suffix most correctly applied to one in a passive state who has had something done to him/it. So an attendee would be someone who has been attended upon. The active person is the one who does the attending and should be called an attender. But the stable door has long been open on this one and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it’s being taught in schools in this usage. But now it seems that all and everything that people do is being given the same treatment. Patrollee is one. Look out for these future delights to come in paperwork from the wildlife trust: What about a bird watchee, or twitchee, a mountain bikee, a farmee, dog-walkee; why bother with an extra ‘r’ on the end of voluntee, and what happened to those lookerees? Somewhere in the deep recesses of the office dictator’s mind is the idea that creating new terms, even for old things, is a means of gaining power if only because it temporarily bamboozles those who hear them for the first time.
I wonder how many of the dodgy new words appearing have been invented by bureaucrats who spend just too much of their time attending meetings and are given to composing euphemistic ways of referring to mundane things? Meetings are a case in point: how many ‘attendees’ were at the last one? There’s a word that should never have risen from the cesspit of management speak. Attenders, please. This is the one that spawned the mutant patrollee and others. ‘EE’ is a suffix most correctly applied to one in a passive state who has had something done to him/it. So an attendee would be someone who has been attended upon. The active person is the one who does the attending and should be called an attender. But the stable door has long been open on this one and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it’s being taught in schools in this usage. But now it seems that all and everything that people do is being given the same treatment. Patrollee is one. Look out for these future delights to come in paperwork from the wildlife trust: What about a bird watchee, or twitchee, a mountain bikee, a farmee, dog-walkee; why bother with an extra ‘r’ on the end of voluntee, and what happened to those lookerees? Somewhere in the deep recesses of the office dictator’s mind is the idea that creating new terms, even for old things, is a means of gaining power if only because it temporarily bamboozles those who hear them for the first time.
Monday, 3 October 2011
Character and Colour
I look for places with character. At this time of year that should go with colour. The path up from Lenny Hill to the waterfall has plenty of colour just now. I know some people do not like bracken but I've learned to accept it as an inevitable and wholly natural, but unplanned, consequence of years of exploitation and a sign that the natural world is fighting back from the generations of imposed treelessness. The land's response to man's insistent management has been to create its own jungle. It is also a fine resource for mammals like deer who lie up in it during the day and give birth to their young securely hidden within its density. Bracken in autumn is one of the delights of Blacka as its fronds turn bronze and even gold in the low sun.
There are also other characters to meet on this path, not all of them noted for their colour.
Saturday, 1 October 2011
Opportunities
When you reflect upon the countryside and natural phenomena do you think of opportunities? Or do you just want to experience it and enjoy it? It depends what and where it is one might say.
But for managers it's definitely a case of looking for opportunities - opportunities to manage. If you rack your collective brains enough in an awayday facilitation session, competitively brainstorming until you can think of nothing more .... then with a bit more effort and furrowed brows all round you come up with yet one more opportunity, well a decent list of jobs for managers will be compiled. Sighs of relief all round, we've talked ourselves into being necessary.
From the Sheffield Moors Partnership Action Planning minutes.
The proposed process for developing the action plan and consultation covered four stages:
• Stage 1 Focused Consultation over Process and Principles – prepare a summary document of the work to date. Introduce the concept to wider range of stakeholders (like Stanage Forum; user groups, etc), & get their buy in/support (Aug-Oct 2011)
• Stage 2 Developing the Action Plan – led by a proposed SMP Project Officer, the draft action plan is prepared, informed by workshops with stakeholders focused around four proposed themes e.g. ‘Access & Recreation’ (Nov 2011-Mar 2012)
• Stage 3 Public Consultation – Taking the outcomes from Stage 2, develop a series of statements and ‘opportunity’ maps for the SMP area to consult with the wider general public and gather their views and support (April-Oct 2012)
• Stage 4 Final Plan Production & Adoption – Produce final ‘glossy’ SMP strategic action plan and launch.
THEN later,
The group then reflected on the suggested themes within the Master Plan. The four theme were agreed as follows:
• Participation
• Access & recreation
• Cultural heritage
• Sustainable land management (suggested reword of land management for nature conservation, but with plea that nature conservation is not forgotten!)
The following chapter or section headings were also felt to be important to include:
• How we will work together
• Links to corporate and national plans / policy
• The benefits of the work inc: delivering the green economy / ecosystem services; our measures of success; health and wellbeing
Opportunities & issues
The sessions either side of lunch required the group to explore the four themes in more detail. Working in small groups, for each theme relevant opportunities across the SMP area were identified. Alongside each opportunity key issues were listed that needed to be considered / the new SMP project officer should to be aware of. Groups worked on each theme building on the content of previous groups’ contributions.
Opportunities opportunities opportunities. Have you seen them coming down your street calculating the opportunities - the window salesmen, the tree surgeons, securing their future by selling their wares. And each house an opportunity. That's fine. We all have to earn a living. But is this not different? Isn't this a question of them deciding on our behalf what we want with very limited scope for us to influence the result? To the window salesman I say no thanks and close the door. That's not a consultation. These people are making sure there will be a presumption that they'll get their way.
Oh, and we're paying for it.
But for managers it's definitely a case of looking for opportunities - opportunities to manage. If you rack your collective brains enough in an awayday facilitation session, competitively brainstorming until you can think of nothing more .... then with a bit more effort and furrowed brows all round you come up with yet one more opportunity, well a decent list of jobs for managers will be compiled. Sighs of relief all round, we've talked ourselves into being necessary.
From the Sheffield Moors Partnership Action Planning minutes.
The proposed process for developing the action plan and consultation covered four stages:
• Stage 1 Focused Consultation over Process and Principles – prepare a summary document of the work to date. Introduce the concept to wider range of stakeholders (like Stanage Forum; user groups, etc), & get their buy in/support (Aug-Oct 2011)
• Stage 2 Developing the Action Plan – led by a proposed SMP Project Officer, the draft action plan is prepared, informed by workshops with stakeholders focused around four proposed themes e.g. ‘Access & Recreation’ (Nov 2011-Mar 2012)
• Stage 3 Public Consultation – Taking the outcomes from Stage 2, develop a series of statements and ‘opportunity’ maps for the SMP area to consult with the wider general public and gather their views and support (April-Oct 2012)
• Stage 4 Final Plan Production & Adoption – Produce final ‘glossy’ SMP strategic action plan and launch.
THEN later,
The group then reflected on the suggested themes within the Master Plan. The four theme were agreed as follows:
• Participation
• Access & recreation
• Cultural heritage
• Sustainable land management (suggested reword of land management for nature conservation, but with plea that nature conservation is not forgotten!)
The following chapter or section headings were also felt to be important to include:
• How we will work together
• Links to corporate and national plans / policy
• The benefits of the work inc: delivering the green economy / ecosystem services; our measures of success; health and wellbeing
Opportunities & issues
The sessions either side of lunch required the group to explore the four themes in more detail. Working in small groups, for each theme relevant opportunities across the SMP area were identified. Alongside each opportunity key issues were listed that needed to be considered / the new SMP project officer should to be aware of. Groups worked on each theme building on the content of previous groups’ contributions.
Opportunities opportunities opportunities. Have you seen them coming down your street calculating the opportunities - the window salesmen, the tree surgeons, securing their future by selling their wares. And each house an opportunity. That's fine. We all have to earn a living. But is this not different? Isn't this a question of them deciding on our behalf what we want with very limited scope for us to influence the result? To the window salesman I say no thanks and close the door. That's not a consultation. These people are making sure there will be a presumption that they'll get their way.
Oh, and we're paying for it.
Biodiversity Scam
Easily the spectacular sight of choice for visitors to Blacka Moor and the adjoining Eastern Peak District Moors is a close up view of our largest native wild animal, the Red Deer. You would think then that this meant a lot for Sheffield Wildlife Trust and their conservation friends. But it’s not that simple. They have a take it or leave it attitude to this inspiring and heart-warming scene. In fact the record of the people who manage these moors has been quite the opposite of welcoming. Over the years which species of wildlife have they most targeted as undesirable would you think? Well it’s not the alien and invasive Himalayan Balsam that spreads on the north side of Blacka. I’ve seen no sign that they have tried to eliminate that assuming they know where it is. Along with bracken and birch and rhododendron, most resources have been devoted to killing the very Red Deer that the public love. In 2004 a party of these conservation people including those presently employed to manage the Eastern Moors shot a group of stags. This was despite the fact that the deer were no possible threat to the public nor to their dogmatic concept of desirable vegetation and were not increasing so significantly in number to cause serious concern.
The present view of the same people is that they will not be shooting any more as things stand*. How very tolerant of them. They may even have come to an understanding that the deer were living in this area hundreds of years ago so their claim to be left alone might be respected. But it’s a very grudging respect. Their claim now to be utilising the deer as part of their farming approach to stopping the regeneration of woodland is more of a defensive measure anticipating the potential for public outcry if they are culled. And we know their indignation at any poaching incidents is more an instinctive “gerroff my land” reaction than serious concern for the welfare of wild animals.
I wrote about this last year and the post attracted more interest than any other on this blog including a boring response from Nigel Doar denying the conclusions that I drew. But it was too late. We had been able to observe their attitude enough by then.
There was a time before the Red Deer returned to the region and showed their liking for Blacka Moor. Less than ten years ago nobody was anticipating it. Looking back now it is all clear. SWT’s whole approach is about being in control and there was no place in their top-down, prescriptive plans for free-spirited anarchic creatures like deer. The problem for them was that the deer represent the most impressive wildlife sight not just on Blacka but in the whole Eastern Moors area. This was a challenge they had not expected.
The deer were just what Sheffield Wildlife Trust's approach did not need. They represented a direct and incisive challenge to the assumptions behind SWT’s approach. Even now some people do not get this. But Nigel did to his credit and eventually so did others in the conservation mafia. Their landscape management approach was based on the assumption that the natural succession happening on the old grouse moor heath was unfortunate and regrettable. They planned to gradually reverse this process prioritising the heath as it was before nature set about reclaiming it. But it was that natural succession that made the place attractive to deer who blend in among the trees and lie up during the day amid the bracken stands leggy heather and deep bilberry shrubs. And who is to say what other wild animals would not return if the natural process of vegetation reclaiming the land from the tyranny of monoculture management was allowed to proceed? The fact that wildlife trusts cannot answer this question exposes their hollow claim to any authority here. To them it does not really matter much.
The problem is that of the Biodiversity Scam that pervades the thinking and commentary of all the conservation movement and drives out any other perspective like bad money driving out good.
Frankly the biodiversity agenda as interpreted by Sheffield Wildlife Trust, in common with the other local conservation bureaucracies has been used as a contrivance to put themselves in control of the processes that determine the fate of our landscape. It has been a godsend to them. As a business investment it would be seen as a sure bet. They will always be able to claim that one species or another is in critical decline. Managers will be needed to monitor its progress, those managers will need grants, office space, capital for work stations, report production, maps and surveys, mortgages for head office, fleets of vehicles, power tools, websites, various infrastructure needs, grants from suitable sources for managing volunteer programmes and investment to raise further funds needed to apply for grants to raise even more funds, and many more. This is not kidding – all are evidence based observations drawn from watching Sheffield Wildlife Trust. Presence on the ground, for them, is very low priority. And biodiversity is a word that nobody questions. It is so self-evidently a good thing that it's believed you can use it to win any argument.
How many assaults on natural beauty and wildife are justified by playing the biodiversity card? They don't need to go into details. Just intone the word.
_____________________
* In 2015 the RSPB shot 63. Since then how many? They're keeping quiet. But they are shooting foxes, I believe.
Adoption Agency
An item in the news this week indicated that as a country we have an adoption crisis. A good time for a small booklet to appear in the home from WWF. All these wildlife charities are intensely focused on finding ways to raise funds. This booklet is full of adoption ideas.
Among their enticing projects are:
Adopt an Elephant
Adopt a Polar Bear
Adopt a Penguin
Adopt an Orang-Utan
etc. etc.
This brings to mind a documentary on Channel 4 earlier this year called 'Conservation's Dirty Secrets'.
I'm wondering how long it will be before Wildlife Trusts here and elsewhere pick up this idea. Raising funds seems to form the greatest portion of their activities. They might decide on 'Adopt a Badger' as that fits with their emblem but my observation suggests they have little interest in wild mammals. Or considering their obsession with birds they might aspire to 'Adopt a Dartford Warbler'.
Even more appropriate could be this, considering the main focus of Sheffield Wildlife Trust's activities:
We're not short of alternatives though. What about 'Adopt a Barbed Wire Fence' or 'Adopt a Deskbound Conservationist'? Or even 'Adopt a Farm Subsidy'?
As far as WWF is concerned isn't this a bit unseemly? Something of a beauty contest or X factor attitude to conservation. Probably reflects most on how they see their supporters.
Among their enticing projects are:
Adopt an Elephant
Adopt a Polar Bear
Adopt a Penguin
Adopt an Orang-Utan
etc. etc.
This brings to mind a documentary on Channel 4 earlier this year called 'Conservation's Dirty Secrets'.
I'm wondering how long it will be before Wildlife Trusts here and elsewhere pick up this idea. Raising funds seems to form the greatest portion of their activities. They might decide on 'Adopt a Badger' as that fits with their emblem but my observation suggests they have little interest in wild mammals. Or considering their obsession with birds they might aspire to 'Adopt a Dartford Warbler'.
Even more appropriate could be this, considering the main focus of Sheffield Wildlife Trust's activities:
We're not short of alternatives though. What about 'Adopt a Barbed Wire Fence' or 'Adopt a Deskbound Conservationist'? Or even 'Adopt a Farm Subsidy'?
As far as WWF is concerned isn't this a bit unseemly? Something of a beauty contest or X factor attitude to conservation. Probably reflects most on how they see their supporters.
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