The Baron

Through the dense mist he stood much as he did last year when I named him Baron of Blacka. He is largely unknown to the media so not worried by fears of competition from the 'Beast of Bushy' down in the over-populated south, and he may never have heard of the Emperor of Exmoor (deceased). These stag stories in the autumn papers will probably now become a regular seasonal feature along with the World Conker Championships.

There were hinds and accompanying young nearby and further off a rival stag moved away quickly as we walked past. Unlike the Bushy situation this is a landscape fit for wild animals largely self-regenerated over many years and all the better for that. Though we know people who would like to be able to say it's this way because man made it so. The pity of it all is that year by year it is returning to a more managed state. It will take some explaining away, the story of this year. The deer who were so much in residence all last year and the early part of this have been marginalised to the extent of being rarely seen at all from the moment that the farm animals arrived. Even in the present season, normally of most activity, you will have been lucky to see them at all and then most likely in the woods and the woodland edges. Yet months ago we were seeing herds of some size browsing where ever since the cattle have been in boring and extravagatingly defecating occupation. An alternative explanation would have to relate to their avoiding people on the assumption that they were hiding up during the day and coming out at night. There's always been an element of that of course but I'm not aware of a huge increase in numbers of visitors here which seem roughly comparable with the last two years. Hinds have been always more secretive with good cause and they have been present all year well hidden in the dense rewilded areas where young can be safer than anywhere in the whole region. That is why the stags are now more in evidence. Let's hope the farm livestock are taken off soon to allow the deer to reclaim the natural landscape that is their heritage.

Subsidy Anyone?

What is the purpose of farm payments and subsidies? Some of us thought that it was all about ensuring that production of food is a good deal for those working on the land which in turn leads to a continuous supply in the shops.

It has been complicated by the tendency for some farmers to over produce often by cutting corners and leading to industrial scale over-exploitation of the land. So to stop them they are offered sweeteners which say, for instance, leave that corner alone or don’t root out that hedge and we’ll compensate you for what you could have got.

This becomes crazy when you apply it to publicly owned non-agricultural land. Back in 2005/6 when people began discussing Sheffield Wildlife Trust’s plan to put cattle on Blacka there were a number of RAG meetings and a facilitated consultation which extended over 7 months. One of the things the opponents brought up was that doing this turned the land into farm land which at that time it was not. This was roundly denied by SWT’s supporters though it seems interesting in hindsight that SWT themselves were fairly muted about that preferring to let their followers speak for them. They have in fact never been keen to talk about this. They are a private organisation after all and disclosure doesn’t come naturally.

Some of that information is now available and can be published here. The first thing to say is that what was said in 2005/6 was already out of date. Blacka already was agricultural land and had been since 2002 when the Countryside Stewardship Agreement was signed. That was not made at all clear, but as we should know, one of the techniques of management is to keep key information close to your chest..

Each year SWT now claims funds from farm and agri–environmental schemes. It would be nice if this was transparent and if it was a simple arrangement. Some of us naively thought before looking into it that the Single Farm Scheme meant that you put cattle on the land and that made it farm land and you were given cash according to the number of hectares and perhaps the number of cattle. But that’s to reckon without character of bureaucracies which tend to complexity. Anyway the payments made to SWT by the Rural Payments Agency over the last 5 years have been
2005…..£520
2006…..£845
2007…..£745
2008…..£950
2009….. SWT seem to have forgotten to submit a claim
2010…..£4,988

These may not be huge sums but they should be put alongside Countryside Stewardship money which is paid from Natural England. There is also separate money for Single Farm Scheme which is paid to the grazier for putting sheep on the pasture land. One should also bear in mind that in combination, presumably with other land sites that SWT manage, they get more than £12,000 from the Rural Payments Agency. They are also constantly seeking out other funding opportunities from organisations such as the Forestry Commission and various polluting industries that pay to gain environmental brownie points by arrangement with NE by offsetting their dirty work elsewhere.

The most intriguing thing here challenges our understanding that the cattle grazing was linked to Single Farm Payments and Countryside Stewardship Agreement moneys. We’ve already mentioned the fact that CSA money was paid even in years where they broke the agreement.

In 2008 and 2010 there were no cattle on the moor yet more SFS money was claimed and paid than in other years. In 2010 for example £4,988 Single Farm payments were claimed and also £4,543 CSA when there was an understanding that this money was being paid on condition that cattle were grazed.

Whatever you make of the amounts and the years there can be no doubt that this part of the moors is now firmly agricultural land, having survived for many years developing its own character as an independent entity.

And we can’t wait to hear SWT tell us what a brilliant job the cattle are doing against all sorts of criteria.

Back to Weather

Real weather in England is about change. There was plenty of change this morning. That's not been the case for months. Not continuous sun, but dry stream beds and dry footpaths. This stream can be a torrent but has been just dry stones from July on.The gentle flow today was welcome.



Cattle have left their mark on the bank.

We started with drizzle and layers of mist, then the growing light revealed the crooked spire leaning into the prevailing wind.



As if to insist that autumn should be about colour, after yesterday's post, the sun then went too far and with the dark sky behind turned all into a stage garden, challenging our sense of real.

Styles

Not all native trees join the fashion for vibrant autumn colour. We're all guilty of emphasising the bronzes and oranges displayed by beech and oak and birch. But washed-out can also be effective. Ash and elder contribute in ways of their own.

Dangerous animals

It was at one of the meetings in Totley last year (euphemistically called consultation meetings) for the Eastern Moors Partnership that farmers called for a cull to be made of the wild deer. They were quoting vastly inflated numbers since adjusted down considerably by EMP. One of their key arguments was that they were a danger on the roads and it’s certainly true that deer can jump fences with ease and are large animals. An impact at speed can result in serious injury and worse for the motorist – though it’s rare people consider the animal which never voted for the party that decided to have the road built. At the time I suggested a cull of sheep would be more proportional based on my personal observations. To put some statistical backing to my claim I’ve asked the local police to give me figures of reports made to them by the public of deer and other animals on the roads.
There are two police forces involved. One is South Yorks Police and the other is Derbyshire Constabulary and because of the different ways they keep records I’ve kept the information separate. The incidents I’ve looked at relate to road around the Eastern Moors and Burbage.
From South Yorks Police the reports listed of animals on the roads over two years are as follows:

Cows 14
Sheep 31
Dogs 4
Deer 1

From Derbyshire Constabulary over one year the figures are

Cows 8
Sheep 10
Dogs 1
Deer 2
Badger 2

As can be seen from this the chances of your hitting a cow are some 7 times more likely and a sheep some 13 times more likely than a deer. Nevertheless I would recommend that anyone driving on these roads should moderate their speeds especially at night.

Some interesting snippets from the information: One report mentioned a swan and another reported a pheasant on Bramall Lane! Another report from close to the city wa of a duck and ducklings on Duchess Road.

It’s probable that we didn’t need to scour these reports to conclude that any claims from farmers should be listened to with some scepticism. They are in the forefront alongside the conservation industry in shouting that all our countryside must be managed or there will be some kind of catastrophe, (God help us). If you were really keen to exterminate wild deer and anxious to get evidence to back up your prejudice you would be tempted to point to the Bushey Park herd. But you would then have to explain that behaviour in the completely different surroundings of a walled in park with large numbers of visitors getting close up would be automatically replicated in the wide open spaces out here. Nobody has yet suggested excluding cows from the countryside despite regular deaths caused by attacks on walkers. On Blacka now you're less likely to be charged by a stag than slip on a cowpat and break your neck.

Friends and Cronyism

A group from Friends of Blacka Moor went along to the Lord Mayor’s Reception for Friends Groups at Sheffield Town Hall on Saturday. We decided it could be a good opportunity to meet and talk to Council officers who were involved in one way or another in meetings with Sheffield Moors Partnership. Friends Groups are mainly engaged with urban parks and have been set up in a semi-official way, typically groups of local people pretty fed up with run down facilities and poor standards of maintenance in what should be at the heart of their neighbourhood. The council in the way that councils do has in many cases absorbed them into their institution and embedded them into a strategy which makes hands on work contracted out to volunteers while their own employees are largely deskbound.
FoBM was never one of these groups. Yes we pick up litter as and when we see it but our main activity relates to trying to get the management vandals to see sense and stop ruining an area that had become an exceptional natural site. If we go along with SWT’s volunteer programme they would have us helping them cut down birch trees, and patrol around counting cattle and doubtless polishing their barbed wire and sending in emergency messages to their HQ when one of their several thousand notices loses a staple in the top left corner.

At the meeting there was a certain amount of predictable cheerleader stuff. What a grand job you volunteers are all doing. What a lot of money you have saved and brought in for the council. Let’s hear it for the hard working inadequately resourced parks staff, rangers Parks department officers etc. (cue applause).

It was helpful to have the chance to tell Paul Billington the new Director of Culture and Environment that the decision to hive off Burbage is too important to be left to a Cabinet who know very little about the issues advised by dodgy reports from officers who have no scepticism gene. And that consultations should happen before any such decision is considered and that they should start with a blank sheet – definitely not run by Sheffield Moors Partnership after they’ve already been promised the land.

I also talked with SCC officers who were at the SMP Action Planning junket. This gave some idea of the mindset among the local officers. Most if not all their information must come from other like organisations and their personnel. Gathering together in such matey situations creates a tendency to cronyism and no alternative views are heard never mind anything radical. So things get taken as read. There is a tremendous pressure towards inertia, group conformity and stagnation. One person says something and the others go along with it qualified only by the odd currently fashionable gesture towards community input. At some point a scrap of meaningless superficial nonsense surfaces to general approval and gets elevated to a new jargon helping to builds walls of obscurity around the emerging 'vision' – it has to be a 'vision'. And the more obscure the more it's decared to be transparent.
It’s also noticeable when you get close to these people in the same industry that they have been conditioned to stick together and tell the same story. You wonder what has happened to those who think and speak differently.

Bellows Below

Coming when kneeling down to admire a mushroom there’s a second’s hesitation before I fully understand what I’ve heard. But on repeat there’s no mistaking the deep vibrations of the stag’s bellow in the woods. He was a little further down and through the dense growth an antler could be seen;
and in front of him the rear view of a hind racing away. Strolling through the woods I hoped to see them further on.


But, not for the first time, was thwarted from getting closer by the barbed wire.