Stimulating Reading

Mark Fisher is consistently the most thought-provoking writer on landscape and conservation matters and his regular series of articles on his Self-Willed Land website display a deep understanding of and identification with genuine natural landscapes and their wildlife and considerable knowledge and expertise of ecosystems here and abroad. In writing about this he always hits home in a penetrating analysis of what is wrong with the British conservation industry.

I’ve just caught up with his October article, Forests Rocks and Torrents, which is beautifully written and linked to some stunning landscape paintings from an exhibition held recently at the National Gallery. The article dwells with much insight into our responses to landscape and should be essential reading for all who love natural and wilder land for its own sake. More than this it should be compulsory reading for those who aspire to manage and intervene in our countryside; if it doesn’t give them pause for thought they would be better off looking for a job in a supermarket.

For me one great thing about Mark’s articles is that all the instinctive suspicion I had already begun to develop about the constant stream of self justification coming from the conservation industry and its disingenuous apologists is put in perspective. Their pronouncements are shown to be serving the needs of the managers rather than that of wildlife and landscape.

The wildlife charities must hate the message that comes from these articles. And you can detect a kind of defensiveness in their more recent public pronouncements that owes something to the knowledge that their approach has been exposed as without a credible framework of knowledge or philosophy. Year by year the press releases seem to get more hysterical in their insistence that all must be managed as if managers themselves might be in danger of imminent extinction; sadly, far from it. The quote near the beginning of Forests Rocks and Torrents from the Liverpool professor about cultural landscapes is priceless. Yet they expect people to fall for the scare-mongering propaganda and inevitably many do.

There is now another article on Mark’s website, Forests in Europe. I know the great advantage of articles on the web is the ease with which you can link to references, but as an old-fashioned pre digital sort of person I hope that all these articles get collected and published in an old-fashioned book.

Normal

There was something not quite normal about the extended season of dry weather. So it was in way comforting to hear the roar of water pouring over the rocks.

The YEDL people were back after the snow though again only sitting in vans with engines running reading papers. We didn't stay to see what time they start work.

Blazing Woods

What is it about paths going through woods? Whatever it may be snow enhances it and sun on snow more so.
Though the spectacle of fallen beech leaves is past bronze and gold remain as a low slanting sunlight reaches parts not usually lit up. Ferns and small beech picked out like this are more decorative than any city centre Christmas tree.

Walking Lessons

More normal weather but the paths are taking more than a normal bashing. Two things are responsible for this being worse than necessary. Neither of them should be happening.



One is mountain biking on paths including a concessionary bridleway that SWT ‘closes’ in winter but does not enforce the closure, simply puts up one of its trademark A4 laminated sheets and then goes back to the office.

The other is SWT themselves who are incapable of sticking to their stated intentions. Cows should have been off the site months ago but remain creating as much mess as any mud-lover could wish for.



Whatever you view of what Blacka should be, more managed or less managed, there’s no excuse for allowing and even causing the paths to get in this state. We will soon need training in how to walk. Instead of lots of laminated notices giving misleading information about cattle what about advice on walking technique?

Laid Low

The scarcity of frost and heavy rain has helped bracken to stay upright in its dead bronzed state into December. Only a week ago it was standing tall.



Today’s wet snow will make a difference; it’s usually been forced down before this. There are large areas of bracken on Blacka and generally people don’t like it, seeing it as something undesirable and alien intruding onto the land. It’s rarely asked why people dislike it and why it’s there. An obvious question is what should be there that the bracken displaces? Many people would probably have some picture in their heads of a mix of grass and heather of the sort that is portrayed as a kind of ‘typical’ heathland. But as heathland is artificial and only exists in certain circumstances, when many conditions have been contrived to come together there are problems. While some kinds of heathland may remain stable for many years with minimal management others succumb to a bracken invasion even when management is carried out giving rise to calls for harsh intervention such as spraying with herbicide, cutting with heavy machinery etc. This seems hard on bracken that is a wholly natural plant simply going about its business. And that very harsh intervention also serves to damage other aspects of the vegetation.



My ‘take’ on bracken is that here it is simply responding to man’s over-exploitation in the past. The artificial suppressing of tree cover over many years has created ideal conditions for bracken to colonise and the spread of the ferns is therefore understandable, part of the process by which nature reclaims the land. Managers wanting to know how to respond to this have the simplest of choices: either attack with every tool at the disposal of industrial agriculture; or allow, even encourage, nature’s own remedy by allowing the colonisation to run its course in the shape of natural succession.



Trees will spread onto these artificially open areas in time and that will reduce the vigour of the bracken growth and gradually limit its impact. To follow this strategy you need to boldly acknowledge a perspective of many years during which the more vigorous species struggle for supremacy before eventually achieving a balance. During this lengthy period some species will take over for a time and then subside. But wilder land will always bring its own pleasures for the observer. The idea that a landscape whether artificial or otherwise should remain fixed in time is anathema to the natural world. A major reason for this being the obvious strategy is that returning the bracken dominated parts of Blacka to grouse moor status would be incredibly demanding. There is so much of it and the collateral damage would be unthinkable and so expensive as to bring the whole conservation industry into ridicule. But then is not that where they are already? It looks as if there’s only one way forward for responsible managers and I accept that they are hard to find. Natural and more wooded must be the future.

Hard Times

Opinions expressed here on the bureaucracy of landscape designations and directives from the EU and elsewhere are definitely not from an anti-nature or anti-wildlife perspective but from a desire to see more landscape untrammelled by management’s self-serving preoccupations.

Not so Mr George Osborne, who this week said: "We will make sure that gold-plating of EU rules on things like habitats aren't placing ridiculous costs on British businesses."

Interesting that whatever stands in the way of the agendas of very rich people gets referred to by them as ‘gold-plated’. Something to do with an inborn distaste for anything less than 24k?

It’s in hard times that we see if there’s any genuine commitment to the health of the planet and the natural world. Those who go along with green policies only when they don’t impact on the ease with which they, and their friends, can make lots of money as do many of our political leaders, are fine-weather environmentalists and opportunists.

What a pity that the protests of the conservation industry sound so hollow coming from those who have for so long had their fingers in the EU farm-subsidy till.

Sectors

Do you or did you work in a sector? A lot of talk by politicians about sectors lately, usually public and private. Much of the comment seems to be highly questionable but that subject’s not what this blog is for. Another sector talked about is the charities sector which takes us closer to home. Charities are promoting themselves as managers of Blacka and surrounding spaces, though, as I’ve regularly said, more thought and energy seems to go into the promotion than into the management itself. Eastern Moors Partnership have secured control over the Eastern Moors and they are proudly putting their insignia on sector boundaries and access points. Once you get through the gate here and onto their land you come into a problem that I’ve often suggested was a priority: the mountain–bike created mess that was once a favourite enjoyable footpath going up to the Bole Hill/Wimble Holme Hill saddle. This is worse than ever now and still no sign that anything useful is being done to stop the deterioration.
It is now unusable by walkers and a shameful indictment of all those who responsible for managing these areas. What can you say about them apart from that they are apparently unwilling to do anything that might irritate the mountain biking lobby? Or should I say the MTB sector?








Incidentally, I’m not sure whether utilities are also identified as a sector but following yesterday’s post about the power lines and suggesting things would happen quickly all has stopped. At one point early on 6 vehicles arrived and spent quite a bit of time with engines running and workers inside. By lunchtime no work had been done and the activity was confined to winching out a heavy vehicle that had been driven onto soft ground. This morning nobody at all. Unless they’ve had second thoughts and gone to the other end of the line.