More Trees Needed ...

... and a halt to subsidised shooting.

My last post was about the depression brought on when seeing the irresponsible and ugly clearing of trees on the slopes of Bole Hill.

By coincidence this article appears in the Guardian telling us that the recent floods are at least in part caused by the paying of public money to those who try to stop trees growing in the hills.

The insistence of the conservation industry backed up by Unnatural England that they must do all they can to maintain treeless landscapes in Britain's uplands is backed up by the wealthy campaigners representing the grouse moor owners  - with whom they work hand in glove in the Moors for the Future partnership. That organisation incidentally is the most amazing waste of public money imaginable.What they need to do on high Peak moors is plant thousands of native trees ad keep off the sheep. After that let everything manage itself. But like most projects in the conservation sector it's a massive job creation scheme. You don't produce a website like that without a huge input of public money subsidising a determined self-justification programme.

Here is the link to the informative report on grouse shooting published by Animal Aid as referred to in the Guardian article.

http://www.animalaid.org.uk/images/pdf/booklets/callingtheshots.pdf

I applaud the concluding statement of that report which succinctly states what many of us have been thinking:

Those involved in grouse shooting try to cultivate an air of selfless and astute stewardship of the natural environment. Birds are harvested, pests and vermin are controlled ... and a civilised day out is had by all. In reality,the shooting of grouse and all that goes with it is part of the long tradition of vicious country ‘sports’ that includes badger baiting and dog and cock fighting – activities that society at large has made unlawful because it regards them as uncivilised. Grouse shooting, for now, resists public opposition; it even receives tax payers’ subsidies. But the day cannot be too far off when it too will be consigned to history.

But why on earth do the practices of these hypocritical landowners get reflected so readily in the management of the conservation industry?

Some Letters About Accountability

Letter to Liz Ballard Chief Executive of Sheffield Wildlife Trust

Letter to Anne Ashe Chair of Trustees Sheffield Wildlife Trust

Written to Paul Billington Director at Sheffield City Council with responsibility for Parks and Green Spaces.

Written to 12 councillors in wards in the South West of Sheffield.

So far a brief acknowledgement from Anne Ashe saying she will reply later. And the briefest possible response from Paul Billington saying he'll ask Chris (Heeley) to deal with it. Nothing so far from Ms Ballard. Councillors have not had time.

Before Sunrise

Looking out over the city as people start to wake up.

Shortly afterwards just after sunrise, in the queue:

So What Matters?

Further to the post Who Asked Them? How can it be that a nature reserve could possibly put wildlife  as a lower priority than human concerns? Nobody can be in any doubt that management here is driven by money. Some don't seem to have noticed that wild animals don't use money so have no understanding of farm subsidies. Where are the people who make these decisions and why don't they defend them? One can only assume they have no confidence in what they are doing so hide away pretending nobody's asked the question.

I remember the meeting when a group of us were asked how the economy could be served by the Sheffield Moors? My contribution was clear and I think forthright: we need places which are free from all considerations of the economy; we get enough of that in our jobs and it's vital that we can get right away from work and business and the economy. Notes were written up later and distributed summarising people's comments. Mine were left out. Ideas like those I expressed are not particularly radical or absurd and many people agree. But they frighten these managers so much that they pretend they've not heard them. What cowards.

Dinosaurs

Sheffield and the Peak District still has its dinosaurs. The various landowners and their servants over the centuries may have killed off nearly all of the distinctive mammals that should be roaming this land but if you know where to look you may find evidence of prehistoric activity still going on not far from Blacka.

Try here first. It's where you will find links to the minutes of the Local Access Forum for Sheffield. Resistance to change in particular natural change, and refusal to accept new ways of looking at our landscape are easily found here. These are people whose names can be seen at the top of the minutes. Most of them have swallowed wholesale the propaganda from the conservation/moorland landowners/grouse shooters who love 'open landscapes' because they give jobs to managers and privilege ground nesting birds that shooters like to shoot.

This from the item on Wadsley and Loxley Common. As a forum restricted to access these dinosaurs have no remit to comment on conservation matters. Nevertheless they do and the public servants who should know better exceed their remit by recording their ill-informed comments

TB stated that there was a misunderstanding that neither the community or local councillors have been consulted and that SCC were going to face the same problems it has in Blackamoor. He stated that the Common is a very rare lowland heathland and the council is required by NE to protect it. TH said cattle are the best way to manage this area, it is the best way forward and RO seconded it. RK said with no management this area would resort back to woodland. The advantage of the grazing scheme means that fencing would be paid for by grants available whilst manual works could not be funded.**

One has to have compassion and understanding and it's clear these people have no sense of perspective, never having thought about the wider implications. But they have no authority to talk about 'rare lowland heathland' a concept that is totally phony anyway, invented as it was to give grouse shooters a chance to justify their anti-wildlife practices.

You have to understand too that some people spent many years of their lives believing that the moors were a natural landscape and it's hard to change your mindset once you're beyond retirement age. And these members of the Sheffield Local Access Forum have been around for a long time and are self- satisfied enough to believe they don't need to reconsider their views. Just as previous generations doffed their caps and tugged their forelocks to the gentry these dinosaurs kowtow to the spurious authority of landowners and Natural England dominated by the same landowners. 

Oh for just a dash of intelligent scepticism.

** It should also be noted that this Local Access Forum is about access and has absolutely no authority to make declarations about the management of land outside this specific area.

The Woods and 'The Open'

"Oh so you're the people who want it all to be woodland?" said some youngish people who had recently been talking with Annabelle the SWT manager, someone who  likes to put a partisan spin on things. My response was, as usual, to say that we simply want the site to be free from human control and to be allowed to express its own nature. If that means more trees, then so be it. I love trees and greatly dislike the dishonesty of managers who describe managed land as  'wild' or even 'wilderness'. When that land has begun a process of 'wilding' because of the absence of serious human intervention over many years bringing benefits not seen elsewhere it is the height of insensitivity and irresponsibility to go ahead with an anti-nature process of destroying native trees and then to institute a plan to make it more like farmland - when it has been farming practices over the last century that have caused the loss of so much valuable wildlife. When the organisation responsible is a charity dealing with wildlife and has the word wildlife in its name it is reprehensible.

Birch trees are native wildlife and those who destroy them have failed to appreciate what wildlife is and the value it has. If they can destroy natural growing trees they can easily destroy birds and mammals. I'm waiting apprehensively for news about their plans for the deer. The managers abhor the uncontrolled; they themselves are most likely the sons and daughters of farmers who have never thought it could be questioned that it is their birthright to control everything that grows and moves in the countryside.

The red deer came onto this land in response to the increased tree cover which had distinguished Blacka from nearby moors. Looking at the deer you cannot but notice that it is the unmanaged parts that appeal to them most. All that vegetation the conservation freaks seek to control and even destroy is their focus of attention. At this time of year deer are usually to be seen eating whatever greenery they can find - bramble and fern and others.

There is a lot of this  'impurity' in the heather much to the distaste of the conservation wallahs who should really be called gardeners; lots of stuff that the Heather Trust, Moorland Assocaion and other shooters hate to see because it compromises their weird idea that there is some kind of perfect pattern of heathland.

The deer come out of the woods to scoff this, often doing it at night to be discovered by the early morning dog walkers and others who stroll out to watch the sun rise. And it's fun to watch their elegant forms lit up by the early light of day.

But better still to find them in their secret parts of the woodland, to most people inaccessible but just needing a bit of persistence; and deer tracks are quite easy to follow, the animals having a natural instinct for finding the best gradients.

Who Asked Them?

Mark Fisher's brilliant talk at the Action for Involvement event last June began with this question "Who asked the deer?" Management Plans and HLS agreements are made, we all know, in the interests of landowners and just calling yourself a wildlife trust doesn't change that. The deer and the other wildlife, much of which is rarely seen, should be top of the agenda but it's the wellbeing of the managers that really matters.

The great thing about deer is that they are large enough for you to see with a little patience and persistence and they remind you that there are many other creatures much harder to see and just as important. The place to look for them today was where I had guessed. Proof that however dull witted one might be one eventually learns. As for the deer,  they are not so stupid as to ignore the benefit of being on the eastern side of a steep hill when a westerly gale is blowing. They also look wonderful in the woods where it's harder to see them and much trickier to focus a photo.

This part of Blacka has been one of the most secluded and untouched before SWT were given the site. Now they like to get their under-occupied volunteers and 'Wildscape' staff to fill in time cutting trees down in winter. To call it dysfunctional hardly suffices.

Truly nobody cares at all about wildlife. If they did they would leave the trees alone and stop discarding potentially dangerous items around that can cause injury. This barbed wire is bad enough in a fence like the one the eastern moors outfit have erected across Wimble Holme Hill. Just discarding it on the ground so is plain irresponsible.