"Please Love Me"

There's a story about a sad postman who has no friends and never gets letters. He becomes so jealous of those whose letters he delivers that he steals some of their letters and writes letters to himself.*  This was before the age of social media. It came to mind when reading another document associated with SRWT's management plan, a report on comments made in their dodgy public engagement events.

Some of the comments reported are so obviously written by SRWT people themselves that you wonder yet again at their failure to see they will be found out. It's another example of the survival of the school playground in the practices of local conservation charities.

They've made this easy by making all comments anonymous. And that's even easier with an online consultation when one person can make many comments; they don't even need a pseudonym. They have form on this.

I think you're doing a great job. Keep it up

Common practice in the advertising industry for many many years. Why should the conservation industry be any different?

Says Mrs D. of Parkhead. " My life has changed since I started to use the new Blacka. I would never have thought that barbed wire and cowpats could make such a difference. My thanks go out to all the wonderful people at Stafford Road"

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* May be by the wonderful children's author, Joan Aiken. ( Actually she also wrote much excellent adult fiction)

The Threat of Minimalism

Always we have to remember that the landscape managers must have their landscape to manage and that they cannot allow anyone to get away with suggesting that landscape should be left to its own natural salvation. Nature is the enemy and without the all powerful manager all is disaster. That is why the SRWT is really the SRAWT the Sheffield and Rotherham Anti-Wildlife Trust. And that is why a disproportionate amount of office time is spent by wildlife trust employees in trying to find reasons for stopping natural processes and very little on protecting nature. It sounds perverse and it is perverse but so much resource is put into propaganda that a surprising number of gullible people are taken in by it.

We've discovered from their DAFT management plan that the key statement in the 2006 Vision has been changed from the simplicity of Wild with Minimal Interference to something much more ambivalent:

A feeling of wildness, with minimal interference; there will be as little management as possible, but as much as required to realise the vision.

The document then goes on to describe page after page of projects to interfere in innumerable ways that change the character of Blacka. In every way they can they look out for ways of interfering because that is what they do. Time and again they identify natural regeneration as a threat - to views, to archaeology, to women's safety.  They make the most they can of the scope it offers for management - normally an excuse for attacking the natural regeneration of wildlife, ie the trees and the bracken which from autumn through winter is one of the most beautiful sights on Blacka.

Wild Views and Open??

This promises to be tedious but it has to be done to stand up to the bureaucratic vested interests represented by SWT's (SRWT's) ghastly daft DRAFT plan. More will follow but the first to be put up for examination here is Section 6.3.4     My inserted comment highlighted so.

6.3.4 Habitats, vistas and views The impression of wilderness, freedom and adventure provided by the mixture of open space, dense woodland, deep hidden valleys and unmarked paths, is a significant part of the attraction that Blacka Moor has for its visitors (see the Vision at the beginning of the management plan). During the most recent public consultation (autumn 2014) reserve users again affirmed their support for the site to be kept ‘as it is now’, listing the mosaic of habitats, rough paths and tracks and views over, and out from, the site over the city, as features integral to their enjoyment.

SWT is again telling us that people want what they want and they have lied about this before.
We know that  their survey was corrupt because it was anonymous. At the only meeting I attended there were more people from SWT and other conservation groups than independent members of the public. I know - I asked for a raising of hands. It was easy for anyone from SWT to submit multiple responses to their online survey and they themselves assessed the answers received. They have a reputation for this kind of fraud. Even then 'as it is now' can be interpreted many ways.

The shift from moorland to woodland over parts of the reserve has caused concern amongst some users. Many walkers, particularly women who visit the reserve alone or in female-only groups, value the open areas of the reserve, which offer good visibility and so feel unthreatening to explore. Although the risk of assault in country areas is significantly less than in urban ones, many surveys have shown that fear of attack inhibits some women from exploring rural areas generally, and woodlands in particular. Several current reserve users have stated that they plan their routes to incorporate as much of the open areas as possible, and actively avoid more enclosed areas.

Hard to believe they are still making themselves ridiculous by using this desperate argument about women and open areas. What about these 'many surveys' that never get referenced when this daft argument comes up? And these 'many women'? Has this any more force than my saying that many women I know tell me this is nonsense - because that is exactly what I hear. SWT staff should grow up and not use this absurdity to justify what they want to do. Does this anyway get cancelled out by those who fear cows, that cause more deaths in Britain than wolves across the whole of Europe?

Management of the reserve will therefore:

Protect and conserve the ‘wild and natural’ landscape and open views of the nature reserve.

This will involve the active control of birch and bracken on the heathland as these have been identified as elements that detract from people’s enjoyment of the reserve – birch because it blocks open views and vistas and gives a feeling of enclosure, and bracken because it displaces more attractive and wildlife-rich habitat, blocks paths and is unpleasant to walk through.

You absolutely cannot conserve a wild and natural landscape by cutting down and poisoning native wildlife. People who say this cannot expect their word to be trusted on anything. 
As for the weasel words "have been identified" !! By whom for G's sake? This ghastly document is littered with examples of attempts to mislead by using unspecific and unreferenced claims to justify a policy that is being undertaken for other reasons than those stated. The kind of thing is "many women" say, "many walkers".... "many surveys"...... Somewhere I'll soon find "It's widely believed that"...., and "It is acknowledged that"....  

The Essence

Essentially SWT (now SRWT) is about people wanting to pursue a career in land management and looking around for land  to manage. The draft management plan presently in draft form and out for responses encapsulates this, well hardly succinctly because it's too drawn out, but in one place. It's about making a case for intervention in a largish land area when many would say let's allow nature to go its own way.

The way they go about it is really quite straightforward. A decision is made that they wish to create as much opportunity for intervention as possible and they then look around for as many justifications as possible. What's wrong with this? The problem is that it's entirely the opposite process to what should really be happening. An honest approach would start with nature and accept that a default of no intervention should apply. Only in extreme situations with wide consultation should anyone try to fight natural processes. To them this is identified as a threat to their careers.

Apologies

Unfortunately it's not possible to avoid commenting on the wildlife trust's dreadful management plan draft. It's not much fun to read about it and it's even less fun to write about it. But they've set a deadline of the end of this month and there's a lot of it, nearly all highly questionable. If it goes ahead in this form it will be very bad for those things I and others have particularly loved about Blacka over the years. Comments made here will be put towards a response. Please contact me if you have anything to say.

This means there will be less time to devote to wildlife etc. This is the progressively corrosive effect of bureaucracy.

Feeling the Draft

SWT's (now SRWT's) Draft Management Plan  - link here.

There are other works of fantasy fiction out there but few that are so blinkered. The text is littered with errors, guesswork, half truths, managers' wishful thinking, devious motivations and and misinterpretations (just a start); that's the positive. Negatively there are the glaring omissions. In all this it encapsulates much that our fourteen years experience of SWT has already told us about them and their agenda.

Anyone determined to read and comment - and the interminable length is enough to put most people off ** - would be advised to approach it keeping in mind the wise question, "why would it serve their interests to say that?"

From the Draft Plan it's hard not to deduce that this is an organisation with little interest in wildlife but a great deal in finding opportunities for grant funded management activities.

** Not just the length which could be reduced by 70%. The file on the website has changed since being first published. I downloaded a copy to print off some pages and then found that the original had been altered and with different numbering. This was in the section that SWT had requested special attention to and which had been referred to in the email sent out with wrong numbers. Just a mistake? - heard so often before that it's become expected. Calculation or incompetence? Either is in their interest. Making it difficult for the public to read and comment only makes their own jobs easier if we give up and do something more rewarding. Most people have heard of confusion marketing. This is confusion management, or confusion consultation.

Heard at the staff meeting: " I know let's just pretend we're useless and often get things wrong" After all it's not hard to believe is it?

Company

This morning the two were happily sharing space. Would that humans could do this. Two species but both females.

But differences showed once my species turned up. Roe must be the most easily startled animal on the moor.

The hind moved downhill at a steady pace while the doe shot off at great speed. The usual white to the rear.

The hind found some more typical company.

A nearby stag preferred his own company and saw no reason to get out of bed