An Education

Blogging is a journey of discovery. About three weeks ago I had only the sketchiest knowledge of the mountain biking scene. Now I know some more. Following the concerted assault on this blog by packs of ill mannered and fixated MTBers I’ve begun to educate myself on the subject. It may be early days but so far I’m not that impressed by what I’ve found. (I distinguish between the promotion of cycling in towns and on roads and the promotion of cycling on footpaths in the countryside.)

It’s important to understand the issues. Most questions of policy and controversy are decided with regard to money and jobs and business and profit. Right and wrong, sadly, come well down the field. So if you’re an impartial and independent observer and just want to make your mind up on the basis of the general good you find there are strong and determined voices being raised to point you in the way of sectional and vested interests.

These thoughts arise from the Blacka question of mountain biking. Some of the ways jobs and profit come into this:
a) manufacture of bikes and accessories,
b) distribution and retail of the same,
c) import of the same,
d), advertising products;
e) magazine production and journalism – more advertising.
d) the public and private funded running of courses by appointed officers and others in the outdoor pursuits industry and even in universities.

I’ve probably missed out several elements from this list.
All this adds up to an incentive for many people to promote bikes, to present biking in a positive light and also to show it to be ‘cool’ and exciting, even ‘sexy’ (though I’ve not myself yet seen scantily clad bimbos advertising mountain bikes). This is the norm these days anyway. Anything that’s good for business and jobs and the economy is deemed to be de facto right and good (as an extreme example just ask Tory MP Nigel Evans whose constituency contains a branch of an international arms manufacturer).

Cycling was allowed on bridleways under the terms of the 1968 countryside act at a time when nobody anticipated the coming development and marketing of mountain bikes with their robust engineering and thick tyres. It’s interesting to speculate if it would have happened otherwise. One thing we can be pretty certain of: even that law change would never have gone through if it had been seen that it would lead to biking on ordinary public paths. Now it’s the policy of organisations that speak for mountain bikers to lobby to have the whole network of public footpaths opened up for bikers. That’s no secret, most of them actively campaign for this and have no commitment to the present legal situation. The Single Track magazine is written from this perspective and the CTC (Cycling Touring Club) also encourages its members to get onto Local Access Forums and speak up for their policy. It’s not at the moment legal for bikes to use PRoWs in England and Wales but the growing militancy of MTBers could well lead to a move to allow this. Councils like to think they are ‘bike friendly’ without always making the distinction between encouraging cycling to work instead of driving and the quite different activity of downhill mountain biking through woods and green spaces.

So I was looking for an explanation for the irrational and farcical outbursts from MTBers when they discovered I had criticised some of their number two years ago. The reason is now clear to me. They are promoting the activity and some of them make a profit or career out of doing so. The bike industry and economy needs growth and they can only get this if more youngsters take up the sport. They lobby for public footpaths to be opened up to them and they will only succeed in this if they can so skew the arguments that they can get people to believe what is frankly not credible, i.e. that this would have no impact on the paths themselves nor the experience of walkers. My experience suggests that there are so many feeble minded people in public office that the MTBers may be justified in thinking they can achieve this. So it’s no good keeping mum about it. More people should be alerted to what’s happening.

Blacka Moor is a place where soft peat paths on the upper parts easily get damaged by various pressures (including inappropriately by a herd of cattle). It is located in just the kind of place to make it accessible for those who relish speedy downhill biking. Its essential character as a place noted for beauty wildlife and tranquillity will not survive much longer if it becomes a downhill racing theme park.

We Know Best

One of the agenda items put forward for the February 10th RAG (and also for several before that unsuccessfully) by FoBM was Evaluation of Cattle Grazing. Why? Because the controversial and unpopular practice of putting cattle on the moor had received very little proper examination. Whenever SWT talk about this they say words to the effect that ...oh we’ve talked and talked on this and we have to move on....or ...it’s had so much discussion and we hadn’t seemed to be getting anywhere. This is a cunning ploy. Yes people have tried to raise it on numerous occasions but SWT have refused to be pinned down about the specifics – that’s why people have continued to raise it. So they wriggle out of it in the aforementioned way – it’s a common practice among the beleaguered deskbound advocates of the unjustifiable.

Over many years now they have never been able to communicate effectively the supposed benefits of putting cows on Blacka. In fact I'm sure they just don’t know if such benefits exist. Anyway the response this time was they would put it on the agenda under 'Cattle Monitoring' – not the same thing perhaps? The way that this was planned was the old chestnut of putting people in groups and asking them to write down the pros and cons of cattle for visitors.

Hold on said one regular user of the moor, what about your evaluation? Presumably you wanted them to do a job before you put them on. So have you been monitoring and recording what they’ve done? By now you should be seeing some sort of results to justify continuing. Well no, they didn’t seem to be able to do that. But, continued the questioner if I was being funded to do some task or research I would expect to have to show some positive results to release funds to continue, etc. Ah but you see you can’t do that over just a couple of years says SWT. And of course we’re into ecology here aren’t we, and these SWT people are the only ones who could really be expected to understand the difficult ecological issues. Well so much for trying to avoid embarrassment. So people come along to these meetings in their own time to be told by (young and inexperienced) SWT they’re not qualified to understand why this is being done and just not up to scrutinising the project.

So who is doing the scrutinising? SWT themselves and Natural England? God help us all. It was their officers who were part of the original plan – saying 'it's just what's done'! Are they going to give an independent view?

Beware of rule by bureaucrats, especially those who claim to have 'expertise'. It's a case of we know best and how do we know we know best? Because we've done the assessments with the help of others who know best (because it was their idea). This more or less defines Conservation Accountability.

The Richness of RAGs

To experience fully the rich mix that is Blacka Moor one must attend a RAG meeting.

I had meant to post about the Reserve Advisory Group meeting (RAG) of 10th February but the bikers got in the way a bit (as I suppose they were meant to).

If you’re an SWT person RAG meetings are not what you look forward to. Does it show? Well yes it does. There’s always the worry that direct scrutiny might reveal something that should not be revealed – such as the managers not really knowing why something is being done or even what has been done and what will be done next; or on the other hand why certain things have not been done when the message had been explicit that they would be done. The people who know about these failings are those who really know the place and walk there regularly and they can be a thorn in the side because they actually see what goes on. So some effort must be applied to avoiding embarrassment.

So it’s helpful to have a diversion or a smokescreen that will enable time to be passed with a minimum of damage or embarrassment. One way of bringing this about is to arrange for a sizeable group to attend who’ve never been before, making continuity difficult or impossible and sometimes necessitating laborious explanations and distractions. The previous meeting in October was conspicuous for the sudden appearance of horse riders in a group who had never before attended over 9 years. This month it was six mountain bikers. Some might have thought they just happened to turn up but it is more complex. SWT had gone out of their way to invite them though this was not made clear at the meeting (I found a copy of a message sent to a biker encouraging attendance and saying that an agenda item put forward by me had been changed in favour of the bikers!). The same had obviously happened with the riders who arrived in force at the previous meeting. These sudden incursions can be defended by pointing out the rich diversity of users who must be accommodated. This is part of the way that SWT manages its meetings. Local regular users have a general interest in the site and lobby for no single interest but the wellbeing of the place as a whole can be marginalised by the sudden appearance of numbers of single interest people. Meanwhile the commitment that SWT made to advertise these ‘public’ meetings at entrances to the site, where the said regular general interest users would see them, is quietly dropped. Again no notices were posted for this meeting. If you advertise too much you don’t know who might come. When, years ago, notices were first put up on the moor encouraging public to attend they were large and clear. Over the years the commitment drifted - they sometimes didn’t appear and then did so but in much smaller print. Now they just don’t happen. So the attendance at meetings gets more and more managed and closer to being by invitation while claiming to be open to the public. I’m sure for example that when SWT reports to a council meeting it will restate its claim that the public are encouraged to attend. I have already suggested a 'by invitation' structure which also encourages public attendance something along the lines of Local Access Forums. I think that would be more transparent and honest. What we have now gives carte blanche to the managers to play games with a consultation – something that has been commented on before. Instead of a rich mix this is a turgid mess.

Breakout

At some point on Monday the woolly mowers rebelled against the imposed regime in the snow covered pasturage, stormed the fence and went off looking for something better. I admire their spirit. They have a genuine grievance.

The evidence for the escapade was there to see all around the eastern gate. Cloven footprints had trampled a good area. The gate had been opened to get them back in and another temporary repair had been made near the corner where it had always been likely that this would happen.

It must have been fun getting them back. I imagine it was done by a SWT work party out on the moor to make mischief with chain saws. One or two trees may be grateful for the distraction.


Now which of you lot is going to lead the next attempt?

A Reminder

A word or two directed to OTMers/MTBers. Before wasting time and effort commenting on posts written in 2008 please read carefully what I have written, especially in the last week or so. And if you sign in as 'anonymous' and if you absolutely have to be utterly boring please be boring in one or two sentences, maximum.

Roadway

Once this route was an old lane and the official way to Sheffield. That is before the A625 Hathersage Road was built. It is now a pleasant enough walk lined with trees, beech being prominent amid the birch. There were many footprints here this morning, as if a party of walkers had managed to get out later yesterday after the disruption of the morning's snowfall. Further out onto Blacka the only prints were those of fox and deer. Let's hope the trees in the picture are not being targeted by the chain saw wielders currently threatening several parts of Blacka.

Saturday Afternoon

Early sun through trees is one of Blacka's great sights. The morning is our preferred time at weekends. There's no problem getting into the car park then (though Friday night's contraceptives are a negative feature).

Recently weekend afternoons have been quite busy for Blacka if it's a fine day. For once this afternoon we saw no mountain bikes - and I disassociate myself from my companion's remarks to the effect that there must be a God after all.

Horse riders were being naughty and riding off the bridleway.

This follows the insistence of the grazier on driving his truck up the hillside. The riders started by following his route. Sooner or later there will be bikes, then motor bikes, then quad bikes and whatever else on wheels that can be manufactured and creatively marketed. Will SWT care? Only if they are made to.

The kestrel on the power line will probably persuade the RSPB to lobby against having them removed. In any struggle with them we will need God on our side!