Why Does S.M.P. Want Our Land?

The charities of RSPB, National Trust and the Wildlife Trusts are run in an aggressive business mode and are not transparent. Their records are not available to us as are those of our local authorities. Some information can be got from the Charity Commission and some from other sources but it's a job for a determined campaigner.
As Mark says (comment under Smoke and Mirrors)what's driving the SMP is huge sums from Higher Level Stewardship.
The National Trust received £2.6 million pounds last year from farm subsidies and there is probably a lot more that goes to its farmers but we are not allowed to know details of amounts nor the terms of their arrangements with them.

Land is a precious asset which grows in value. And the great thing about it is that you can call it agricultural land and get loads of money from  Common Agricultural Policy funds. No wonder they are so keen on taking over public land and being so obliging as to manage it for us using barbed wire and cowpats. Below is part of a recent article in the Daily Telegraph.

Whereas most people’s investments have been withering in barren bank soil, owners of UK farmland have seen their portfolios blossom and bear fruit. And, rather than being squeezed dry, profits look like they are going to get even juicier.
“The future actually looks good for farming,” says Christopher Miles, Savills’ director of farms and estates sales in the east of England. “Farming income was up by 25 per cent last year, and food prices globally rose by eight per cent. As a result, land is very much in demand; the other day, we put a 1,000-acre block of land on the market in Norfolk, and it sold within a week.”It’s not just the value of the land that brings in the buyers, either; it’s the fact that you can pass it on to your family without HM Revenue wanting a slice.
“The agricultural element of your estate is inheritance tax-free,” explains Miles. “You have to have owned the land for two years, and although you have to be farming it yourself, you can, in fact, contract that work out. There are always farmers wanting more land, and if they don’t have to buy it, they can make more profit.” So let’s get this right. Not only are you buying a commodity that increases in value by £44 per acre per month, but you can hand it down tax-free to your children and grandchildren. Sounds like a bargain. Wait, though, it gets better; on top of all that, the European Union will give you money.It’s called the Common Agricultural Policy direct payment, and although we don’t know what each UK farmer gets (the European Court of Justice has declared it illegal to publish how much is given to individuals), we do know that the National Trust got £2.6 million last year for its farmland, and that there are 13 people in the UK who each got more than a million euros, plus one who got 1.97 million euros.“This idea of wealthy people accumulating large entitlements to receive income support from the state is rather uncomfortable,” says Jack Thurston, a campaigner for greater EU openness, and co-founder of farmsubsidy.org. “If I were in the business of providing income support to farmers, I’d make it means tested, like the rest of the welfare system.”




There are some rather questionable conclusions suggested towards the end of the full article which you can read here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/editors-choice/9263685/The-new-viking-invasion.html

Smoke and Mirrors

What is going on at Sheffield Moors Partnership and is its master planning process just so much smoke and mirrors? The more they talk about strategic roles and the more they invoke the hazy concept of sustainable landscapes the more suspicious we get and the more we cry out for transparency; a transparency that is, er, well, transparent and not bureaucratic obfuscation. I would like to talk to anyone who can explain convincingly in concise terms just what’s going on. I still have no idea just what a master plan will look like despite all the questions I’ve asked and meetings I’ve been to. A true test of transparency surely? Will it be two sides of A4 or will it be a lengthy glossy brochure hyped and scattered with dramatic promotional photos with the serious stuff effectively disguised in a lot of tedious narrative?

One thing I’ll bet my last pair of stripy socks on: it will be certain to stimy any chance of us making Shefield Wildlife Trust accountable for the mess they are making of managing Blacka Moor and putting them on the right rails in their next management plan.

The SMP master plan process has now ended its second phase. The impression is that the main object is to make it look as if there has been a thorough if confusing process of citizen engagement while in reality no meaningful consultation has taken place except among the self-elected partners themselves in their early awaydays before the public and the elected members got wind of what they were up to. And only strictly limited information about that has been allowed to be filtered into the public domain. Yet, and this has to be repeated constantly, these officers are employed by us using public and charitably donated funds.

Eyes were focused from the start on the importance of getting their preferred approach approved by Sheffield Council’s Cabinet at a later targeted date. Public engagement or consultation is a mere detail with a role in the process but not the main point of the exercise. It thus becomes simply a means of giving some democratic legitimacy to what they’ve decided to do anyway.

Experienced officers within SCC know the conventional form and content of such reports and focus their attention on getting all the ingredients in place. So the wider and more vital duty of ensuring there is a well run and participant friendly consultation involving informed comment and intelligent dialogue is at very best a secondary priority - if it is seen to have any place at all.

The first meetings were ‘ideas gathering’ at which those attending were asked to write things on post it notes. The initial questions were about the process not about what we wanted for the moors. SMP’s facilitator said very clearly this was not a consultation. When people had written on post it notes they could go home – they had been told there would be no summarising or rounding up later on. That was for another meeting several weeks later, a Feedback Session, at which there was a brief report to the much smaller assembled gathering identifying some of the things that had come out of the exercise. Then there was a half hearted groups session and my experience was perhaps typical – anyway it was much like others that the conservation industry sets up. Chairing left much to be desired and you didn’t know where the process was leading. The most important and challenging issues were downplayed to fill in time with those that nobody could seriously argue with but had the advantage of taking up valuable time.

Now what happens next, because each time there’s a meeting they give a sort of indication that more serious consultation will be coming later without being specific?
All is calculatedly hazy. One thing we have been told: that they intend now to write the Draft Masterplan. So they consider they have now done enough consultation or engagement or debate and discussion to be able to do this. But shouldn’t the vision that guides the way forward have had some public work done on it before the plan can be formed? Their technique is well established. Avoid at all costs a challenging situation at which there is well informed and well thought out examination of the issues and fill up the responses with general approval or neutral comments from people who are coming at the subject freshly or only after hearing their presentation. And the feedback from these sessions is filtered through their reports which cannot be scrutinised.

Once the Draft Masterplan is ready they take it to various venues during the summer: garden parties and church fetes and agricultural junkets at which they will arrive with a landrover and trailer adorned with posters telling us what a wonderful landscape this is and how much SMP value it. This will attract the attention of people at a loose end or bored with the other displays. A rehearsed but carefully informal chat will elicit general support from people who may never before have seriously considered the issues and will have no background experience of.

But will there be any kind of intelligent debate among the well-informed? My best guess is - not if they can help it.

The Voice

There is music and there is music.

Any citizens who can drag themselves away from the pounding inflexible rhythms in a typical Ipod or similar sounds in a city centre shopping experience should get themselves to the nearest spot of quiet woodland and listen for the stunning song of one of our commonest birds, the blackbird. It is at its best in the middle of May and there is simply no creative event that can compare with it however much you're prepared to pay.

My local blackbird, much as I hate to criticise him, does not have the advantage of the essential ingredient of a woodland acoustic. His heroic work from the television aerial beats most of the stuff that comes from the local transmitter. But it's the resonance that returns his own sound to the woodland blackbird must influence the quality. All the best concert halls have wooden panelling which is one reason why Sheffield City Hall is unsatisfactory. And town birds are  always a bit more pressing. It's the easy relaxed delivery that wins every time. Born to sing, no need for forcing.

This is the standard by which all music should be judged.

Seconds Out

It might have been called Strictly Come Staggering if this writer could bring himself to say it.

Living in herds brings many opportunities for rivalry. When fully equipped, stags usually deal with competitive behaviour much lower down with more potent weaponry. When they’ve carelessly discarded their antlers they have to try other ways of showing who’s to be reckoned with. Notice the expressions of the lookers on, male and female.

Wait till you see my right hook….

Bower

The word bower suggests a place where an individual can retreat to escape certain undesirable elements. In this case the most undesirable was the north wind but there is more than that. It is tranquil without being silent. Just a dry rock is all the comfort needed.The sound of water in the stream below is just the backing for birdsong and the breeze at the tops of the birch and beech. But the greatest pleasure comes from the new greens decorating the tracery of hundreds of thin twigs as early morning sun floodlights the woodland roof. This tracery is attractive in winter but in May it becomes a joyous spectacle.

As we sat the birdsong subsided and a female sparrowhawk raced through between the branches.

Normal

What is normal conditions when we go from an extended period of dry weather to weeks of rain? But normal is what it felt for mid May this morning despite the cold wind and remembering what the Bard said. And the falls are neither a mere trickle nor a raging spate.

Virtual Elegance - Actual Squalor

Take a look at Sheffield Wildlife Trust's impressive new website - now that must have cost a small fortune. And it's designed to tell just the story that reassures the public and their corporate supporters that this is a superior organization, one that really knows what it's doing.

Now put away your screens and get out into the real world. Maybe try a visit to Blacka Moor itself, SWT's premier managed site, or 'nature reserve' as they choose to call it.

Most people enter Blacka via the small car park near Stony Ridge. This is the main entry point for their most important site so you would expect that some care and thought would be given to its presentation. The first thing you see are the old power line poles that have been there for more than a month.

They were brought here after lying out on the moor conspicuously for several months previously after being sawn off before Christmas. Do you wonder that nobody from SWT seems bothered? Regulars on Blacka don’t wonder at all. It’s what they expect. Move on through the gate in the direction of the attractive woodland. The rhododendron along the track here has been discussed a number of times with SWT including more than once at the RAG meetings. The conclusion of these discussions was that any shrub removal would be done gradually and sensitively with attention paid to the visual appearance of the area and the unique contribution the evergreens make to sheltering the excellent woodland on the other side. It had been agreed that no work would be done to rhododendron at this side.

What we thought was decided has been ignored and large amounts have been cut and unsightly piles left as they dropped. It's been like this for months. A few yards on as the stream comes in from the side you can see a wide assortment of litter.

They choose not to have a regular warden preferring to put their human resources into other things, presumably administration and office duties including developing a wonderful website, expanding their organization and general management priorities such as promoting their ‘brand’. In this age of the screen virtuality takes precedence and those who you need to impress (and persuade to donate funds) may never visit Stony Ridge car park and experience the cold draughty world of reality. It is a fact of today’s management approach that the virtual is more important – and crucially easier to control.

Another 50 yards takes you inside the woodland and here you see the full impact of work done to remove rhododendron. The woodland was delightful before they started. Now we’re presented with another of SWT’s trademark unfinished projects – and they usually go on being unfinished for ages while they go off to do other things.

This job was begun before Christmas and having laid waste the rhododendron they have stopped, leaving wood piles everywhere. I’ve mentioned these piles of wood before comparing them to leg-cocking.

There is a mystical significance for SWT in these piles: a talisman or a fetish perhaps. If any student of heraldry should design a coat of arms for SWT it would have a pile of wood in one section a giant cowpat in another, a tree stump in a third and the whole linked decoratively with twists of barbed wire. Alternatively replace their badger logo with a cowpat and a pile of sticks.