War Declared?

Gunshots in the early morning coming from the direction of the Eastern Moors. It's Monday and for some workers I guess slaughter of the innocents is a 5-day week activity. Well let's be thankful the RSPB is not yet signed up to 24/7.

I've not yet received the copy of their Stakeholder Committee minutes I was promised some weeks ago. I was told that the names of participants would be redacted. Apart from an incredulous splutter, further comment will have to wait .................................

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It's deeply frustrating that local people especially those engaged in single interest groups fail to understand the importance of transparency as a vital democratic essential. Some groups seem so flattered to be asked by managers to form part of a focus or stakeholder group that they  wallow in their new status and ignore the wider need for open public scrutiny.

Managers know this well. At early public engagement events for the Eastern Moors Partnership people were asked if they wanted to be involved with further consultative processes as 'stakeholders'. The managers then selected from respondents just those they were happy to engage with. This is profoundly undemocratic but they get away with it.

FoBM did put itself forward but its offer was rejected. When questions were asked  about who was appointed as a stakeholder the answer came back that this information was secret. The arrogance of this is astounding. Now the stakeholder meetings have presumably sanctioned the killing of wild deer on the moors but we're not allowed to know who these stakeholders are. Is Sheffield and the Peak District so out of touch with prevailing opinion across the rest of the country that the managers think they can get away with this?

Connecting Lynx

There are those who just can't see how one thing links with another. They are unlikely to do well on BBC's Only Connect programme. I too struggle, especially when making the link relies on a detailed knowledge of popular culture.

Only Connect's title is a direct quote from E M Forster who claimed our ability and willingness to make connexions was  the measure of our humanity and continued 'we should live in fragments no longer'.

The link between deer culling by the RSPB on the Eastern Moors and the centuries old persecution of wild predators in this region should be kept alive in the minds of all who have responsibility for this land. And that beautiful animal the lynx should be the subject of our thinking. SWT wants to see the reintroduction of the lynx. Unfortunately that's not our Sheffield Wildlife Trust but the Scottish Wildlife Trust. Well you have to start somewhere.

http://www.wildlifearticles.co.uk/eurasian-lynx-reintroduction-in-the-uk/

And all may be starting sometime soon: wild lynx in an area would keep the deer alert and constantly moving, as they should be. Infinitely better than shooting and much better than all the planning and surveys and bureaucracy associated with 'management'.

http://www.lynxuk.org/

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Environment/article1528585.ece

The second link is from today's Sunday Times, unfortunately behind a paywall but it begins thus:

WILD lynx, extinct in Britain for more than 1,300 years, could be released into forests in England and Scotland in the most ambitious “rewilding” scheme ever attempted in the UK.
If the scheme is approved, these big cats, which prey mainly on deer, will be released onto three privately owned but unfenced estates, in Norfolk, Cumbria and Aberdeenshire.
The Lynx UK Trust is today launching a public consultation to gauge public reaction to the plan, after which it will lodge a formal application with Natural England and Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), the government agencies that oversee such releases.

The Eurasian Lynx is found in Europe so is not on the endangered species list worldwide. But the Iberian Lynx is. It's been suggested that we introduce the Iberian Lynx rather than reintroducing the Eurasian to this country to enable a population to develop. But very recent news suggests that the Iberian Lynx has been seen in parts of Spain for the first time in many years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-31819357

The Last of Last Resorts

Only the most desperate situations should lead to the RSPB, a wildlife conservation charity, bringing in guns to shoot wild deer, one of the few native mammal species remaining from the stock of wildlife much ravaged and persecuted over the centuries. Those who accept the arguments without demanding more sustained and sceptical scrutiny of the decision are themselves guilty of a shallow and selfish attitude to wildlife - one that can be described as ' nice to see the pretty animals when I'm out here but don't have the time to consider any wider implications'. Is it not on a par with the wilful blindness that we see throughout local and international administration, from Rotherham nearby to HSBC.

Has anyone, apart from Friends of Blacka Moor, put these questions to the RSPB? If not why not? The questions are:

1 How come that in an important conference in July 2013 the RSPB chief local officer and spokesman said there were nowhere near enough deer on the Eastern Moors to manage the vegetation so they needed to use cattle? Yet just over a year later they were planning to shoot 25% of them? Who is really driving this?
2 Why are they not first getting rid of all farm livestock, even more effective destroyers of vegetation, given the statement in 1 above?
3 What evidence is there that they've considered and tried alternatives?
4 How does the conservation industry now maintain an enlightened position relating to badgers and birds of prey?

Good Points

It was the powerful smell that gave them away, a good minute before seeing them. After weeks of concern that they might have been targeted by 'deer managers' selling their services to local landowners looking to fill up the deep freeze, the relief was welcome. Six of the largest stags were wandering deep in the woods close to the area they have favoured each year when close to dropping antlers.

There was a range of ages from fourteen points down to four.  A couple are truly impressive.

With plenty of cause for feeling low, not just the RSPB deer cull and the footpath destruction on Blacka, it's good to have this. Perhaps spring too? Simultaneously the first mistle thrush had started up in the branches overhead.

Singing and Soaring

Signs of spring come slower than at lower levels.
A song thrush offered a few phrases above my head yesterday. Chaffinches have been getting into their stride for two weeks.

But above the trees in the eastern woods a pair of buzzards has been soaring, then swooping down

The customer base at the caff has slowly expanded after a dip in numbers during snowfalls when many dispersed at a time of interrupted deliveries. We no longer have the three robins (once five) but one loyal fellow remains. Plenty of tits sustained by the new feeders. Dunnocks and blackbirds are still here and the occasional nuthatch.

Reasonable Questions.

Below is a copy of the email I sent on 18th February, on behalf of Blacka users, to the Head of Parks and Countryside at Sheffield City Council. I've not yet received a reply, but a message from the cabinet member suggests that I will - eventually.

Dear Chris,

A recent message from Richard Harris ( SCC ‘Ecology Officer’) said my questions to him have been referred to you.

As you know I’ve been keen to see proper scrutiny of the work of SWT (now SRWT) in relation to Blacka Moor. I have raised a number of concerns over the years. I’ve struggled to receive a satisfactory account of what is in place to ensure that there is meaningful accountability both in the work that SWT plans and performs on Blacka and also of staff at SCC who have a role in coordinating with or monitoring the work of SRWT.

SCC takes the role of charitable trustees of Blacka Moor which was gifted to the public in 1933 by J G Graves. It seems only reasonable to expect that SCC takes this role seriously and that arrangements are in place to ensure that things are working well.  Whenever I’ve tried to get more information on this I get nowhere. I have to assume that SCC officers simply accept that SRWT is performing at a level even surpassing perfection itself and that there is no concern whatever about any aspect of the management. I have also to assume that this is communicated to elected members, in cabinet and in relevant scrutiny roles and that none of them have raised any concerns or even put forward a single query.

This must be strange considering the number of instances where there has been challenge to SRWT from myself and others.  You mentioned in reply to a request for information from me in March/April 2014 that:
“Council Officers retain a regular dialog with Sheffield Wildlife Trust regarding Blacka Moor and other sites that the trust manages on the City Council’s behalf.”
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/trustees_of_charitable_land#outgoing-345647

Yet I’ve been unable to get meaningful details of the content of these dialogues. There is one exception to this: Last year I raised with Stuart Turner the usefulness of the Sheffield Standard Assessment in relation to Blacka Moor which I described in a session of the Place Keeping Through Partnership event as inadequate and said I thought some regular users of Blacka might think it ‘a travesty’.

You may remember a Freedom of Information request I sent in about the role of the council as charitable trustees and the need for transparency and accountability. In your response you conceded that some things were not in place. You also told me that monitoring was done through Karen Lewis. When I spoke with her she said it was in fact through Richard Harris who is the ecology officer and meets SWT personnel at a group called Living Don. When I pointed out to him some things that were important he said, in effect, that these were outside his remit.

I would like to know whether SCC through you or through Cllr Bowler or some other responsible officer or elected member or committee has been communicating any concerns, or making indeed any queries at all, about SRWT’s performance. Is it indeed the case that SCC as a body implicitly believes and takes the word of SRWT on everything in relation to Blacka Moor which would surely be a unique situation in the story of outside agencies managing council assets?

As an example, but a significant one, an aspect of SRWT’s performance that I wanted to know about was the decision made by SWT to abandon its Reserve Advisory Group Meeting s while regularly  telling members they were just about to resume. I wanted to know whether anyone in SCC knew about this – yourself perhaps? And if so whether any concerns were expressed that Sheffield citizens were being calculatedly misled.

I hope you will be able to find time to respond to my concerns which you know I’ve been trying to raise for some time now.

Additionally I would like to know something about public engagement in relation to Sheffield Moors Partnership. When this partnership was first mooted at an official council meeting of the South West Community Assembly a resolution of the assembly was voted on in relation to stakeholder participation. Are members of the public engaged in any way?

Yours,