No apology for returning to this topic. At entrances to Blacka Moor Sheffield Wildlife Trust have placed signs telling us that it is a Nature Reserve. Let's be clear about this. Blacka Moor is NOT a Nature Reserve except in the sense that I could call my back lawn a nature reserve.
Some reasons for this.
1 It is actually designated a public open space and a public pleasure ground.
2 There are official processes for the establishment of such things. Blacka Moor is not included in the long list of Nature Reserves within Sheffield according to Sheffield City Council. Nor is it in the even longer list of sites recognised as a Nature Reserves by Natural England the govenment's agency which licenses and regulates such matters.
3 The way SWT are managing the site is not natural. They are prescribing what they want rather than letting nature decide. For example instead of letting wild red deer 'manage' the vegetation by eating the tree seedlings they are importing alien farm cattle with barbed wire to enclose them. Is this natural?
SWT should in fact be a Farmlife Trust. They have no principled position on any of the issues around this. They are simply an organisation devoted to opportunism. If the money is available through grants to do things a certain way they will hold out their hands and take the cash. To call themselves a wildlife trust is merely to fly a flag of convenience. At the Icarus consultation meetings in 2006 they were noticeably uneasy about the developing consensus towards wildness and against farm management. They pulled the plug on those meetings, indicating that they had 'consulted' but didn't like the drift so they would go their own way.
1 It is actually designated a public open space and a public pleasure ground.
2 There are official processes for the establishment of such things. Blacka Moor is not included in the long list of Nature Reserves within Sheffield according to Sheffield City Council. Nor is it in the even longer list of sites recognised as a Nature Reserves by Natural England the govenment's agency which licenses and regulates such matters.
3 The way SWT are managing the site is not natural. They are prescribing what they want rather than letting nature decide. For example instead of letting wild red deer 'manage' the vegetation by eating the tree seedlings they are importing alien farm cattle with barbed wire to enclose them. Is this natural?
SWT should in fact be a Farmlife Trust. They have no principled position on any of the issues around this. They are simply an organisation devoted to opportunism. If the money is available through grants to do things a certain way they will hold out their hands and take the cash. To call themselves a wildlife trust is merely to fly a flag of convenience. At the Icarus consultation meetings in 2006 they were noticeably uneasy about the developing consensus towards wildness and against farm management. They pulled the plug on those meetings, indicating that they had 'consulted' but didn't like the drift so they would go their own way.
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