SWT wants regular users of Blacka to take part in their "Lookering" scheme to help them to keep track of where the cattle are.
I shall not volunteer for this despite being possibly the most regular walker on Blacka Moor and therefore arguably in the best position to assist. That’s not to say, of course, that I would not do what I could to assist any animal in distress. Nor is it through any animosity to the grazier, but through principled and practical opposition to the whole grazing project.
Why?
1 I think SWT's grazing of cattle on the moor is wrong. It imposes a farming regime and brings farming practices to an area that had been refreshingly free from farming for many years creating many benefits and bringing a special atmosphere.
2 It is impractical. SWT have never sat down with those who have reservations and answered questions on the practicality and effectiveness even in terms of their own stated aims. The landscape of Blacka is unsuitable to the effective monitoring of domestic cattle. In July and August the rampant vegetation becomes so tall and wild that people rarely venture into certain areas at those times. In 2007 the cattle were very hard to locate.
3 The farming of the moor compromises the wildness that had become a characteristic feature bringing fences and other farming essentials. It also threatens to erode the characteristic pathways.
4 It is wasteful of public money. Each year the grazier is being paid public money through the Single Farm payment per hectare of land grazed. This creates a built in motive for the operation. There has also been a very large investment of public and charitable funds in the construction of a huge grazing enclosure – estimated £20,000 on barbed wire alone plus at least that amount on other boundary work.
5 SWT have steadfastly refused to consider that there should be a regular on-site worker part of whose job could be to monitor the progress of their own scheme. Why then should regular users opposed to that scheme help them out?
6 There has been a degree of misrepresentation by SWT of the decision making around the introduction of the scheme. It has been presented in publicity that there has been agreement where there has been none. Some of those who have been trying to get a measure of scrutiny of the plans have been discredited in a clumsy management tactic which has served only to antagonise regular users.
All in all it is for SWT themselves to justify and monitor their plans. We feel sure they will talk up every possible positive and discount all the negative impacts, as this has been their record so far. It is naïve and disingenuous of them to appear to expect support from those who have been largely ignored to date.
2 comments:
Greetings from a exile Sheffielder...
did you know that John Clare wrote about 'Self Willed' land:
As a result of Enclosures, Clare thought the wildlands were turned into wastelands, “all levelled like a desert”. Enclosed, Clare believed, land is no longer ‘self willed’, it becomes subject to the will of its new ‘owner’ – tamed, domesticated. And forbidden to wanderers of every kind -- be they tinkers, gypsies, or poets.
Here is Clare writing on 16th April 1825:
"Took a walk in the fields, bird-nesting and botanizing, and had like to have been taken up as a poacher in Hilly Wood, by a meddlesome, conceited gamekeeper belonging to Sir John Trollope. He swore that he had seen me in the act, more than once, of shooting game, when I never shot even so much as a sparrow in my life. What terrifying rascals these woodkeepers and gamekeepers are! They make a prison of the forest, and are its gaolers".
Roger R.
It's good to be reminded of Clare. Many thanks. Anyone who enjoys unmanaged countryside is likely to find Clare's writing (and his life) intensely moving.
One of his poems has a line about nature being love but for the moment I can't remember which one.
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