I spent the winter of 1963 shovelling and wheelbarrowing cow dung out of a dairy farm's milking parlour (a euphemism) where the animals were chained to the milking stalls all day. They stayed there for week after week of one of the longest icy spells on record. There was nowhere else for them to go and nobody else to do the work several times each day. I've also cleaned out a deep-litter chicken shed which was several feet thick of shit. I doubt if any of the young conservation workers around here can match that experience of livestock dung. That initiation means I'm not squeamish. I'm used to it. That not the same as saying I think it should be everywhere.
This morning I walked through Blacka which is becoming increasingly like a farm sewer. Cattle dung of every size, pattern and consistency is now a principal feature of paths on the central part of the moor.
But that is nothing compared to the sheep enclosure and it's on that land that however hard I try to understand I just don't get it - unless indeed some kind of point is being made.
I can think of no other reason why a conservation organisation should arrange to spread so much sheep dung over a green space that is intended to be a site for the recreation of the public; other than that a particular group of conservation workers are calculatedly sending a gesture to the public which says 'you think this is land for you but we know better, it is agricultural land and that means crap' They might go on to say ' it's time you people grew up and shook off sentimental, immature and misguided ideas of the countryside being there for you to enjoy - in your over-romantic townie idea of what's beautiful’.
The dung itself must be a key management tool - or why else does it dominate as it does? Yet neither the word dung nor any of its synonyms features in any of their official documents about the place. Why not? Perhaps they just don't know about it? That’s possible - and they may have the excuse that they do not go there often enough for the impact of this to register in their minds when busy at their office work. But surely there should be more to it than simple blind ignorance even when they are known to be ignorant.
That’s the likeliest explanation for the complete failure of Sheffield Wildlife Trust to look anything like a credible outfit in their management of Blacka – a mix of stubbornness, ignorance and incompetence; followed by attempts to justify with implausible pseudo-explanations. I was recently reminded of the transformation that this land went through last year when the farmer was unable to graze any animals here. I simply cannot believe that the people responsible for this ridiculous and shameful nonsense deserve to be trusted to manage any land at all - a grass verge would be beyond their scope.
The other explanation is of course that they are not managing the land at all because they don’t know how to manage the farmer (or perhaps anyone). And that he just does what he likes.
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