Only Natural

It's only to be expected when you see people who are employed by a wildlife organisation bent on controlling things that you question the motivation. After all wild does mean not controlled - i.e. left to its own devices. Those who use the word 'wild' and who then proceed to cultivate must expect a high degree of scrutiny. Yet they do not like it when you question what they do. If a doctor made claims to be a healer and then stood by and watched as an injured person suffered he should similarly expect an indignant reaction. Yet we have the most perverse situation in the local conservation outfits. They talk of wildness, the very names of their organisations speak of wild and natural. Yet they cultivate and control. Control is hard-wired into their make-up. Deep down they know there is something wrong with this, so they search desperately for more and more spurious evidence to justify what they are doing or, failing that, set up a smokescreen to distract us while laying claim to professionalism and expertise.

The approach here is a soviet style 'Command and Control' one with a centralised decision making structure determining just what may and may not grow. And just as the soviet-style economy led to unremitting bleakness in the streets of its cities so the present anti -nature approach to managing the moors results in week after week of dreary moorland fit only to raise grouse for the city financiers to fire away at. They are then glad to get back to the softer and more pleasant surroundings of Southern England.