The 75% Con Trick

People below a certain age and above a certain IQ should know that you can't believe what you're being told. We oldies, who've lived much of our lives before the PR revolution took over and tainted everything, do tend to struggle because our default position is that of trusting authority especially that in public office. That's why we're such excellent fodder for consultations. So how to guard against this? How do you know when you're being had? To test whether someone is pulling a fast one, assess just how hard they are trying as a ratio of how much it's in their interest that you believe them. But the top people know that they must not always appear to be trying too hard so that can't be totally reliable. Another better way is to measure what's being said against your own direct observation.

Groups with a similar vested interest regularly intone their shared dogma and the wisdom is that the more often it gets heard the more inclined is the gullible public to fall for it.

The reason, or so we're told,  that so much of our remote landscape is a heather monoculture is because it is a precious and valuable habitat and that 75% of it is in this country. Now the cunning of this needs noting. When people hear that 75% of a landscape is in a certain place and then further that it is 'under threat' they tend to think something should be done to protect it. That's the beauty of this con trick. The part of the story which they don't hear is that this kind of landscape is artificial and kept as it is purely for the self interest of people who want to shoot game birds. Any marginal advantages it gives for certain selected other bird species is purely incidental to the reason the owners want to keep it as it is. We can be sure that the same people who are arguing for its special protection would be arguing just as forcefully if no other birds ever visited. They would, in true public relations tradition, be finding some other precious incidental reason for justifying what they want to do.

Does anyone ever ask why other countries do not have more of this boring landscape? Has nobody ever considered that people in other countries may have more sense and, crucially, fewer rich and privileged people with a taste for elite pursuits?

Does nobody ever consider that the wildlife value of these uplands would increase staggeringly if the grouse moor management stopped and it was allowed to naturalise? The answer is yes they do but if they work for Natural England they are expected to keep quiet because N.E.'s top brass is hand in glove with the grouse shooters and the farmers and the big estate owners who also manage to get well represented among DEFRA ministers.

The direct observation approach is the best test. The area managed closest to a grouse moor around this part of  Sheffield is Burbage and Hallam moors. The typical area where shooting estates have been allowed to become 'unfavourable' beacuse unmanaged for shooting is Blacka Moor. The wildlife interest comparison between the two just cannot be missed. Yet the lesson does not seem to be learned. One person I know, unaware of my interest,  told me with complete conviction that the moors have to be managed with burning and sheep or the results would be disastrous. It turned out that a couple of months previously he had been on business to the house of a man who owned a small shooting estate and been told the usual 75% story; that's how the propaganda works and then gets disseminated by the gullible.  But he's not the only person to be suckered. The Moorland Association, in common with the Game and Conservation Trust,  puts enormous resources into pushing its propaganda and they have prominently displayed on their website a statement from the ex Chief Executive of Natural England Helen Phillips shamelessly praising the trust for what is in effect its exploitation of our uplands as if the MA's being charitably altruistic. Well we know, don't we, that, like News Corp and Mr Cameron, Phillips and the grouse moor owners and doubtless the new Chief Exec. of N.E. are 'in it together', even if the rest of us are on the outside. And so is Richard Benyon the minister who has his own grouse moor. Welcome to the 19th century, polished up and presented by the 21st. At least in the 1930s there was a grass roots movement with the gumption to fight for access. Now where are those who should be demanding that what we get access to should be worth visiting?

On the website of the Nidderdale AOB is the following statement:

If left unmanaged,heather grows into a dense mass of long woody stems that supports very little wildlife and which has no grazing or economic value.

Well the last bit is probably correct but as for supporting 'very little wildlife', it's nonsense. Here on Blacka the bilberry grows full and bushy much enjoyed by those birds and mammals not found on more managed sites and trees begin to sprout up with tremendous advantages for wildlife. The whole discourse here is cunningly misleading and comes from people who are either repeating what they've swallowed as propaganda  or know the truth but don't like the implications for their chosen lifestyle.

All good PR operatives know that it's their job to set the agenda before the opposite message has a chance to get articultated and the PR contracts for the combined conservation and moorland interests would be very much worth seeing. Most wildlife trusts spend more time on office work and presentation than having a presence on site (unless it's a sunny day) and they have their own appointed in house PR and Publicity officers dedicated to spin their indispensible role in places like Blacka, but many have PR firms contracted to help them too, ensuring that the public and local authorities are kept on-message.

Those who've been taken in should feel no shame. The resources devoted to putting over the message of conservation industry indispensibility matches or overwhelms that spent on onsite work. And most of it originates in grants from public funds. So we've paid for it.