Precious Imagination

I've been known to complain that the management of Blacka and its surrounding public land lacks ambition and imagination. That the managers responsible must themselves be unimaginative. That, I see now, is unfair. I plead guilty. There've been no complaints but I know I have a duty to admit my mistakes after seeing evidence that this is not true.

The managers and those who support their policies and practices are in fact gifted with considerable imagination. They must be. It needs considerable imagination to believe that Blacka is improved by the importing of farm livestock plus, to keep them in, several kilometres of barbed wire and a new stone wall (combined cost estimated £50,000+). Not many people could be found with that quality of imagination. And no  more evidence is needed than the sight this week of the cows actively trashing the best-looking wild-flower display in this region. Of course, we see now that this is real improvement.

Imagination of this kind is not found just anywhere. It's so precious it needs training and it needs public subsidy. Not many people have this gift and those who do have to be nurtured.

Hence the charitable donations the corporate sponsorships, the farm grants, Single Farm Payments Higher Level Stewardships without which this Nature Reserve would be, well, more natural. And, as the imaginative ones among us know, that can't be right. They know, do these  managers that without their imaginative crop and cr*p grazing strategy this place would look like this.

Who on earth would  want this?
Thank God for imagination. And self-belief.