Friday 9 January 2015

Feeling the Draft

SWT's (now SRWT's) Draft Management Plan  - link here.

There are other works of fantasy fiction out there but few that are so blinkered. The text is littered with errors, guesswork, half truths, managers' wishful thinking, devious motivations and and misinterpretations (just a start); that's the positive. Negatively there are the glaring omissions. In all this it encapsulates much that our fourteen years experience of SWT has already told us about them and their agenda.

Anyone determined to read and comment - and the interminable length is enough to put most people off ** - would be advised to approach it keeping in mind the wise question, "why would it serve their interests to say that?"

From the Draft Plan it's hard not to deduce that this is an organisation with little interest in wildlife but a great deal in finding opportunities for grant funded management activities.

** Not just the length which could be reduced by 70%. The file on the website has changed since being first published. I downloaded a copy to print off some pages and then found that the original had been altered and with different numbering. This was in the section that SWT had requested special attention to and which had been referred to in the email sent out with wrong numbers. Just a mistake? - heard so often before that it's become expected. Calculation or incompetence? Either is in their interest. Making it difficult for the public to read and comment only makes their own jobs easier if we give up and do something more rewarding. Most people have heard of confusion marketing. This is confusion management, or confusion consultation.

Heard at the staff meeting: " I know let's just pretend we're useless and often get things wrong" After all it's not hard to believe is it?

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