What Wildlife Trusts Do

SRWT has now produced a Blacka Moor newsletter. I've wondered why they have only just got round to it. As an outfit that prioritises propaganda over protecting nature it would seem to be an obvious activity. The problem I suppose is that they don't do enough regular observation to gather enough material being an office-based organisation working at a distance from the place and rarely getting further than a few minutes from the car park when they do come. That was one of the problems of their astonishing management plan the inaccuracies in which offered open goals to their critics.

As it is, until now they've left the field open to other observers, which includes this blog. That may be why they are getting round to this newsletter now. Someone's decided they need to do something. If they were a football club they would have sacked their manager and whole coaching staff several times over by now.

The core activity of SRWT is raising funds to keep themselves going and part of this is getting  in the media. They were in the Sheffield Telegraph this month with an article about something they had been doing (though not universally admired), their new flagstones. This was an opportunity to get the newspapers interested and the hope for them was that it would help them recruit new members. As usual the text was not particularly accurate and prone to exaggeration, some of the wildlife mentioned being not around at this time of year though the text implies it is. I liked the bit that suggested 'herds of red deer often visible in early mornings'. Not so much now unfortunately thanks to their crony-conservationist partners at Eastern Moors who have caught the culling habit.

All this is about money of course.

He added that now the council has little budget to manage its countryside, walkers, riders and mountain bikers might think about joining organisations like the Wildlife Trust to give something back. Visit www.wildsheffield.com for details

That 'something back' helps to fund more office jobs, more persecution of wildlife, more recreational chain-saw attacks on trees, and again more propaganda for managers.

Any doubts that this is all about money might be dispelled by a look at one of the business cards senior members hand out. On the front:

On the back:

Can't wait