Tweeting for Butterflies (and the Influence of Rotherham)

Every conservation charity has to have its Twitter department dedicated to publicising its activities and its own particular message.

Popular at the moment is the Green Hairstreak butterfly which they'll have you know needs conservation workers to ensure its successful survival. (screenshots from Twitter)

 

As you see the Green Hairstreak likes Hawthorn amongst other plants. Remember SWT lobbying for the white-letter hairstreak butterfly here - an exercise in self publicising which as we know is their core activity. That butterfly needed an elm tree. The Green Hairstreak likes Hawthorn like the ones  SWT themselves cut down a short while ago.

That particular act of perverse vandalism was prompted by requests from a certain Ian Rotherham, someone who has put a lot of energy into promoting himself and his idiosycratic views on wildlife and its conservation in and around Sheffield. He told SWT they should clear an area near the road to encourage certain wild flowers that liked the lime content in the nearby roadstone. This entailed clearing a shrubby area which has been in recent years a home for one of our most wonderful songbirds, the garden warbler, and as if that was not enough, the destruction of several wonderful hawthorns known to support the aforementioned butterfly.

I've written about Rotherham before, here, here, here, here, here and here in relation to his opposition to rewilding., and I may do again.

It's good to see that Mark Fisher, a commentator on wildlife issues of immense integrity, who himself has some reservations about the direction of the rewilding movement, has  written critically about Rotherham in his latest article.

Basically Rotherham, like his employer Sheffield Hallam University, is running a business and everything he says should be interpreted as being said to promote what they do. His angle is that we need cultural landscapes, something nobody properly understands or even agrees what it is. As far as I can make out it means that human exploitation of the whole of Britain's landscape should coexist with wildlife 'management'. This view is sure to be popular with those in universities who run courses in such things as 'wildlife management' etc. After all nobody will want to attend and pay for vocational courses if there's no job at the end of it.