Conservation Matters

[Richard Tarleton]

Stark and skeletal....near Triglav in the Julian Alps in Slovenia (2007) - the wildlife here is marvellous...not a sheep in sight, but lots of chamois

[Serial_Apologist]

Gibbon kept the curtains of his carriage closed when passing through the Alps to spare himself the horridly unruly spectacle outside.....

Admittedly, on the continent, you've got another 4-6,000 feet to play with - you can have a tree line, and still have room for several thousand feet of stark and skeletal on top of that (you only have to listen to Eine Alpensinfonie). But of course with our more northerly climate, the alpine plants start at a lower level (where they can be grazed by sheep ).

I specialised in the history of the 19th century, and indeed was a lodger for 2 years in the house of the author of a book on the European Romantics - so quite a lot rubbed off. I've walked many a high alpine trail. And I've worked for most of my adult life in nature conservation. From this balanced perspective I now come down on the side of biodiversity. Our lowlands are intensively farmed, their natural habitats severely depleted. This is also true in large areas of western Europe. But everywhere else in Europe, the uplands are repositories of biodiversity, of which their human populations are justly proud. We are the only country in Europe where the uplands are even more impoverished than the lowlands, a point Monbiot makes so persuasively. (And we can't stand predators in any shape or form - deer numbers go unchecked, hen harriers are driven to extinction, there is an outcry if the reintroduction of predatory species is mooted.) Of course rewilding is a management choice (although you can choose not to intervene once you've started it off - the Dutch have done this rather well) but I'd take it over the anthropogenic, tea towel-friendly beauty of the Lake District. Beatrix Potter has a lot to answer for. It's far from being the worst example in the UK - don't get me started on the Brecon Beacons.

There was an expression to which I was introduced when studying Ecology as part of a Horticulture degree 20 years ago - plagioclimax management - and as I remember it, in order to maintain biodiversity, which one assumes is optimal for maintaining the balance of life on earth necessary to ensure the continuation of the human species - it is not enough to let things go wild, but that, having interfered almost since the dawn of manipulating the course of natural evolution to its own ends, humankind has, in line with the ancient Hindu/Buddhist precept of Karma, no alternative but to go on interfering, understanding that we are a part of (not apart from) the natural order that produced us and keeps us going.

[Lat-Literal]

But back in 2017......... 25% of Spain is covered in artificial surfaces and its biodiversity has been adjudged to be the most vulnerable in Europe. I like much of what I have experienced in Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Greece and Ireland. However, in the main, there has been some disappointment in the scenery. On balance, if I had to choose just one I would choose what remains of ours for most of the worst of what I have seen could be labelled "urban mayhem". The main roads right next to the sea which blight the coast in so much of the South of France, the so-called no go areas attached to Nimes and Arles, the haphazardness of a Ferney-Voltaire, high rises on much of the Spanish coast, the ugliness of Villareal, the abomination that is the estate of many miles just south of Lisbon which sits by the railway track in a way not seen in any part of South London I can think of, the heavy industry as one leaves Pisa, the environs around dilapidated Genoa, and the predominance of anarchist graffiti almost everywhere one looks.

A Cypriot who I met recently observed as we drove from one outer London borough to another that the British complain all of the time, not least about the weather, hop on a plane at the first opportunity to sunshine, and don't appreciate the greenery here. Look. My eyes were intended to be led to a part of the three counties worth of gardens which are constantly being grabbed for new housing development. I had plenty of time to comply with his expectation because we were stuck in carmageddon. It's there, he said, because it rains. We don't have anything like this at home. It's bare there. I know, I said, We were, of course, also on the border of the county with the greatest density of trees in England. That of itself may well shape my own personal outlook. Currently there is opposition to Surrey's plan for a 4,000 home so-called garden village on the edge of a hamlet and downs. A little further on, oil exploration teeters towards fracking. And that is in all likelihood what will occur across half the country which is effectively licenced for such activity including parts of the National Parks.

Given these points, it may well be that the addition of a dozen lynx will mean little in the round. If the German example is anything to go by, a country which has so much space it can turn the area into a West Berlin like island if things go horribly wrong, they have to date been breeding extraordinarily slowly. Perhaps it is something about the fact that modern life doesn't suit them even if they are for now confined to forests. But we have seen grand designs in operation before and as it happens precisely where it is proposed that the lynx be situated. Kielder where the extensive planting of inappropriate forests was for a long time environmental desecration. The right vegetation is lovely. However, tree policy ain't easy. Our domestic species are often prone to diseases and with any imports the risk is of ours acquiring foreign ones as has frequently happened in the past. We can blame it on the sheep, even though when we crash out of Europe we will need to be more self-sufficient in food. The national food plan should have been the priority on day one after the referendum and yet it seems absolutely nothing has been done. 40% of our lamb comes from New Zealand where sheep farmers are among the leading contributors to biodiversity. In theory, we could increase that percentage to 100% but a large number of their abattoirs are strictly halal, a legacy of their trade with the Middle East which increased when we decided to "join Europe".

Chris Packham - yes, him again - considers that population increase in the United Kingdom is the biggest single threat to our environment. I agree with him. That requires an ability - and will - for population management. It isn't as if we are at all like Germany or France - massive and so historically wild in our policy on demographics that we now need to pay for people to come to pay for our social services. No, ever since the 19th Century, it is housing and roads and industry rather than farming which has led to the greatest destruction.

A fashionable argument for a relaxation of planning rules although it has been with us since the 1980s is that development should not be halted because environmentalists are worried about the lesser spotted newt. We can leave newts aside and anything about the accuracy or otherwise in that regard but they do have a point. What would the majority of people who like the British countryside wish for most? An increase in the number of species, many of which can't be seen by the naked eye, from 1,000 to 2,000 in any given area or rules which ensure that we leave what we all know of our current terrain free from inappropriate development, even if the stringency of those rules means that the terrain is not transformed into something wilder? The National Parks, the AONBs, the SSSIs, the Green Belt, the legislation of forestry and much more.......these were all introduced in that most enlightened of times just after the second world war. Their effectiveness was aided by industrial decline but the pressures from new build housing and roads were considerable. They have served us well. Gurus who are constantly in the papers do not have a wonderful track record other than in losing general elections for odds on favourites and, god forbid, promoting holocaust denial.

[Richard Tarleton]

but that, having interfered almost since the dawn of manipulating the course of natural evolution to its own ends, humankind has, in line with the ancient Hindu/Buddhist precept of Karma, no alternative but to go on interfering, understanding that we are a part of (not apart from) the natural order that produced us and keeps us going.

Ecologists, conservation agencies and the like may appreciate this....all too often, national and local governments and vested interests do not. In the case of the Lake District, conservation is only one of several voices clamouring to be heard. This new status will, of course, only increase the numbers of visitors, with deleterious effects, whilst confirming the status of the sheep as chief architect of the landscape..........

[Serial_Apologist]

The National Parks, the AONBs, the SSSIs, the Green Belt, the legislation of forestry and much more.......these were all introduced in that most enlightened of times just after the second world war. Their effectiveness was aided by industrial decline but the pressures from new build housing and roads were considerable. They have served us well. Gurus who are constantly in the papers do not have a wonderful track record other than in losing general elections for odds on favourites and, god forbid, promoting holocaust denial.

I'm no expert on these matters but weren't those were also the years that witnessed the greatest ever destruction of woodland and hedgerows in the name of prairisation of the landscape for maximisation of monocultural grain and meat produce that precipitated among other things river pollution and methane gas release
on an unprecedented scale?

[Lat-Literal]

I'm no expert on these matters but weren't those were also the years that witnessed the greatest ever destruction of woodland and hedgerows in the name of prairisation of the landscape for maximisation of monocultural grain and meat produce that precipitated among other things river pollution and methane gas release
on an unprecedented scale?

I am not an expert either.

I don't know about the greatest ever destruction but what you are referring to there is the developmental side - the industrialization of agriculture and forestry in line with scientific and technical changes and mass consumerism. But much of the structure I have referred to originates from nearer the end of the second world war than it does to the heyday of top-down industrial re-organisation and the white heat of technology - the Town and Country Planning Act which led to the Green Belt for London was introduced in 1947 and the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act was passed in 1949, two years before the Forestry Act. To the extent that the beginnings of anything define its later character, what I'd be looking at are the documents in Whitehall that were concealed from the public just after 1945 predicting mass starvation and then societal breakdown plus the ten added years of rationing. The significance of the countryside was very closely connected to the need to feed a nation. Agriculture and environmentalism could not be permitted the luxury of being at loggerheads,

To some extent that is relevant to today and to some extent it is not. In uncertain political times where food supply may initially be less international following change, it could become so stretched as to require a new decade of some food rationing. Rather than facing real choices between a pragmatic status quo ish and a utopian vision, it is more likely that we will be prioritising survival. Radical biodiversity will not be broadly acceptable where British farming of whatever kind is seen to be damaged by it. As for future woodland, the Woodland Trust almost a decade ago noted that not only had woodland been lost in the far later period 1998-2008 to an area the size of Birmingham, mainly due to non-agricultural development, but of the threatened woods nearly half were in south-east - that was, 243 threatened by road schemes, 216 by power lines, 106 by housing, 61 by quarrying and 45 by airport expansion. So what can we do? One solution is to get rid of sheep and wait a hundred years for signs of significant growth. Another is simply not to cut down the trees etc we have in the first place. Many will say, oh well, that's wealthy Surrey and Sussex for you but we want countryside too. The plan is for a rocketing population only here and Greater London to extend to Brighton.

[Richard Tarleton]

But back in 2017......... 25% of Spain is covered in artificial surfaces and its biodiversity has been adjudged to be the most vulnerable in Europe.

So much has changed since I started exploring rural Spain in 1984 (my first trip was in 1972, but that was to the Moorish cities of the south), since when I've made multiple visits, to every region except Valencia and Murcia.... Not sure what that statistic means (much of Spain remains rural, in some shape or form) - define "artificial" - but it remains the case (to get back to your OP, Lat, and the topic of this thread) that Spain's mountains remain the richest repositories of its wildlife. I agree with so much of what you say (about greenness - and yes, Spanish visitors say the same thing) but nothing in our impoverished uplands can compare with the riches to be found in their counterparts in Spain, and other parts of Europe. OK, parts of Scotland, but no large mammalian predators even there, the food chain is incomplete.

And yes, our wildlife habitats are under pressure from our rapidly increasing population and the consequent development....Packham and Attenborough both.....concidentally in the paper today, teling the Nat Hist Museum it should be saying more about population growth.....

[Lat-Literal]

So much has changed since I started exploring rural Spain in 1984 (my first trip was in 1972, but that was to the Moorish cities of the south), since when I've made multiple visits, to every region except Valencia and Murcia.... Not sure what that statistic means (much of Spain remains rural, in some shape or form) - define "artificial" - but it remains the case (to get back to your OP, Lat, and the topic of this thread) that Spain's mountains remain the richest repositories of its wildlife. I agree with so much of what you say (about greenness - and yes, Spanish visitors say the same thing) but nothing in our impoverished uplands can compare with the riches to be found in their counterparts in Spain, and other parts of Europe. OK, parts of Scotland, but no large mammalian predators even there, the food chain is incomplete.

And yes, our wildlife habitats are under pressure from our rapidly increasing population and the consequent development....Packham and Attenborough both.....

Thank you for the good words RT.

I don't know what is meant by artificial surfaces - and do take your point about the Spanish mountains and even the mammalian predators where they just "are" and haven't been reintroduced. Before we move on, it might be worthwhile placing my comments in a broader context. You already understand that context as we have discussed such things before.

My first experience of a National Park in the United Kingdom was in June 1972. It was Pembrokeshire which you know especially well and where you have had considerable personal involvement. For all I say - and mean - about greenery, it is the coast that I love most. Yes, there is an inclination towards hills on which I have mainly lived and even the very big hills that we in Britain call mountains. I do think that the Lake District and the landscapes around the Yorkshire Dales are spectacular. I don't mind the bits that some call moonscape even if they can seem somewhat bleak. But given that my main orientation isn't towards mountains, I don't have as much knowledge about them as perhaps I should do. I accept that the wish for greater biodiversity there means as much to many people as the desire I have to help ensure that our coastline and less dramatic green terrain aren't being over-developed.

(Top 3 National Parks - 1. Pembrokeshire, 2. Exmoor, 3. North York Moors)

Additionally, I am not wholly in agreement with the Cypriot driver. I like the idea of olive groves and especially enjoy Southern Europe for its positive differences. Spain was originally my first choice when travelling abroad and it continues to be equal first to France although I also like Italy and believe that Northern Portugal is underrated. It is the Valencia region of Spain I know most well. The parts between Valencia and Barcelona are the only bits of Spanish coastline I have visited. Some of it is still relatively unspoiled. I have also been to Toledo, to Seville, to Granada and to Galicia but mostly travel in those areas was by train or car. You have had the benefits of walking in Spain and hence will know the terrain in much more detail.

Many thanks for your insightful and valuable contributions.

[Serial_Apologist]

I accept that the wish for greater biodiversity there means as much to many people as the desire I have to help ensure that our coastline and less dramatic green terrain aren't being over-developed.

I would see those two sentiments are not unrelated. Indeed is it not possible that such feelings are universal and hard-wired into all of us? Not so much the atavistic drive Rousseau referred to as the fact borne out by scientific enquiry and evidence that, while the complex system of biophysical interdependence with all the interstitial links involved comprising ecosystems, and the fact that they are under constant transformation, may be such as to make total mappage beyond the grasp of anything other than mathematical encodement. (Algorhythms - the term has a knowing buzz to it). At a common level of subconsciousness we are all aware of the knock-on damage of species wipe-outs manifested by disregard for the interconnecton principle, and of the practical diffiulties involved in remedying this fact of life by later re-introductions. There's a lot, I think, to the late Alan Watts's view that, far from being inborn, the spirit of cruelty and drive to dominate may in part be a desperate reaction to the very models of human inadequacy handed on by religion and its cultural adjuncts to be re-played out from generation to generation, with redemption the only solace at the end of the line. It has long seemed to me, at least, that the course of Western philosophical or at any rate religious-cultural underpinning has gone the longest possible way round the metaphorical mulberry bush to re-discovering what a few have ascribed to William Blake's view that the (unsystemic thinking) fool who persists in his folly shall end up becoming wise, having discovered the undoubted benefits (hopefully to all species in the end) of rational evidence-driven scientific enquiry and practice, but only after for centuries having imposed wrongheaded fragmented thinking and the economic power driving it on the rest of unfortunate humankind - not forgetting the natural order, including our own - long seen as base and to be dominated for our salvation. Expediency (very often war) has all-too-frequently been the resorted-to corrective - "but we are where we are" the cry.

Science rescued us from superstitious belief systems; its ideal of evidence-based theoretical provisionality lies close to spiritual traditions that emphasised living at harmony with evanescence, but not the type of evanescence that wipes us out with violence while preaching that it is time to "move on"! Building a socioeconomic reality that lives up to that insight (if there's any substance to it!) is going to have to re-tie up the broken ends separating what for want of a better descriptor is the "spiritual" from the "political".

[jean]

I don't think we've had Monbiot after the decision:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/11/lake-district-world-heritage-site-sheep

[Richard Tarleton]

I don't think we've had Monbiot after the decision:

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...age-site-sheep

Thank you for this jean - monbiot spot-on as usual. He seems to have borrowed some of my best lines

[Lat-Literal]

I would see those two sentiments are not unrelated. Indeed is it not possible that such feelings are universal and hard-wired into all of us? Not so much the atavistic drive Rousseau referred to as the fact borne out by scientific enquiry and evidence that, while the complex system of biophysical interdependence with all the interstitial links involved comprising ecosystems, and the fact that they are under constant transformation, may be such as to make total mappage beyond the grasp of anything other than mathematical encodement. (Algorhythms - the term has a knowing buzz to it). At a common level of subconsciousness we are all aware of the knock-on damage of species wipe-outs manifested by disregard for the interconnecton principle, and of the practical diffiulties involved in remedying this fact of life by later re-introductions. There's a lot, I think, to the late Alan Watts's view that, far from being inborn, the spirit of cruelty and drive to dominate may in part be a desperate reaction to the very models of human inadequacy handed on by religion and its cultural adjuncts to be re-played out from generation to generation, with redemption the only solace at the end of the line. It has long seemed to me, at least, that the course of Western philosophical or at any rate religious-cultural underpinning has gone the longest possible way round the metaphorical mulberry bush to re-discovering what a few have ascribed to William Blake's view that the (unsystemic thinking) fool who persists in his folly shall end up becoming wise, having discovered the undoubted benefits (hopefully to all species in the end) of rational evidence-driven scientific enquiry and practice, but only after for centuries having imposed wrongheaded fragmented thinking and the economic power driving it on the rest of unfortunate humankind - not forgetting the natural order, including our own - long seen as base and to be dominated for our salvation. Expediency (very often war) has all-too-frequently been the resorted-to corrective - "but we are where we are" the cry.

Science rescued us from superstitious belief systems; its ideal of evidence-based theoretical provisionality lies close to spiritual traditions that emphasised living at harmony with evanescence, but not the type of evanescence that wipes us out with violence while preaching that it is time to "move on"! Building a socioeconomic reality that lives up to that insight (if there's any substance to it!) is going to have to re-tie up the broken ends separating what for want of a better descriptor is the "spiritual" from the "political".

I don't think we've had Monbiot after the decision:

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...age-site-sheep

Thank you for your comments, Serial-Apologist. I don't have the brain to follow your line of argument in that contribution. But I am not so sure that concern is hard wired into most of us. Most teenagers will only see attraction in under-developed areas if they can use their competitive spirits there or choose that symbol as the basis of rebellion. Those in their 20s, 30s and 40s are generally all about development be that via procreation or acquiring as much money and status as they can grab. As for the elderly, my father's parents never travelled anywhere. They didn't see the point of going anywhere when they always made sure they were living next to all the retail outlets they were ever likely to need for window shopping.

To the extent that there is any sort of social contract on conservation it may have arisen from pressure groups but then it was mainly imposed before subsequently being sold at a reasonable price. Most people can buy into it to the extent that they think about such things at all. As for science, it seems to me that when it comes to an urge for domination the scientific community has often loomed large. The DDT brigade were at the heart of a belief that man could conquer all but from the 1960s, it was becoming clear that the chemical revolution had produced mixed results. Who needed religion to inform when that instinct was/is to eliminate disease and hence oppose mortality? By definition, it denies an afterlife.

Reading the latest article from Monbiot which Jean has kindly posted, he seems totally obsessed in his attacks on sheep. As it happens, I don't eat lamb because sheep are my favourite animal. I suspect that the reasons we are at opposite ends of the sheep scale is that he loathes them for the very reason I love them. They are docile in the main, move together and generally mind their own business although they are vulnerable to savagery. The kind of savagery that picks the softest targets not for reasons of need but personal gain. He is also against cows. Two years ago, he was suggesting that people like me who eat beef but have never been on a long haul flight are more dangerous than vegans who clock up air miles to climate change conventions. While I respect RT's opinions, Monbiot is to my mind simply a controversialist with a never ending money supply from The Guardian. I'm with Eric Robson.

[Richard Tarleton]

Reading the latest article from Monbiot which Jean has kindly posted, he seems totally obsessed in his attacks on sheep. As it happens, I don't eat lamb because sheep are my favourite animal. I suspect that the reasons we are at opposite ends of the sheep scale is that he loathes them for the very reason I love them. They are docile in the main, move together and generally mind their own business although they are vulnerable to savagery. The kind of savagery that picks the softest targets not for reasons of need but personal gain. He is also against cows. Two years ago, he was suggesting that people like me who eat beef but have never been on a long haul flight are more dangerous than vegans who clock up air miles to climate change conventions. While I respect RT's opinions, Monbiot is to my mind simply a controversialist with a never ending money supply from The Guardian. I'm with Eric Robson.

I think this is to misunderstand what he's saying, Lat. (I had to google Eric Robson, never heard of him). GM "loathes" [your word I think, but I know what you mean] them for what they do. Sheep have no independent existence, they're domesticated animals whose sole raison d'être is to provide meat and wool. They're part of a factory process, which begins on the farm and leads via the abbatoir to the butcher or supermarket. Unfortunately this part of the factory floor is our uplands. The production process has the side-effect of turning biodiverse uplands into - I simplify - boring monocultures. If people followed your example and didn't eat them, there would be no reason for their existence. The docile qualities you mention are purely the result of selective breeding by mankind. You can still find wild sheep in Europe - the mouflon - on Sardinia and Corsica I believe. Docile they ain't . Since upland sheep farming long since ceased to be economic, it only continues to exist through subsidy. We don't need it - sufficient sheep meat can be produced at far less environmental cost in the lowlands, where unit costs are much lower and the animals are reared to produce maximum meat and/or wool (upland breeds mostly only produce one lamb, for a start - desperately uneconomic).

I don't think we're going to agree so I think I'll have to abandon this discussion - I lack George Monbiot's stamina when it comes to controversy.

[Lat-Literal]

I think this is to misunderstand what he's saying, Lat. (I had to google Eric Robson, never heard of him). GM "loathes" [your word I think, but I know what you mean] them for what they do. Sheep have no independent existence, they're domesticated animals whose sole raison d'être is to provide meat and wool. They're part of a factory process, which begins on the farm and leads via the abbatoir to the butcher or supermarket. Unfortunately this part of the factory floor is our uplands. The production process has the side-effect of turning biodiverse uplands into - I simplify - boring monocultures. If people followed your example and didn't eat them, there would be no reason for their existence. The docile qualities you mention are purely the result of selective breeding by mankind. You can still find wild sheep in Europe - the mouflon - on Sardinia and Corsica I believe. Docile they ain't . Since upland sheep farming long since ceased to be economic, it only continues to exist through subsidy. We don't need it - sufficient sheep meat can be produced at far less environmental cost in the lowlands, where unit costs are much lower and the animals are reared to produce maximum meat and/or wool (upland breeds mostly only produce one lamb, for a start - desperately uneconomic).

I don't think we're going to agree so I think I'll have to abandon this discussion - I lack George Monbiot's stamina when it comes to controversy.

A chairman of Gardeners Question Time, RT. Cathchphrase - "Onwards and Upwards". As Cumbrian as Hunter Davies.

I think we can agree on certain key points, ie a preference for sheep on lowlands. I especially like sheep on grass by sea. But the subsidies are international subsidies, I think, and if new species are put in, people will have to pay for them to ensure the land isn't blighted by development. Mr Monbiot has lots of money. He needs to say soon how much he will donate.

(I probably did misinterpret s-a's post but only unwittingly)

[Serial_Apologist]

An active campaign is underway to protect part of Wormwood Scrubs designated as a Nature Reserve from destruction from activities connected with the construction of HS2, it was mentioned on the local BBC lunchtime news today - starts at 2 mins 56 secs:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000t26w/bbc-london-lunchtime-news-10032021

http://www.xrhf.earth/xrhf-stop-h2s

Known popularly for its famous prison, the Scrubs is one of the last remaining patches of un-built countryside in the London area - a meeting point between the GWR railway line from Paddington, the M40 to the north and Westway link to its east to Shepherds Bush to the south, and is valued as such and as a natural conservation area. "Swampies" are reported to be taking up residence in the vicinity to physically try to stop the destruction.

The writer-cum-"psychic geographer" Iain Sinclair re-visited this part of the world following his circumambulation of the Overground in 2012 in the following documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJZ-BHAgslo

The relevant part commences at around 1 hr 5 mins.

So-called brownfield sites such as this are in some senses more "rural" in terms of "natural" than the vast swathes of prairified countryside monoculturally dominated by agribusiness, and among the most biodiverse environments to be found outside the tropics.