#66: Dingle - Re: hands off hartlebury common

To say that heathland is rarer than rain forest is purely a cheap imotive comment and does not really mean anything. The Rain forest is under threat becuase of tree felling and land clearence. Critisism of course is selctive.

Heathland is rare because our NATURAL countryside heals itself wherever it can and has.

With reference to Highgate, again you miss the point, the flora and fauna are rare beacause this habitat is not natural, a case of the horse driving the cart on policy.

The fact that Hartlebury is isolated shows what a insignificant anomally it is. It's a joke, on the WCC website they seriously claim that "Malvern Hills is the only place where this moth exists. Wyre forest is the only place to find this butterfly" It is an insult to peoples intteligence and misleading. It is this sort of nonsense that exposes the barefaced deceptions and lack of common sense. These species exist also in pockets of countryside not accessible to anyone. I have a friend a farmer. He has the biggest herd of rare breeds cattle in the midlnds 600. He has created pools, marsh and bog on land around his farm. He is a keen naturalist and unsung hero. There are a lot of farmers like him and land owners. There are also areas of farm land and countryside that are inaccesible.

Efforts should be concentrated on areas which have an natural inclination to be heath, if there are any. You make the succession by trees sound as if it is toxic algae bloom, or some freak of nature taking place.

With a population of over 100 species of bees, does it not strike you as something of a success since the common has been so woefully neglected.

Work that is being carried out is already damaging. The extremeley unstable sand - soil is being eroded by rains and wind.

An area adjacent to Pooland Nursery was cleared of trees in an experiment orchestrated by Liz Nether of WCC to show how heather would colonise the area. The trouble was that it also an area which had a large number of common lizards. I know because I would sit with my children and photograph them. Since the clearing work, no heather and the lizards have dissapeared.

The common exists as a diverse, interdependent ecosystem, the argument is that the nunbers of the rare so called heathland species can be scaled up by orchestrated enviroment bias. This justifies this carnage

This work is carried out beacuse of the money on offer from the goverment who in turn recieve it from Life+ nature, the cash clearing house working within the framework of the The Rio de Janeiro Convention on biological diversity.

You can read the wording of the document here http://www.cbd.int/convention/text/

The Rio conference dealt mostly with the burden placed on nature by extraction of natural resourses and humankinds imposition generally creating monosystems. So therefore, the aim of restoration to re-inhabite and restore enviroments and to maintain bio diversity is subsequent to the above.

Reading the document, whilst it does not specifically prohibit what is being done to places like Hartlebury Common, I can see with all the incentives on offer, why a goverment could be keen to exploit loopholes. I believe that the true spirit of the Rio accord has been deliberatley misinterpretated and the whole case for creating an unatural enviroment is stretching the imagination somewhat. I beleive it is a cynical excercise where the welfare of the whole mechanism is more cared for than the countryside it is supposed to protect. I belive that money and jobs are the reason for this work and that people have become mesmerised by this "Fashion"

Apart from that, the enclosure IS illegal, but dont take my word for it, have a look at this but I suspect you already have

http://oss.panther.webexpectations.net/concern-about-hartlebury-common-fencing-plan-%E2%80%93-7-january-2009concern-about-hartlebury-common-fencing-plan-%E2%80%93-7-january-2009/

http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/rare_precious.htm

I believe the literal wording of the statement means bio diversity as indiginous to our countries and NATURAL to those places.

Steve McCarron

#67: Steve McCarron - Re: Re: hands off hartlebury common

Hi Steve.

Some of your correspondents mirror NE in their research,science and motivation.

I do not intend to dwell but would ask readers to understand that heathland is one of the Worlds rarest ecosystems(as many state) and that,in that context,NE do that ecosystem a huge disservice in concentrating on human 'constructs' whilst not resourcing/protecting the few self sustaining,natural heathlands that exist from prehistory in England.In essence NE propound a part truth.Heathland is rare BUT NOT the heathland they attend to.

NE are SO expert they denied the existence of natural,self sustaining,heathland until I took the issue to Jim Paice who confirmed I was correct.

The problem?In the words of SB Chapman(World renowned heathland researcher)"self sustaining heathland should never be grazed" but NE in not accounting for this World rarity in their HLS handbook expose it to grazing and degradation by default and ignorance.

A World rarity(mostly on coasts and at elevation) exposed to degradation by self professed experts that prefer agendas and financial rewards to surveying,studying and preserving what may the last wild environment in England.

Further,Johnstone in his Antrim Chough study stated that grazing to aid Choughs would degrade coastal heathland but NE encourage it.

McNanch in his Red Billed Chough claimed a greater correlation between the decline and recovery of Rabbits and the decline and recovery of the Chough than the grazing of domestic stock.So why graze?

Perhaps small,but a very damaging agenda that is driven by grazing,money and NOT best practise.

An NE senior manager told myself,Craig Weatherhill and Ian McNeil Cooke that they would be considered successful if all they did was put money into the rural economy(they actually meant farmers).

MY POINT.

Those that question yourself should take the same tack with NE to expose the full truth rather than assuming that NE's truth is THE truth.NE deny succession and freely promote suspension at the cost of our global environment and in the promotion of an international industry that is,perhaps,a greater beneficiary than the biodiversity they freely market as their objective.