The Anton Coaker column thread

[Anton Coaker Blog]

Basketcase

You might recall I expressed concern backalong about the somewhat shady doings of the ‘Red Tractor’ farm assurance scheme. This wizard wheeze is where we ‘voluntarily’ pay inspectors –some of whom turn out to be individuals who’d like to farm themselves, but somehow find themselves having to seek paid work elsewhere- to come round and paw over our farming credentials and integrity. The original idea was that if we could show how squeaky clean we were, we’d get a premium for our produce. But it soon twisted so that if we weren’t accredited, we were to be heavily penalised. Grain and milk can now barely be sold wholesale at all ‘un-assured’. It turned out that the supermarkets were embedded in the Red Tractor organisation… and they tend to be only thinking of one thing. Instead of a reward for compliance, it’s a major kicking if you don’t sign up.
Then, a few months ago, news emerged that Dead Tractor were secretly already a long way down the road of introducing a new extra level of certification, based on a farmers environmental credentials. And that these laurels would be shared with our kind and generous supermarket customers. Instead of our green credentials being something we could earn from, as the brave new world suggests we should, the supermarkets would simply take them as a requirement of supply.
A big row erupted, with some in the NFU – who part own RT- furious that the secret had prematurely got out. Not you’ll note that the secret discussions were already advanced without even asking members- and notably the NFU are negotiating stuff that affects all farmers, whether they’re members or not. Never mind whether we actually needed these assurance schemes at all, when supermarket shelves are full of imported goods with no such scrutiny.
Investigations were clumsily announced, but seemingly deliberately set to belatedly conclude sometime after the planned launch of the new ‘Green Farms Commitments’.
Unsurprisingly, grubby peasants started asking questions of their own. You see, it soon turned out the so called GFC was being pushed by the supermarkets, who’re in turn circling around the noble idea of promoting more environmentally sensitive shopping, based on something called the ‘WWF Basket’. This in turn, is set out by the wildlife charity- who also seem to be suffering from mission-creep- to coerce consumers to ‘do the right thing’. Sadly, it seems they base their rationale on some extremely dubious ‘science’. Chief in their failures has been to rely on dubious ‘facts’ churned out by a vegan evangelist academic at Oxford Uni, and the highly unreliable climate warming metric GWP100, which lumpscow burps in with methane leaking from fossil fuel extraction and landfill. Shell and BP et al could hardly have written better themselves. If you doubt my word, please go and consider where the methane in cow burps comes from…because it’s demonstrably part of a natural 10 year cycle - unlike hydrocarbons buried under the Gulf of Persia or Alaskafor 350 million years.
Unsurprisingly, hidden in the detail of the ‘WWF Basket’ plan is a wholesale increase in plant protein, and massive decrease in meat and dairy. 30% reductions in cattle were mentioned. At the same time as ‘RT’ were planning to finalise and launch their unity with this- before NFU investigations discovered the true extent of it- Tesco started an advertising campaign slyly mentioning your ‘basket’ and the environment. A cynic might speculate that this was a coordinated drip-drip feeding in of their plans. Indeed, the same cynical mind might then notice that a recently appointed head honcho in WWF Sir Dave Lewis happens to have lately been a Tesco’s big wig.Indeed, apparently ‘former’ supermarket execs creep in everywhere when you start looking.
That the NFU have allowed themselves to be associated with this sordid attempt to simultaneously manipulate both ends of the market is appalling. They should’ve called it months ago.A straight vote by farmers would reveal what we think of it all. Ironically, at the other end of the chain, supermarkets will abandon any semblance of promoting our wares at the drop of a hat. Customers won’t pay extra for it, and stores will simply fill their shelves with un-assured imports from wherever they’re coming cheapest, often produced to standards somewhat less demanding than ours. But you can be fairly certain they’d continue to claim the green credentials we’d agreed to give away.
It is a sordid underhand story of secret manipulation, using flawed data from fixated loons, driven by monster corporations. And the victim in all of it would be the poor gentle cow, quietly munching grass grown in green fields. .

 

[Anton Coaker Blog]

Day out

The pens full of weaned South Devon calves are growing and glowing. They’ve discovered the magic hay bale, where they stuff down last June’s gorgeous green hay as fast as they like, and someone obligingly comes along and replenishes the feeders. The same human also mortgages his soul to ensure a continuing supply of hard feed, as they’re scoffing extraordinary amounts of that too. It seems like yesterday that they were looking at it, and nibbling daintily at a few scoops. Now they’ve licked the troughs clean before I’ve turned my back.
One of the flies in my ointment is a touch of ringworm here and there. It doesn’t seem to bother them –indeed, the biggest and shiniest are as likely to have a spot as any. For devilment I thought I’d fetch in some sprigs of holly and hang around the shed. It’s a time honoured folk lore for curing ringworm, although after scratching their heads on it for a day or two, the bullocks then simply ate it. Alison meanwhile, hearing about this at the breakfast table last week, scoffed loudly. ‘It’s just afoolish old wives tale’ she assured me. In response, I merely inclined my head forward a bit, and raised an eyebrow. The unspoken riposte ‘foolish old wives eh?’ hung heavily in the air…or so it seemed.
It was with this gentle scratchiness hanging that we then set forth on a day off, and a trip out. I tried to assert that this was a romantic day out, being Valentine’s Day and all. But this too fell on somewhat stony ground, as we both knew it was work related, and involved driving half way across the country tomeet a number of colleagues. Still, it was nice to get out and about for a day. As ever, driving out from my rain sodden fastness, I’m affronted by the growing impact of humanities expanding footprint. Steel skeletons of new business and retail parks adorn road junctions, and crops of winter sown housing estates shoot up everywhere. The verges are adorned with ever more bright hews of plastic blossoms, cast into the brambly waste, vegetation and litter alike slimed with an oily smear of pollution from the endless traffic. We passed a huge scar in the landscape where regiments of hi-vis blokes shunt earth moving plant about, building a new railway from Birmingham to London. It will allow people to get from one to the other 5 minutes quicker. Is their time so vitally important?
Indeed, chatting with someone we were set to hook up with, he was explaining some of the truly arresting waste being perpetrated on this vast pointless project. I can’t really reveal the detail, given some of it will surely end in court when it comes out. Currently it’s seemingly being suppressed to both help keep the (high speed) gravy train lining pockets large and small, and equally to delay political embarrassment. I was shocked, and I’m a jaded old cynic. If it’s halfway true, it’s a disgrace.
Meanwhile, numbers confirm that, as I guessed, huge acreages of arable farmland has been entered into new govschemes to promote wildlife- at the expense of food production. So much so that the minister concerned is suddenly back pedalling, and asking us to stop signing up. This, you’ll remember, is based on the concept that growing food is damaging to the environment, so we’ll simply import our food from somewhere else…..while excavating great swathes of lowland England for a railway we didn’t want. I wish I was making it all up.
Another delegate we bumped into at our soiree works within the NHS – at minimum wage I note. His tales of incompetence and waste weren’t much better, to the extent that a private concern that carried on in the same manner would go bust pretty quickly if it were run thus. Again, it’d be wrong of me to detail it here, but small wonder front line staff are underfunded and despairing.
In all of it, I keep smelling the combined whiff of ignorance and corruption. And since a fish stinks from the head, it is to Westminster I’m looking. MPs, and Ministers especially, must either be very stupid- always a possibility- or simply ‘on the take’. The fact that an MP allegedly caught agreeing to lobby for the gambling industry was given a political slap on the wrist says it all. There should be gaol time for such behaviour….anyone found taking money for such things should go to prison. Because they’re representing others, the level of the crime is so much greater.
As for their apparent levels of stupidity? Well, we vote for them. Hmm.

 

[Anton Coaker Blog]

Lucy

The going was pretty heavy here last weekend, with nasty sleet on Saturday, and a strong northerly blast driving sheets of rain all of Sunday. My outdoor feeding duties include taking round bales out to several groups of cows. Hungry, barging impatient cows, on days like that. First off was 24 head of South Devons, and 20 odd tonnes of beef were stood waiting for me. I have to extract the strings from the bale, with a face full of stray wisps of silage, splatters of mud, and other vicious fluids the churning cows hooves were flicking up in the driving wind and rain, with fingers numbing in the cold. And as my dear and much loved charges shoved me aside, this was something of a trial. Several times I spied someone chewing on a length of cord before I’d captured it, although I managed to grab them all back lest they accumulate in a cows ample stomach, causing a fatal blockage. By some miracle, no-one stood on my booted feet this time, and I’d managed to protect my damaged knee from further wrenches wading about.

Back in the cab, I returned to the yard for another bale, and set off toward the next of 4-5 groups. With no further real problems, beyond the baseline issues of carrying out the work in such horrible weather, I got to the last feeder. There, a smaller group- including the plainer cows- awaited, and I’d foolishly already started counting the minutes before I could get back to the farmhouse, and shed my sodden kit. But rounding the end of the stone wall by the gate, I was met by a great long legged South Devon calf, its gangly limbs half submerged in the porridge, its brand new pink navel cord dangling in this less than hygienic gloop. The dam was clearly Alison’s much loved former bucket calf ‘Lucy’, who’d unexpectedly delivered her precious new baby. It was licked clean, and clearly full term. Hell! It was huge! She must’ve gone straight back to the bull in the calving fields last year, gaining 8 weeks somehow.

Clearly they couldn’t stay out there. So I scooped the calf up bodily- and by heavens it was a test of my remaining fortitude to carry this great lump through the porridge, back out onto clean ground. Lucy came easily enough, and I could leave them to feed the bale, before a riot erupted amongst the rest of the group. Nipping back to the yard, I found my lucky little wife and suggested she might like to drive the landrover for me, carrying the calf, as I walked Lucy in. Obligingly, as we did this, calfy stood up in the back of the truck, with its lugubrious long head out over the side where Lucy could see and smell it, and so followed all the way back down the track to the yard. There, with calfy’s navel cleaned and soaked in iodine, they were safely deposited in a waiting loosebox.

By the time we’d finished the afternoon work, gale still raging, I went back as light was fading, and checked in on Lucy…and thankfully, there was baby- up and guzzling milk like a good’un. Sunday? A day of rest isn’t it?



Onwards. I believe some of my Welsh colleagues are heading into town this week, emulating protests which have been growing on the continent for weeks. There, matters have reached the point where Macron was barracked while trying to appease farmers in Paris, and riot police had to break them up. Then, on Monday more riot cops failed to stop a large convoy of tractors rumbling into Brussels. Barbed wire barricades were swept aside as at least one tractor arrived with a dozer blade ready attached, and simply drove on through. Once inside the cordon, farmers drove round the EU buildings, spraying some stinky ‘effluent’ - which made cops smartly retreat - and setting fire to tipped loads of tyres and plastic.

The demands and complaints being quoted vary somewhat from country to country. The Welsh are principally demonstrating against a proposed new regime where subsidy payments will depend on them giving up 20% of their land for trees and ‘habitat’. And once the trees are growing, felling licences are needed to remove them…which may not be forthcoming. So to retain the support which makes up for decades of ‘below cost of production’ markets, the farmers are expected to indefinitely forfeit a percentage of their land.

I’ll take the liberty of rounding up the feelings of the industry. We’re fed up with being used as an environmental football to kick around, the scapegoat for an industrialised urbanised society.

 

[Anton Coaker Blog]

Trump etc

I’ve only ventured into the United States on two brief occasions. Both occurred when I was a youth, hitch hiking across neighbouring Canada. I was travelling East to West, having flown into Halifax, Nova Scotia, and having 30 days to get to a return flight from Vancouver, British Columbia – I’ll tell you about this trip another day, as it was quite an experience for a farm lad. But I was essentially making my way along the Northern border of the US. A chance encounter found me stopped a couple of nights on a farm near Montreal, from where my host kindly offered to take me out for lunch across the border. There was a lot of cross border traffic, as US fags and fuel were much less taxed, and as we motored into New York State, my pal explained that the average weight of those we passed would increase by 20-30 pounds. And sure enough, he was on the money. We ate in a diner, and the reasons for the larger girths were pretty obvious…the portions were immense. The countryside looked much the same, people lived very similarly, but ate much more.
Moving West, across the prairies, and over the Rockies, I found myself with a few days to kill. So I made my way down behind the coastal range, through high semi-desert backwoods country of Washington State, Oregon, and back out to the forested coast in Northern California. And sure enough, I met every grade of nutter you can imagine. I’d just had an intense exposure to the pleasant open natured Canadians, and it was jarring. I never felt especially uncomfortable, being young, fit, and carrying little more than the slightly whiffy clothes I stood up in, and an airline ticket home. But by golly it was educational. You might reasonably suggest the Canadians were somewhat boring by comparison, in that across the previous 3000 miles I hardly encountered drunk drivers, threats of violence, criminals on the run, religious fanatics, would-be muggers, or many people that could clearly arouse the curiosity of an army of psychiatrists. Notably, the only police station I saw the inside of was during those few days. To be fair, this corner of the US was fairly infamous for such people, but never-the-less…..
So I can almost understand how the ‘States’ have got themselves into this cycle of such wildly inappropriate political leaders. I say almost, because it still baffles me. The current incumbent is clearly a very elderly man, and while I absolutely respect the wisdom of age – curiously, increasingly so - and recall that many cultures formally assign the word ‘elder’ with properties of wisdom and knowledge, that kindly overlooks the dribbling, wistful recollections that ‘every was better in my day’, and propensity to forget stuff. I am also mindful that Joe Biden looks like someone ill-equipped to respond dynamically to problems. Should so much power and responsibility fall into such faltering old hands?
And as for his opposite number, El Trumpo? The character flaws are more or less beyond count. He is clearly, by most of the standards I’d use…a wrong’un. His graceless denials ofthe results of the previous Presidential election, and the endless repercussions of his selfish claims illustrate his nature as clearly as anything I could say. But still, once again, the USA is seemingly going to pick between these two very old rich men.
I know several US citizens. Many of them I like very much,and they display an apparent degree of sanity. So how do they collectively allow a political system so dreadfully hamstrung? I can’t tell you.
Looking nearer to home, we fair little better. Indeed, it was a tiny detail I noticed that identified a seminal moment in British politics backalong. When Rishi was making his stab at leadership of the Conservatives, he’d carefully kept his powder dry until the last minute, but then had a slick professionally made promo video ready, solely to impress his Conservative colleagues. So, it seems he’d been plotting for some time, very possibly right from the get go, and that having a lot of money helps. The plotting and backstabbing was ever thus, but now we can glimpse into how money helps buys power. Like the back handers to get influence I talked about recently, money should have no place in politics….it inevitably corrupts. And I don’t know how you fix this complex element of human nature.
And on this note I must thank authors of a couple of letters lately. To the first, I’m sorry, I’m too enmeshed in my own bucolic affairs to look higher, and to the latter, …well, you at least made us laugh!

 

[Anton Coaker Blog]

Cows in river

I haven’t been paying a whole lot of attention to the discussion about the pro-Palestinian/ anti-Israel demonstrations in London of late. But the bit of the chat has caught my ear is that those who want such demonstrations curtailed also mention restricting the activities of the ‘far right’…seemingly as some kind of balance.
This has got me thinking, because I’m not altogether sure what people mean by the ‘far right’ now. As I formerly understood matters, being right wing could mean you were keen on ‘small’ government, the benefits of capitalism, anti-communist, pro-nationalism…that kind of thing. It didn’t necessarily equate with racism…which it seems to now. And that’s troubling, because it has come to indicate that you can’t have certain strong feelings about a range of social matters without also then being labelled a racist. I’m even less clear how it works for someone from an ethnic minority community who has ‘right wing’ values in matters other than race. Hmm.
Likewise, I’m curious how we are meant to view people in faraway countries which are demonstrably not ‘multi-cultural’, where it’s then not uncommon to show a marked racial prejudice. I’m sure someone will say it’s their lack of multi-culturalism that makes them racist, although I note thestats show if we had proportional representation in the UK, the constituencies that might return the extreme right wing candidates could very well be some of the most diverse. The problem this reveals is that the privacy of the ballot box allows us to vote as we choose, without the finger of political correctness wagging at us.
Back to the demonstration business. Who exactly is allowed to demonstrate? Nice people? People ‘like us’? Whose views are supposed to be extreme? I don’t know, but I suspect there’s some pretty rank double standards developing. And when these become entrenched, history suggests there’llusually be an equal and opposite motion kicking back.
In fact, the more I consider it, the more this confusion about the overlap between far right politics and extremism, and the assumptions it breeds, is peculiar. It means you risk beingdemonised- vilified- for being too right wing, over heartfelt political views. And yet it’s OK in society to loudly espouse extreme lefty views – people might think you’re a sad commie dinosaur twit, but it’s quite acceptable. Curiouser and curiouser said Alice.

I’ll move on, because so many people can’t even consider such things without getting wound up, and I don’t want to over-excite anyone before tea.
My hands are glowing nicely at the minute, having been feeding out bales of silage with a high thistle content, and stacking a large batch of larch boards- larch timber has a tendency to leave tiny hair like fibres in your pinkies. These are so small that old eyes can barely even see them. I’m being pragmatic, and telling myself the warming prickly sensation is a good thing. It reminds me I’m alive! Anyway, didn’t the Romans flay themselves with nettles to alleviate the cold of the English climate?
I’ve been troubled with straying cows as well this week. A large bunch of South Devons have been at a round feeder on the near side of the Dart all winter. On the other side of the valley, lengthening days and a lack of mouths has seen a slight flush of green stuff appearing. They know this, and last Friday, 15 of them decamped across the river, and browsed across the hill opposite. The gates into 13 acres of mowing ground were open, and although the grass therein was only an inch or two out of the ground, it would’ve been ambrosial after months of August’s soggy silage. I gave them 4 days, before we went over to fetch them back. Of course, after Saturday’s monsoon – and by gum we’ve had a few of them this winter- the old girls and Dave the bull flat refused to cross the river. It was too deep, and anyway, they assured me, they had no idea how to climb down the bank into ford….despite their hoofprints quite clearly showing they’d come this way. Eventually, with some stern words, and waving of sticks, they deigned to amble down across the sand bar, and into the water. Walking as slowly as you can walk without actually being stopped, they waded their way to the other bank, and then refused to get out. It took Alison and I an hour to get them across. They’re close to calving now, so I’ll get em contained nearer to home in a day or two, so as to be handy when I want to see them a bit more.
Bless em.

 

[Anton Coaker Blog]

Rain

You might’ve noticed the weather hasn’t been much fun….it certainly hasn’t escaped my attention for a moment. Last week, we started the current round of TB testing, with 2 off lying groups to process before we do the big mob here. Monday was bad enough, with barely a moments relief from the wind and rain. These cattle are all on ‘drier’ ground, eating at round feeders surrounded by boot sucking porridge. We maintain rudimentary chutes on both sites for such eventualities, basic but functional. There’s no shelter, nor hard standing underfoot. The bigger group- a bunch of 33 mostly Galloway youngstock- needed a quad to fetch them in, as they’ve annoyingly remained immune to my whispering technique. Mud splattered, cattle steamed in the rain, and vet Jonathan struggled away keeping a determined look in his eye. At least I ensure we usually have ample hands on deck – I understand not everyone does this, which mystifies me, given the fallout of a failed attempt to complete the test.

That was Monday. The intervening days went by without huge calamity, but come ‘reading’ day, Thursday, dawn revealed 4” of soggy snow. Zipping out to check calving South Devons here first, I found a 2nd calver sulking off under some trees, with 2 little trotters poking out of her stern. I saw these feet were curled over and fused, and guessed we had our first Schmallenburg case. Knowing these can be very difficult to calve, I phoned home to fetch yon vet’nry toot sweet. I walked her in across 3 fields, and stuck in a loosebox so I could crack on with feeding. Scatting grub along feed barriers in front of the ravening hordes of last year’s calves, I managed to get ahead for a minute before Ben the vet arrived. He, John and I soon extracted a breeched calf- stillborn happily, cos it certainly wasn’t the shape a calf should be. It came out with its head curled back across its shoulder, and forelegs scrunched up too. Happily, the cow had masses of pelvic space, and didn’t take harm in this extraction. Evidently, an infected midge had bitten this poor cow when she was newly served. She at least remained quiet and biddable, and should go on fine another year…hopefully immunised now.

Rushing back up the lane, I thought to get some bales in feeders before we set off for the TB readings. At feeder number 2, I was met with a heifer with ‘a bag out’- since I’d seen them earlier. Without breaking my stride, I hooked her out of the group, and shuttled her into the drift lane. Once I’d fed the bales, I despatched a pair of hands to fetch her into the loosebox, chucking the former patient back out into the melting snow. Heifers can take hours and hours to get on with it, so we left her there and carried on. As I got the loader tractor back to the yard, a hydraulic hose blew, spraying vital fluids all under the cab. A spare was attached to the dung spreader, albeit it needed thrashing with Fawlty’s metaphoric hazel stick to be coaxed to life. Swapping spikes over in floods of meltwater, I’d soon finished feeding so we could set off.

The test was luckily clear, and the cattle fairly well behaved. One 4x4 was tugging a trailer, so we could grab another load of ewes who’re getting towards lambing. They hardly thanked us for bringing them back up here, but time moves on and we can’t leave them much longer. Getting home, the heifer hadn’t progressed- indeed, she wasn’t dilating much. Two little toes presented the right way on, so I determined to follow the time honoured advice- give heifers time. We left her until well into the evening, by then John and I calved her without much fuss, so we could turn in. The calf was soon out and spluttering, she was licking him clean, and I had surely had enough for the day.

The following morning, he wasn’t up and about, and has proved to be unable to walk. On reflection, her amniotic bag was unusually a bit bloody, and the diagnosis is he’d nicked his umbilical somehow, leaving him short of oxygenated blood as he waited his arrival. Calving her sooner would’ve been brutal on mum…but what can you do? I’m having to milk her and tube him twice a day.

Things have hardly improved since, with a rush of calvings in continued battering rain. It ain’t pretty, and my days are a continued cycle of triage decisions – who needs to be fetched into the scant space indoors. I really need better weather.

 

[Anton Coaker Blog]

Getting old and Alex

With some interest I’m watching a phenomena growing, like an interesting shrub, or a hatch of young birds- only less salubrious. And the thing that grows under my astonished gaze is the steadily growing list of ailments that are afflicting my beaten and abused physical presence. Some I can kid myself are temporary, and will get better if I favour the hurtybit. Others are obviously just symptoms of advancing time, and I am reluctantly resigned to their sharing my existence on a continued basis. When the quack tells you you’re going to being taking the pills for the foreseeable future, you can’t really avoid the reality.
I fight back, obviously. I do battle each morning trying to balance on one leg to get the other foot in relevant garments….just on general principals. Between the knee I banged up in January, and the rock in my back, I don’t always win this skirmish, and frequently have to fall back to the end of the bed to complete my task. I’ve already made the mental congratulatory note of a night ‘holding the line’…where I only had to get up once to pee. My diet is fairly sensible- porridge features rather than a fried breakfast, and some green things are tolerated on the dinner plate. I am blessed with the apparent ability to decide whether or not to have a dram of an evening. I’m not blind to this blessing, as my dear late Dad, as well as being a big character, had a ‘tremendous thirst’. Maybe I took that as a lesson.
Another symptom of this fight are dodges I find myself using. If I can see a shortcut that will spare my aching bones, I’ll increasingly take it. The flipside is that I note I’m subconsciously avoiding situations that might result in my getting further bashed. I’m no longer happy to body slam a bouncing yearling bullock into the chute, and am increasingly cagey about getting kicked when scrummaging under a bouncy heifer that needs milking out. These are small signs that I’m critically aware of. I suspect those close to me see them too, but have the diplomacy not to mention.
Something that concerns me is how much the beasts know. I’ve long known that the cattle under my care are as attuned to my state as I am to theirs. Over the years, I’ve known a number of older stockmen come a cropper when a cow turns unexpectedly, or the dopey old bull they handle without a thought suddenly finds he is the boss in the relationship. It might be no more than their reactions are a bit slower, or that the agility is no longer there. But it’s more than that I’m afraid- a subtle thing which can have catastrophic outcomes. I happy enough with this endless unfolding cycle, and know my place in it…so don’t be worrying on my account.

A couple of things have caught my eye outside my little world this week. Firstly, I’m delighted that Natural England’s attempts to bully a North Devon farmer have fallen on stony ground, when a judge threw out their case against him. I’ve little doubt they’ll rally, and try to go after the poor man again, but it was sweet to see them reined in for once. Other such instances rumble on, as they use presumed legal powers to pursue an agenda outside their remit.
Then on Channel 4’s news on Tuesday night, twerp Alex Thompson was decrying the alleged poor state of the UK’s National Parks, on the 75th anniversary of their creation. He asserted that biodiversity has been ruined, mostly blaming sheep for destroying these areas, and claiming they’d been ‘set aside for nature’. This was a dubious statement, because I wasn’t aware that the National Parks were ever ‘set aside’ as he claims, and it seems he’s simply regurgitating the rewildersconscience salving nonsense. Dartmoor, he claimed, has only 1% of its peatlands in functional order….despite there being evidence that peatland across large areas of Dartmoor is recovering perfectly well from the long abandoned historic peat cutting drainage.
He then took us to Yorkshire, where a wealthy hedge fund manager has used their city money to buy a hill farm…and rewild it. All kinds of claims were made about their dreams for this land, but little of the lorry loads of lambs it used to produce, the 2 shepherds that it used to employ, or the impact on the wider community. Indeed, Thompson et al studiously ignore one aspect of the Parks requirements which arespecifically protected….their communities.
The bit that bothers me most though is that this hooey is presented as ‘news’.