Kenilworth said:
Clive G said:
Kenilworth said:
Clive, I have not yet stated what my strategies are, and I understood clearly your point.
My own discoveries are no doubt bland in comparison with your own, but almost the entirety of my caving is in the pursuit of virgin cave. This pursuit has been richly rewarded with miles of new passage, some of it very attractive. I know what it means to explore a cave for the first time.
Where we differ, I suspect, is in our view of what "proper education" is. I do not believe it can come from national organizations or even strictly from science.
If you get your strategy
right then there should be no need for it to be 'unpopular'!
It's the hypocrisy of people enjoying freedoms to do what they want - and unless you are reasonably free to prod around where your instinct takes you then you won't make a particularly successful explorer - yet turning round afterwards and saying others are 'not good enough' to enjoy the same freedoms, that I dislike.
The not-so-heavily-visited cave discoveries that I initially made entirely on my own instincts are the ones which I treasure most from a 'personal development' point of view - so don't think 'small' or 'bland' is in any way 'lesser'.
Yet, I prefer exploring new cave finds with a good team around, because it is the reactions of others at what you are experiencing together
for the first time which is the real
highlight of new exploration for me. Burn it all off on your own and there is purely self and an emptiness left at the end of it all - which I don't find at all satisfactory by comparison. This is why although it is 'fun' and exhilarating to take the lead during a new exploration, the actual best place to be is somewhere in the middle of the party, where you can pick up on pretty much everyone's reactions.
But when things get difficult and leads aren't working out, then a solo trip or two can make all the difference and help start things moving forwards again, for
everyone.
Above all, explorers do not want to see their finds desecrated by ignorant people and I believe there are ways and means of achieving the best 'protection' here - as I have outlined above - without having to become a 'control freak' in the process. If you can't let go of what you have found then it will burn your hands, but this doesn't mean you should sit back and let others march in and take 'control' instead!
You and I are different in how we go about our caving and what we want from it. About seventy percent of my caving is with only my brother. About twenty-five percent is solo. The little remainder is sport trips with friends or very occasional trips with other cavers. All I'm after is understanding. Awe is part of discovery, and excitement, but these are personal things to me and I have no need to experience them in a group.
When I discover something, I do not view it as mine. Never having grabbed hold of it, it cannot burn my hand, and I need not let it go. The hypocrisy you speak of can only exist when ego drives exploration. I cannot separate, obviously, ego from everything I do, but love is the primary dominant force in my caving. I do not begrudge anyone the right to do exactly as I have done, that is; build relationships, study, walk, walk, walk... and thus see the things I have found. But they have no right to be to led to the entrance. This is an important point. Hard work is what births discovery. We all have the freedom to do hard work. If we want rewards, let us do it. "If a man does not want to work, neither let him eat."
Finally, what, in your years of observing humanity, has brought you to the conclusion that the right thing will be popular?
Thanks for your reply!
I've done solo cave exploration and cave digging and exploration with just one other person as well, so I can see where you're coming from, but for the large-scale explorations that I've been involved with, these would have been diminished in
my mind if others had not also been around to participate and share in the 'first time' experience. This is because not everyone is lucky enough (or rather prepared sufficiently) to be able to turn the key in the lock of what otherwise is an impenetrable stone fortress of a mountain.
However, say, a brilliant cave photographer can almost certainly do a better job than yourself in recording the finds you are involved with, visually in as close to their pristine state as possible, provided you are prepared to
invite them to participate at an early stage in the discovery. This is not to say you shouldn't take your own photographs as well - which could be even better,
on occasion! Everyone has different skill strengths and weaknessess in caving and it's by pooling the
strengths that you build a major discovery, rather than excluding others through their perceived 'weaknesses' and an attitude of superiority and exclusivity.
What got me going was this statement:
Kenilworth said:
Clive, I have not yet stated what my strategies are, and I understood clearly your point.
. . .
Where we differ, I suspect, is in our view of what "proper education" is. I do not believe it can come from national organizations or even strictly from science.
You see I was a keen proponent for the formation of the British Caving Association (BCA) and you can read my editorial to this effect in Caves & Caving (91), Autumn/Winter 2001. So, as soon as someone comes along and suggests cave conservation can best be managed outside national organisations this starts my train of complaint that the British Cave Research Association (BCRA) was not properly
merged with a satisfactory public face and membership support that it not only deserved but also
required as a pre-existing charitable body.
If the incorporation of BCRA members into the new BCA had left things open for BCRA members to vote in favour of separating again in the future, if they didn't like what BCA was offering, then although this would make the single body potentially less stable, it would also have retained the necessary
balance of power between the sporting and scientific interests in caving.
You see, the measurement of caves and their relative scientific 'values' in order to assess conservation factors and devise conservation plans is most properly handled by a scientific caving body, but if it is proposed
and acted upon that a new such body is to be set up then the whole National Caving Association (NCA)/BCRA
merger has effectively failed.
What this is all about is a 'balance of power'. Because if you run caving entirely through a learned scientific society, keeping 'amateur scientists' (and certainly 'sporting' cavers) at bay, then everywhere will start being locked up and the prerequisite for caving will become scientific study alone and nothing else.
The strength of the BCRA as an independent body was that it not only produced a learned transactions,
Cave and Karst Science, but also served a membership whose members were predominantly not professional scientists but cavers who were interested in cave science and wanted to know more. And it's the so-called 'amateur' cave science community from which some of the best British cave scientists have emerged and done their fieldwork and produced valuable associated publications.
So, it's getting the scientific balance right
within BCA that I see as a key issue here, where BCA caters not only for sporting cavers and caving club members, but also individual cavers who go and do their own thing, whether this be 'physical workouts' or cave exploration and cave science underground. The idea that you don't need to educate your members in aspects of 'cave science for the educated layman' seems totally alien to me and most counterproductive when it comes to protecting caves and valuable and important cave features.
The 'burning your hand' I'm referring to is finding something and then trying to 'control' how others use it - say by putting a locked gate on the entrance and/or instructing others to 'keep out'. However, in the case of finding the way into a major cave system a responsibility is also attached whereby you cannot just sit back and leave the find 'to the dogs' - some responsible form of cave management must be set up. This we did at Llangattock through setting up the Mynydd Llangatwg Cave Management (Advisory) Committee and the Ogof Draenen explorers have done the same through their Pwll Du Cave Management Group.
John Parker, whose team found and dug open the way into Ogof Craig a Ffynnon, has a saying, "If you want to find a cave, go and dig your own dig!", which I totally respect. And, having travelled to the Maritime Alps in Italy on a caving club expedition over Summer 1984, that John participated in, when I chatted with him about aspects of cave exploration, this is exactly what I then did do, once back in South Wales on the August bank holiday weekend the same year.
However, if your caving national body is not constituted in the right way to cope with and integrate satisfactorily the demands of all cavers then I can well see how ideas to develop alternative conservation strategies and organisations are likely to be brought into being as a workable alternative.
