Landowners - what did they ever do for us?

[Peter Burgess]

Hi Simon. I made my point, I have no reason to continue discussing anything further on this topic with you, since despite attempting to explain my rationale nicely, it isn't enough for you. Fair enough. You can assume you know my circumstances as much as you like, and that's fine, but I really don't care one jot whether your thoughts about what I know and don't know are correct, or totally wide of the mark. I too have been escorted off places I wasn't welcome, so I am quite familiar with the feeling.

 

[Badlad]

There have been some good points made in this topic despite a quick visit to Bicker City - please guys.

The topic title, 'Landowners - what did they ever do for us', could equally state, 'Landowners - what did we ever do for them'?

With this in mind I note that the new plans for countryside stewardship have been announced.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cap-reform-introducing-countryside-stewardship

This scheme replaces the Environmental Stewardship Scheme. From the intro;

Countryside Stewardship will contribute around ?900 million to rural businesses to help
them improve the countryside environment. It will be open to all eligible farmers, land
managers, land owners and tenants. It will replace:
? Environmental Stewardship (ES)
? the English Woodland Grant Scheme (EWGS)
? capital grants from the Catchment Sensitive Farming (CSF) programme
We currently plan that farmers and land managers
can start applying for Countryside Stewardship from
July 2015. Agreements and payments will begin in
2016.

Landowners can include hundreds of aspects of land management in the agreements.  Examples are;

Taking field corners out of management
Management of hedgerows
Winter cover crops
Management of moorland
Educational access
Historic building restoration
Maintenance of weatherproof traditional farm buildings
Fencing
Stone gate posts
Cattle grids
Tree Surgery
Wildlife boxes

So who is the countryside environment being improved for?  The public I assume.

I have mentioned before that the published Environmental Stewardship Agreement for one well known Dales caving area landowner is ?576,000 over a ten year period - ?57,000 a year of public money.  What this demonstrates to me is that the public and rural landowner are in a partnership whether either like it or not.  This requires a bit of give and take on both sides.  Landowners must accept that the public have certain rights and the public must respect the landowners right to go about his business with as little disturbance as possible.  Where conflict does arise it should not be necessary, in this day and age, for mass protest or bloody battles such as Wind Hill and Kinder Scout.  Government has established statutory bodies to advise and mediate where conflict arises and over the last decade most problems have been settled by understanding and compromise. 

It is inevitable that both government and the public are going to make more demands on rural recreational resources.  In one recent House of Commons debate an MP described the countryside as a 'free gym', from which the health of the nation would benefit.  The rural industry (farming etc), especially in upland areas, cannot survive without subsidy from the public purse.  Unlike steel, coal and manufacturing industries they are too important to fail for both environmental and food production reasons.  However, the balance has not yet been settled and it is inevitable that the public will achieve greater rights over the countryside.  Since it is our sport, caving may as well be a part of this.

 

[Peter Burgess]

So who is the countryside environment being improved for?  The public I assume.

I would expand that, and probably to a more important group - our descendants.

 

[Badlad]

So who is the countryside environment being improved for?  The public I assume.

I would expand that, and probably to a more important group - our descendants.

I take your point but they are still "the public".

 

[royfellows]

Thanks for new stewardship info and link Mr Badlad
There could be something here for Cambrian Mines Trust. The thing is that I have no doubt that we shall be able to obtain grants for our various works at Cwmystwyth but the question remains of how maintenence of the site will be funded in the future. We are keeping our fingers crossed over the proposed hydro scheme but this point in time its pie in the sky.

 

[Peter Burgess]

So who is the countryside environment being improved for?  The public I assume.

I would expand that, and probably to a more important group - our descendants.

I take your point but they are still "the public".

And it is a very important point, Mr Badlad. Perhaps the great majority of cavers thinking through what the debate has led to are thinking about what it means for them as cavers. To think about what it means for those that come after us puts a significant new dimension to the whole debate. How will what we do today affect what people like us will find in 100 years?  Stewardship isn't about what we can get out of the landscape, it's about guarding the landscape for the future. That's why it's called "stewardship", not "management" or "utilisation".

 

[Badlad]

Dear Peter

Do you have to try and turn everything into an argument?

Personally I have just about everything I want out of caving.  What interests me more is promoting caving, securing access and conserving caves for the long term viability of our sport for both current and future generations to enjoy.  It is that simple.

 

[Peter Burgess]

Of course not - Badlad. It's not an argument, just a different (wider?) perspective. It's only an argument if you don't agree! I agreed with what you said, and just expanded the concept. It's misconceptions about why people post stuff that makes arguments. As Mr Wilson said the other day, so unnecessarily as it happens, "Chill". Honestly - give me the benefit of the doubt please. I don't post any differently on other sites, so why is it just here that people get pointlessly up tight? Beats me! 

 

[droid]

Part of it, Peter, is that the written word is a very one-dimensional way of communicating. People have theit preconceptions as to what you are about to say and react to those preconceptions regardless of what you actually DO say.

The above was a prime example of that.

 

[Peter Burgess]

I thought my signature might help. Clearly not.......  :read:  As for yours, Droid - well, what can I say? !!  :chair: It might have been better if Mr Badlad had raised his concerns privately, then we wouldn't have got sidetracked....   

 

[jasonbirder]

How will what we do today affect what people like us will find in 100 years?

I'd like to think that what we are doing now will lead to better access to the countryside and freedom for the public to go about their activities in our wonderful, majestic and spectacular wild places...

As the legacy of the mass trespasses of 1932 on Kinder have ultimately lead through the years to the CRoW legislation...i'd like to think that people (not just cavers) can continue this tradition and bequeath a countryside open to all to enjoy for ourselves AND our descendents...

 

[Stu]

How will what we do today affect what people like us will find in 100 years?

I'd like to think that what we are doing now will lead to better access to the countryside and freedom for the public to go about their activities in our wonderful, majestic and spectacular wild places...

As the legacy of the mass trespasses of 1932 on Kinder have ultimately lead through the years to the CRoW legislation...i'd like to think that people (not just cavers) can continue this tradition and bequeath a countryside open to all to enjoy for ourselves AND our descendents...

Heartily agree.

Peter, though I'm not sure why Badlad bit at what you said, I do get the sense from your posts specifically on this issue, that you are perhaps quite reactionary in your view on access or at least cave access. The implied conservatism, to me at least, seems to pander to landowners somehow being our betters.

Class war was mentioned on some thread or other and I'll readily admit that my blood runs red politically. Of course this can inform me in a way that I know I need to check so I can make a proper assessment and conclusion without politics clouding everything. I also have an interest in bird-watching - the so-called stewardship, management or whatever else you want to call it, and my research into land management, specifically of grouse moorland, leads me to think that the landowners haven't actually done much for us. Not surprising this in itself. They were serving their own needs just as I wish my needs to be served. In the latter case my needs - free open air recreation over land that once would have been ours, has arguably a greater good as its end game.

 

[Peter Burgess]

We all have to muck along together on this crowded planet, so the more we tolerate each others' ideas, property, wishes, and activities, the better. Anyone who sees the different aspects as areas of conflict rather than cooperation, the longer it will take. I don't think that viewpoint is particularly reactionary. I think it is down to what people believe my stance to be without thinking, rather than what they will see if they look a bit harder.

 

[Stu]

We all have to muck along together on this crowded planet, so the more we tolerate each others' ideas, property, wishes, and activities, the better.

I'd agree, though there has been a massive imbalance for too many years about where we can muck about. The tolerance of the landed gentry went as far as beatings given to any person with the temerity to want to take the pleasure of the moors. Nowadays it seems that some of the activities of some of the landowners, ecologically at least, would mean that there wouldn't be much moorland left for future generations.

 

[Peter Burgess]

The more important (for me) part of my post was the second sentence, although now I see I screwed up on the grammar!

 

[Simon Wilson]

We all have to muck along together on this crowded planet, so the more we tolerate each others' ideas, property, wishes, and activities, the better. Anyone who sees the different aspects as areas of conflict rather than cooperation, the longer it will take. I don't think that viewpoint is particularly reactionary. I think it is down to what people believe my stance to be without thinking, rather than what they will see if they look a bit harder.

Do we have to tolerate all the activities that the owners of moors do? What about the destruction of 'pests'?

https://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/h/henharrier/

 

[Peter Burgess]

You know that I meant legal activities. Please do not imply that I tolerate law-breaking.

 

[Stu]

You know that I meant legal activities. Please do not imply that I tolerate law-breaking.

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/3597/grouse_moor_burning_causes_widespread_environmental_changes

What about the legal activities?

 

[RobinGriffiths]

I was driving near Yetholm the other day, and there were hundreds of pheasants all over the place. I'm not saying it's a zero sum game, but what was the collateral in maintaining an ecosystem just for this species?

 

[Simon Wilson]

I was driving near Yetholm the other day, and there were hundreds of pheasants all over the place. I'm not saying it's a zero sum game, but what was the collateral in maintaining an ecosystem just for this species?

The cost to the environment of pheasant shooting is minor in comparison to grouse.