UKC Conservation Rewards

Badlad

Administrator
Staff member
UKC Conservation Rewards

There has been plenty of discussion on UKcaving about cave conservation over the years.  Should we restrict access, tape formations, educate, rely on conservation guides and work to conservation plans?  All have an impact and can work to a greater or lesser extent.

However, one conservation measure that always improves our caves is cleaning up rubbish and mess.  This includes anything from a dropped chocolate wrapper, an unstuck oversuit patch, discarded clothing (I uncovered a pair of underpants wrapped up in a plastic bag recently) to abandoned digging equipment.  All of it is, as they say'better out than in'.

Many clean ups have taken place in the past, some are on going, however there is always more to remove.  Inspired by our own recent clean ups in Notts 2 and Rift Pot and by the efforts of the Buttered Badgers in the Peak District, UKcaving would like to encourage the removal of all rubbish from our caves.  In doing so we hope to educate all cavers and diggers to think about their actions.  As well as taking digging gear into a cave do we have a plan to bring it out again?  Will we pick up that chocolate wrapper even though it isn?t ours?  Let?s try and always answer ?yes? to these questions.

The Badgers came up with the idea of UKC offering rewards for rubbish removed.  Between us we have attracted a number of partners and already can offer over a ?1000 worth of gifts as recognition for cleaning up our caves.  Publish your efforts on UKC and as well as being eligible for a reward you will encourage others to do the same.

We hope to role this out by region.  So far we have support in the Dales, the Peak District and Mendip and we are hoping all the regions will get involved.  Therefore any individual or group from other areas who can organise local sponsors and adjudicate on the awards are encouraged to get in touch.  More details to come later in the month.

Our conservation motto is:      If in doubt ? bring it out
 

cap n chris

Well-known member
Before and after photos will serve well to make an instant visual point so don't forget to take a camera (fixed point photo with a tripod might work a treat) - the results will probably speak volumes. Alternatively a photo of the amount of rubbish collected!
 

bagpuss

Member
I tend to try and pick up stuff en route/back from the cave as well, drinks containers are the worst offenders. Found an empty capri sun stuffed into the wall nr Swildon's the other day, why?!

Are there any Mendip caves which are particularly effected by rubbish? They've always struck me as being pretty tidy, aside from the odd bits which fall out of people's pockets accidentally. Happy to help with any clear ups if needed.
 

ah147

New member
I'm going to pop down eldon and take out all that unsightly digging hear that wasn't being used last time I went!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

ianball11

Active member
OBJ Hole is a bit of a dumping ground, probably from being so close to the Ingleborough walking path.  I carried a few pop bottles and the like down the hill last time I was there but I didn't rummage about for anything more.
Not exactly a cow, or reel of old fence.

It used to be the practice that we would take out anything small which shouldn't be in there, but I've drifted away from that approach recently.
 

christine

Active member
Thank you for this post BadLad  (y)

I particularly despise litter (you'll recall that I run the occasional beach clean up too) and my small caving business is committed to making sure we leave the cave either as we find it - or better.

I find that human behaviour is catching. If one person drops something, that makes it Ok for the next person etc. Dirty streets become dirtier but dropping litter on an immaculate street or beach makes you stick out like a sore thumb.
Equally, when I walked one of my groups back down from Goatchurch one day, I bent down to pick up a discarded crisp packet  - next thing I knew, my group had gathered this between them:



I always give a 30 minute slideshow and talk about caves before any trip and the last slides are based around the cave conservation code. The Sparrows will testify that my groups tend to bring out other people's litter owing to the grubby wrappers discovered in oversuit pockets (sorry  :-[)
Their own litter comes home with me in a Daren drum.

Nothing to do with litter but nice photos nonetheless - conservation in action  :halo:



 

MarkS

Moderator
Buttered Badgers have done our bit today. Brought some trousers out from half way down The Narrows in Nettle. Mods, feel free to move this to lost & found if you think it's more appropriate.

3MlMwDY.jpg
 

cap n chris

Well-known member
I like the idea of doing a slideshow prior to caving with novices, Christine. Is there a venue on Mendip where this can be done with (shock/horror!) instructed groups or do you have a tablet and sit in the back of your car?
 

MarkS

Moderator
MarkS said:
Buttered Badgers have done our bit today. Brought some trousers out from half way down The Narrows in Nettle. Mods, feel free to move this to lost & found if you think it's more appropriate.

Sorry, having just re-read this, it sounds like a bit of a piss-take. It certainly wasn't intend to be! When I spotted what looked like some rags on my way out, I think this thread came to mind and I hauled them out of the grit - I was a bit surprised to see I'd unearthed a pair of trousers!
 

christine

Active member
Cap'n Chris said:
I like the idea of doing a slideshow prior to caving with novices, Christine. Is there a venue on Mendip where this can be done with (shock/horror!) instructed groups or do you have a tablet and sit in the back of your car?

Sorry Chris, only just saw this....

'It depends' is the rather unhelpful answer.
I'm very lucky that the WCC are usually very accommodating and will welcome my groups (which are normally only adults and small in number) for a brew and if the library is free, I will ask the Hut Warden if it is OK to use the library for 20 minutes. I pay the hut day fees and they get to experience a club environment and are usually impressed by it.
If it is not so Ok, the common room is fine.
Outside is not ideal as the light on the laptop screen sucks.

If I am starting in Burrington, the Burrington cafe is a good meet and greet place, but again I only really lead adults and they appreciate a coffee and meet and greet there so we do it over a brew.

If I'm doing a 'course' over 2 days then I'll put up a gazebo at the WCC which provides a space without hindering anyone else.
For groups of kids I guess you are down to having to do it from the back of the car. I guess the changing barn at Swildons - bird poo an' all is dark enough for a quick talk on the laptop (which is all I use - no screens or projectors, that's just not convenient).

It's not easy, but if you're determined you find a way.  :)
 

Badlad

Administrator
Staff member
Since the OP I've been poking about in a number of caves between Easegill and Ingleborough and I have been surprised at just how much junk can be found particularly at abandoned digs even in popular caves.  Much of the junk or foreign objects that I have seen has laid untouched for ten, fifteen, twenty years or more and other reports suggest this is a problem which is not confined only to the Dales. Many of those who took it underground are probably never going to remove it themselves.  So who is going to remove it?

A number of cavers have taken it upon themselves to clean up our caves, some have publicised their efforts and others haven't, but there is a lot more to do.  Recently from a well visited side passage in a very popular cave a group of us removed 12 loads of old digging material.  This included; a bag of cement, metal and plastic buckets, drag trays and rope, assorted tools, ladders, timber blocks and props, tin sheet, bang wire, hose pipes, boiler pipe, gas pipe, a glass bottle and other nasties.  It was obvious this stuff was old and abandoned, a metal bucket with the bottom rusted away for example, so how come it never occurred to other visitors to this passage that it should be removed.  That is where we need to start - in changing the attitude cavers have to this stuff.

I hope that encouraging cavers to post their clean up work on here (and elsewhere) will help to do just that.  More encouragement to follow.

If in doubt ? bring it out

 

Leclused

Active member
When I (or other members of Avalon) start a new dig and the site is freely accesable (not gated) then we always leave a plastified note in place with contact details. It is not that becasue there was no activity for months or longer that we will not return.

As an example : in one our digs we are pocking in an boulder choke from under the choke via a narrow pipe. After each session (very tricky ones) we leave the site to rest in the hope that a part of the choke falls by itself. So resting periods of several months up to half a year (or more) are common in this case.

Example of a note : http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xzLqD3RRwU4/T3CVjbq7TSI/AAAAAAAABHc/Xr6WJijfHPA/s1600/IMG_0712_025.jpg

BR

Dagobert
 

cap n chris

Well-known member
:)  With digs it might be wise to put a "valid until 20xx" date on it too so that if the dig ceases anyone else only needs to wait for the deadline to pass before they can be assured no further work is going to take place.
 

Ian Adams

Active member
The whole issue of trash in a cave/mine is moot and not quite so straight forward.

At what point does something become ?part of the cave/mine? (and therefore not trash)?

Three examples;

A mine (Blaenau Ffestiniog) has some early 1900?s newspaper cuttings left by the miners, some cigarette packets, two 1960?s crisp packets (empty), some original pig fat candles, various degraded artefacts and scrawlings on the wall from the original miners and others from that point right up to date.

A cave (North Wales) has the remains of two digs with some of the old dig ?stuff? still in situ. One of those dates back to the early 70?s and the other probably only 10 years old.

A cave (?Wedding cave mine?, near Wrexham) was used in the 1960s by hippies for raves (or whatever they were called back then). There is a lot of graffiti in there all indicative of 1960?s psychedelic partying. It?s a small and relatively unimportant cave but was mined for carnonate-cyanotrichite.

At what point would a visitor consider any of the above (in part or in whole) an interesting part of the history of the cave/mine ?

Some members of the club I am in refer to all of these (except the miners candles and signatures) as rubbish and should all be removed. Others say that they are now ALL part of the cave/mine and belong there as part of their provenance. (And some argue compromise).

Another (weaker) philosophy which has been mooted is that if ?we? make efforts to remove rubbish on trips then;

1) It spoils the trips in terms of having another agenda the whole way through (ie. you are ?looking? for rubbish and not concentrating on enjoying the delights of the trip thereby diminishing the experience).

2) It does nothing to discourage people from dumping stuff since they know ?others? will take it out.

I have a friend I used to walk in the Welsh hills with (I no longer walk with this friend) and he was infatuated with ?rubbish? and each time he saw some he would pick up and become ?annoyed? vocalising his distaste of it. He did this so often I became fed up and no longer enjoyed walking with him (so I now don?t). You may be able to relate to similar people underground?

With underground rubbish, I know two people both elder in years to myself and both longer in the world of caving than myself who will routinely leave empty bottles, cartons and wrappers. They have been told not just by me but by other group members but they simply shrug it off (sometimes they respond and pick it up other times they don?t or they do it when we aren?t paying attention). How do you deal with that ?

I guess I am asking ?. Is simply clearing rubbish out the right thing to do or should ?we? be doing something else/more ?

For the sake of clarity, I believe that rubbish should always be removed (I never ever leave anything in) but I am torn with the issues of, for instance, the 1900?s newspaper cuttings and 1960?s crisp packets in Blaenau Ffestiniog.

Ian
 

Bottlebank

New member
I think when it comes to digs obvious rubbish can be removed safely enough - i.e. rusty buckets with holes in - but other kit shouldn't without first making an effort to contact the diggers. Digging gear left underground for even a short period can very quickly start to look twenty years old.

I wouldn't like to see a conservation campaign to turn into a digging gear grab either.

Like most diggers we often get distracted by other projects for a while, but at some point we will get back in and tidy our own mess up, we don't really need anyone else getting there first.
 

cap n chris

Well-known member
Generally anything over 50 years old is considered potential archaeology and can be left (provided it's interesting and not rusting shite), so the graffiti/artefacts mentioned above would be OK from that perspective.

If Leclused's example is followed, diggers need not worry about having their gear taken, branded as "rubbish". Abandoned digs would be easily discerned and, if not, a quick ask-around could determine the status of any site.

Routinely picking up litter is a standard thing all cavers should be doing during the course of their trip(s). Anyone discarding litter wilfully should be instantly brought to order. It is a fundamental of BCA caving conservation, ethics etc.. If cavers can't be educated even to that extent then heaven help us all.
 

Peter Burgess

New member
Is it so hard to pick up obvious litter without behaving like Little Jack Horner? Just do it, say nothing, don't make a meal of it. Picking up litter can be done just as casually as the morons who drop it in the first place.
 
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