MUST BLACKA BECOME FARMLAND?
People have walked on Blacka Moor for many years having chosen this place before others chiefly because it was not managed with farm animals. If this was their prime consideration they had very little choice. Everywhere else remotely comparable was grazed with sheep or cattle. So the site had achieved a key characteristic distinguishing it from other areas. Diversity was secured by its continuance as a non-grazed site. Many fascinating and valuable qualities followed from this. But the dead hand of convention and orthodoxy with its insistence on homogenized management and unimaginative ‘solutions’ hated this diversity. So the plan was hatched to bring Blacka into line. Regimentation must win!! Cattle grazing had to be introduced at all costs – and what a cost!!!
We find it astonishing that the wildlife trust and English nature along with other conservation organisations have insisted that that this wonderful site should be grazed with farm livestock.
1 Grazing reduces diversity. Almost everywhere you walk in Britain’s countryside you are on land that is grazed by farm livestock. The hitherto absence of grazing on Blacka Moor over some 70 years is key to its appeal. Once the cattle take residence it will be almost impossible to find anywhere with this characteristic. Being ungrazed enables unfettered free access from one zone to another unimpeded by gates fences and stiles.
3 The current state of Blacka and its unique visual appeal, its atmosphere and its mix of vegetation and wildlife – flowering rowan, songbirds and red deer- is the product of a regime characterised by absence of farm-style management. The attempt to recapture a previous historic and economic approach threatens to destroy much of what is unique to this space.
4 Land which is farmed with livestock has a different atmosphere to that where there are no animals. Those who love walking in livestock enclosures are spoiled for choice. They can find what they want almost anywhere. Those who want to experience absence of livestock and farmification have now lost what could be their last refuge.
5 The need for expensive fencing and other boundary work
6 In this case particularly nasty 4 strand barbed wire
7 Inconvenience of fencing for access.
8 Large animals make a significant impact on soft paths
9 Wildness which is a feature of the site is immediately compromised by domestic animals bred for meat.
10 Cattle often gather around gates and bridleways impeding riders.
11 Dogs and cattle can be a problem
12 The cattle will not do the job it is claimed they are there for.
13 They will damage plants of all kinds, those ‘intended’ and those not
14 It will need far more cattle to trample bracken to any significant effect and they will need to be corralled more closely and this in turn will impact more on the atmosphere and also bring unwelcome changes to paths and stream edges.
15 A small number initially will then become larger and larger herds and the impact on recreation will then be increased