Wistman's Wood looked spectacular earlier this afternoon. Was greeted by two friendly Dartmoor NPA volunteers who were making people aware of the Countryside Code & how special the wood is (temperate rainforest)
🧵Short thread on habitat disturbance, by visitors & landowners 1/n
Wistman's Wood has been in the headlines recently because of allegations of damage by visitors: bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…
I visited today to see what the damage was. In terms of litter, I picked up every piece I saw: maybe a dozen pieces in total; largest = forgotten gloves. 2/n
No doubt rangers have picked up more litter. I also met someone else who'd picked up some voluntarily.
The vast majority of people clearly aren't leaving litter at Wistman's Wood - though I still got annoyed by the bags of dogshit left for the dog poo fairy. 3/n
The worst damage I saw left by one (possibly lone?) visitor were the inane hearts and pagan labyrinth symbols drawn in the moss on a handful of moss-covered boulders.
To whoever thinks this is a symbol of reverence to the Earth Goddess: you are an idiot. It damages the moss. 4/n
However, once you go beyond the entrance to South Wood (Wistman's Wood is several clumps, though Middle & South Wood have now co-joined), I couldn't see any such 'moss carvings'. People rarely stray far in, the boulder scree makes it hard going. Middle Wood was eerily quiet. 5/n
There is another sort of visitor to Wistman's Wood that seldom gets discussed, of course.
You can detect them by the strands of hair they leave and their droppings, and occasionally hear their ominous cry across the moor...
Yes. I'm talking about sheep. 6/n
The impact of sheep on Wistman's Wood is mostly detectable by what isn't there.
I searched in vain all afternoon for a single oak sapling.
They've all been grazed away by sheep, leaving only the veteran oaks. Lovely as they are, this isn't a healthy situation for the wood. 7/n
Wistman's Wood is at least protected from some degree of overgrazing by the boulder field it's growing in.
But look to the other side of the valley, and it's almost completely treeless: a view from a temperate rainforest onto a desert of purple moor-grass. 8/n
Wistman's Wood is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall and leased to a tenant farmer (it's in an enclosed 'newtake' rather than being on a common).
Grazing continues to be permitted within this newtake. But if it were restricted in future, the wood could expand and regenerate. 9/n
So, it's essential that visitors to Wistman's Wood treat it with the utmost respect. Most already do; some don't; having rangers to greet & educate is a good start.
But the future of this fragment of temperate rainforest mostly lies in the hands of the landowner & farmer. (END)
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Jeremy Clarkson, James Dyson, the Earl of Derby – they’re up in arms about paying tax on the vast areas of land they own.
Small farmers are worried that changes to Agricultural Property Relief (APR) will affect them. But who are the big landowners complaining the loudest?... 1/
2/ First up, Jeremy Clarkson, who owns a 1,000-acre farm in the Cotswolds. When he bought it he said: “Land is a better investment than any bank can offer. The government doesn’t get any of my money when I die” -
Now he doesn’t want to pay the #ClarksonTax topgear.com/car-news/jerem…
3/ Clarkson has attacked the government for thinking that “most of the countryside is owned by the Duke of Marlborough” (his near neighbour):
2/ These 355 landowners benefit from a loophole called the “tax-exempt heritage assets scheme”, under which they can register land and property as heritage assets and make them exempt from inheritance tax.
3/ This year's the 75th anniversary of the creation of national parks by Attlee's Labour government. But though some of the founders of Britain’s national parks dreamed of them being “owned or controlled by the nation” (Ramsay Report, 1945), things have not turned out that way.
I’m shocked, shocked to hear that the ‘net zero aspiration’ for farming trumpeted by the National Farmers Union in 2019 is now ‘in doubt’
The NFU’s plan refused to consider significant land use change or dietary shift & favoured bioenergy crops instead 1/ bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…
2/ The NFU’s now blaming the last Govt for not including enough ‘climate-friendly measures’ in ELMS. Look, we can all hate on the Tories. But it was the NFU that lobbied vociferously to water down ELMS - leaving the most ambitious tier, Landscape Recovery, with 5% of the budget
3/ Where I agree with the NFU is in increasing the budget for ELMS to pay for more nature restoration - rather than cut it as Treasury are rumoured to want.
But we also need far greater accountability for landowners to actually deliver nature recovery & value for money.
REVEALED: Tory Environment Secretary @SteveBarclay rejected expert advice for review of climate impacts on soil fertility
Officials warned him govt's Agricultural Land Classification system is 'decades old' & will be obsolete by 2030
Story in today's Times; FOI'd docs below 1/
2/ The Agricultural Land Classification (ALC) system was drawn up after WW2 and grades land according to its ability to produce food - soil fertility, rainfall, climate
It was last updated in *1988* - before climate change had even registered as a political issue in the UK
3/ ALC maps are used in the planning system to try to protect 'best and most versatile land' (grades 1-3a) from development. The maps are also important for showing how we prioritise highly fertile land for food & can spare other land for nature (e.g. upland areas)
So @TheGreenParty manifesto is now out - here's my take on their nature policies.
Most significantly, I think, is their pledge for a new Rights of Nature Act - "giving rights to nature itself".
This would be a transformative shift in how we relate to the rest of nature. 1/
2/ Lawyers like @LawForNature @paulpowlesland have been calling for nature to be granted rights for years, to better defend habitats and species from destruction.
A Rights of Nature Act would transform how we currently relate to nature as mere 'property' or a 'resource'.
@LawForNature @paulpowlesland 3/ The Greens are also pledging a new Clean Air Act (something the Lib Dems have also pledged); to end the emergency authorisation of neonic pesticides (which Labour recently also pledged to do); and to meet 30x30 (a goal that is shared by the Tories, Labour & Lib Dems)