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WISH I HAD NOT BOTHERED LOOKING Grrrrrrrrrr |
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GemmaJF
Admin Group Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Location: Essex Status: Offline Points: 4359 |
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The amazing thing is Keith a lot of the drivers of the vehicles could do a 1 inch scrape and place the material 3 inches from your foot, they are highly skilled people. I've spent many hours doing destructive searches and have known them to spot a slow worms from the cab in the bucket and swing it over to me so I could rescue it!
However if they are told to go in and clear the site... ...well that is exactly what they will do. It's just one more thing that makes my blood boil about these managers, who when caught out claim the contractors were the ones who were heavy handed. That is exactly why we do watching brief with contractors so they understand what is required and they will happily use their considerable skills at the controls to do exactly what is asked and nothing more or less. If however they are told to clear a site of vegetation, who can blame them if they treat it exactly the same as they would a development site? The only difference is that on a development site we usually aim to translocate the animals first!!!!!!!! |
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Suzy
Senior Member Joined: 06 Apr 2005 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1447 |
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Went out to my local heath for the first time this year last evening. I had seen the RSPB warden at a recent local event and he asked if I'd been out there recently as they'd made some changes which they felt would be of benefit. I'd noticed permanent fencing going up around the site perimeter last year and now a cattle grid has been put in at the site entrance (the road is private). The idea is, according to a notice attached to the cattle grid gates, the cattle and horses will now have free run of the whole heath. So no grazing temporarily enclosed areas as before. I should have taken my camera to photograph the notice.
Like everywhere else we've had lots of this scraping and piling but I believe the RSPB have stopped this because they were damaging the archaeology underneath. |
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Suz
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GemmaJF
Admin Group Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Location: Essex Status: Offline Points: 4359 |
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I think sadly people will look back in the future and realise that many of the schemes were misguided.
I can understand that it is a difficult task and many of our remaining heaths are derelict and in desperate need of management, but the methods currently being employed of effectively wiping the slate clean and starting over, really are not the solution. One only has to look at the sites 10 years later, in many cases the vegetation has reverted back to exactly where it was before the clearance. The only significant 'achievement' appears to be wiping out the reptiles that previously thrived at the site... The total disregard for the ecological value of the areas in their current state seems an almost impossible to believe oversight in this day and age. Grazing was never really a good solution to heath management. It was historically a concession for the poor to allow them to graze the heaths as good quality pasture was not available to them. The heaths do not provide good nutrition to the livestock and the damage the animals cause often outweighs any perceived benefits. I wonder what the answer is? Many of the funding schemes state that the works should not be detrimental to reptiles, the managers just guess and make stuff up saying it will benefit reptiles in the long-term. With no baseline data from professionally conducted survey how could they possibly have a clue what impact the proposed scheme would have on reptiles? None of my own field studies agree with their optimism... |
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Robert V
Senior Member Joined: 06 Aug 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1264 |
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Just seen this Keith, sorry mate, know how you feel.
Question from the above discussion. When should Heather be considered as "moribund"? Surely even heaths that were managed in the middle ages didn't have the old heather ripped out did they?
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RobV
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AGILIS
Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1689 |
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Hi Rod I like most people would have thought back in the past they just cut it down and used it as fire starting kindle or making bessom type brooms and I dont really believe there was much heathland management going on in medieval days like Ne try to have us believe to justify their planned expensive educated guess cock ups.
Edited by AGILIS - 17 May 2014 at 9:21am |
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LOCAL ICYNICAL CELTIC ECO WARRIOR AND FAILED DRUID
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