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Last updated 26 August 2008 2008 These animals disappeared for a reason, because they were competing with our own needs
2007 There's a deep cultural resistance to the idea of land no longer being farmed grazing animals manage the land, keeping it cropped and tidy and attractive to visitors Shoot a moose and you have saved the equivalent of two long-haul flights We must increase our efforts to restore and manage lowland heathland Detested the barren hills of Scotland Re-wilding, creating woodlands and heathlands Naurally maintain one of Britain's most sensitive eco-systems Now we should fear for the wild -see the Addendum March 2006 Dyfi Valley, Uluru and Yellowstone
Born to be wild
Do away with farming and the countryside will be nothing - back to wilderness in no time at all The anthem of summer - more Romanticism The modern version of the pre-Romantic wilderness Managed grazing prevents most sites reverting to wild forest 2005 But we cant call it wilderness in Scotland Forgetting how people once felt about bears and packs of wolves |
So often, the word wilderness is used incorrectly in the media, and there is a seemingly determined phobia for wild nature amongst the media clique. Perhaps it's too challenging for their revolving metropolitan/weekend country cottage lifestyle? It is obvious that the problem arises from the lack of true wilderness in Britain from which an understanding can be derived. Thus wilderness is described as empty, bleak, savage, or even pointless, and proponents of rewilding are seen as indulgent or seeking a vicarious thrill. This is an occasional series that highlights the backward use of the word wilderness - ssenredliw - and the blindingly misinformed state of many columnists on wild nature. It will highlight the painful paradox that journalists, by their ill-informed reporting, are guilty of supporting the increasing harm that is being caused by public funding being used by conservation professionals to manage landscapes in ways that kill off wildness. It may also expand on articles where the real importance of the story is overlooked. Beavers to be reintroduced to Scotland - Conservationists believe the mammals will help create a healthier and more varied habitat, but the proposals are likely to be opposed by local farmers, Guardian, 18 August 2008 On initial reading, this comes across as a good news story, but delve deeper and it reveals a depressing trail of what is wrong with British nature conservation. The premise of the article is that another location is being considered for the release of beavers into the wild. The first site eventually got approval from the Scottish Executive, and it was because its woodland location in Knapdale, west of Glasgow, is far removed from potential trouble spots that could derail the successful acceptance of the re-introduction, such as farms and salmon fisheries. The second location, of Insh Marsh nature reserve, near Kingussie, is considered to be a test of the wider acceptability of beavers since it rests within mainstream farmland. In fact it is a National Nature Reserve (NNR), owned and managed by the RSPB and which, when I saw it, is an underwhelming landscape for an NNR, except of course if you are birdist. It is just wet farmland, and is managed as that.
Scottish
Wildlife Trust advanced the reserve as a possibility for the
re-introduction of beaver, but there is nothing in the article to suggest
that the RSPB are enthusiastic about the idea. Instead, Jamie Williamson,
who farms next to the reserve, gives full vent to the typical prejudice of
farmers when they consider wildlife is in any way a threat to their
livelihood: There it is in all its revolting truth – that farmers wish to continue to exercise a veto on any credible rewilding of land. Should the RSPB carry on with their apparent policy of rapprochement with farming interests, as does every other nature conservation organization in the voluntary sector? Shouldn’t they instead be seeking to contribute to the will of the Scottish people for re-introduction of beaver, as exemplified by the policy decision of the Scottish Executive? After all, their reserve is given the protected status of a NNR, something that is mostly only conferred on land that is in public ownership and control. Their so-called “beneficial ownership” of a NNR means nothing if it does not aspire to the policy of Scottish Natural Heritage that says that “nature always comes first on NNRs” Truly wild land hasn't a hope in Britain if we expect it always to co-exist with farming, and if we always give farming a veto. When are we are going to accept this lesson and move on? www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/18/conservation.wildlife RSPB accused over birds on flagship reserve, Charles Clover, Daily Telegraph 23 April 2008The RSPB has backed itself into corner in the way that it faces in opposite directions at the same time on the issue of predator control. In effect, it is a nature conservation organisation that paradoxically has set itself up to be the arbiter of which species get to live and which are persecuted to death. It is perhaps not surprising that game keeping interests do this all the while as they have no qualms about killing off the inconvenient to their livelihood, even when it works outside the law, and which the RSPB are quick to criticise (1). But the world begins to turn on its head when game keeping interests attempt to take the high ground by accusing the RSPB of inefficient predator control in the cause of nature conservation. I have heard this criticism before. This article sheds more light by revealing that a recent survey by Natural England of 17 moorland SSSIs had found that the RSPB's 12,000 acre reserve at Geltsdale, Cumbria, had lower-than-average densities of important moorland birds when compared to neighbouring keepered moors. Thus Lapwing numbers were lowest on the Geltsdale reserve, and golden plover, curlew, black grouse, snipe and redshank on Geltsdale were second to last amongst the list. The one bird that was more plentiful on the RSPB's moor were carrion crow. These are routinely culled on most grouse moors.
These results gave ammunition to the
Countryside Alliance to counter the criticism its members receive for the
illegal persecution of predators such as hen harriers that
eat grouse chicks.
Adrian Blackmore, moorland policy officer of the
Countryside Alliance, said:
Andre Farrar of the RSPB responded that Geltsdale had only been in their
possession since 2000, and thus their management approach had yet to take
affect. He countered on the persecution of the hen harrier by noting that
there was only a low base of 14 pairs across the North of England, but
then he revealed that: Like the capercaillie in Scotland, where the RSPB cull foxes on their Abernethy reserve, black grouse is another iconic species for the RSPB, measuring their success as a conservation organization by their success in maximizing numbers of these icons. In the North Pennines, it has grouped together with other organizations in a 12-year North Pennines Black Grouse Recovery Project, funded by Natural England, and to which more money is being given to fund an expansion of the project (2). We are to be pleased that because of our public funding, the English population of Black grouse has risen by 33% to 1029 males in the eight years to 2006 (3). But at what cost to other wildlife? From Morag Walker, of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, a joint lead with the RSPB on the UKBAP for black grouse, we get the identity of another wild species persecuted in this game of choice when she revealed that stoats are also culled to protect the black grouse, along with carrion crows and foxes (3). I am grateful to Ms Walker for putting this into some sort of perspective when she says that there are already little, isolated pockets of the grouse in Northumberland and Yorkshire - "but they are tiny, tiny amounts compared to sparrows, for example, which are two-a-penny". You get the feeling she would offer up any amount of sparrows for the kudos of a black grouse (4). In some irony, a letter appeared in the Times from an RSPB member a few days after this 'good news story' for black grouse. Mr Murray had been a member for more than 20 years but felt that the RSPB had fallen “into the hands of extremists who are obsessed only with birds of prey” (5). He thought there was an over-emphasis on protecting iconic avian predators when little thought was given to the species that they kill, such as lapwings, oyster catchers, redshanks, goldfinches, bullfinches, chaffinches, sparrows, dotterels, golden plovers, curlews, skylarks, meadow pipits, black grouse, red grouse and ptarmigan. A counter argument in a letter from another RSPB member came in days when Dr Garcia said that the number of predator birds in much of Britain were still far below the carrying capacity of their habitats due to their persistent persecution, and thus it was no time to start killing them again. Predator prey relationships, especially in the bird world are fraught because most people find it hard to accept the stark reality that there is a whole food chain out there that exists in wild nature, and which we shouldn’t presume to manipulate away from its optimum. Perhaps RSPB members could be more attentive in their reading of their membership magazine, as an article on sparrowhawks showed that the population of one of their prey, blue tits, is stable in spite of the fact that upto six out of eight chicks each year is taken as prey. The author says that small birds rear many young each year precisely because so many will die (7). I would also like to note that while the heated debate revolves around persecution of iconic avian predators such as hen harriers, I don’t see anyone of these people giving any thought to the slaughter of foxes, crows and stoats. Is this another unintended consequence of the destructive driving forces behind the UKBAP, or are we happy to allow our nature conservation to be based on someone making choices about which species get to live and which get to die?
(1) The
RSPB Birds of prey campaign
(2) Launch
of expansion plan gives rare black grous a boost, Natural England 30 April
2008
(3) Black
grouse numbers rising in northern England, James Meikle, Guardian 30 April
2008
(4) Black
grouse boost spreads wings, BBC News
(5) Preying
on the mind, K. C. Murray, Letters page, Times 3 May 2008
(6)
Raptors’ reception, Dr Ernest Garcia, Letters page, Times 7 May 2008 (7) Learning about sparrowhawks, Ian Peters in BIRDS, RSPB membership magazine, Summer 2006, ppg 73-78 www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/04/23/eagrouse123.xml 12 May 2008 Help save vanishing creatures, Salisbury Journal, 20 March 2008 This reports a forthcoming public meeting of the Tytherley Woods Project near the Hampshire-Wiltshire border. It’s a promotional project to encourage woodland owners to re-institute woodland management with the aim of improving the habitat opportunities for butterflies. In this, it is part of the larger South East Woodlands Project of Butterfly Conservation that I commented on last year after it received whopping sums of money (see Bringing sunshine into the woods should stop decline of butterflies). Butterfly Conservation start out from the usual premise of the conservation industry that their favoured wild species fare better in the managed landscapes that we can create. Thus because many woodlands are not worked for product nowadays, then they may have less open habitat. Hence the reason why conservation professionals roll out the very familiar management prescriptions for woodland of reinstituting rides, glades and coppiced areas, irrespective of whether there is a use for the resultant woodland product. To Dr Kate Dent, the Project Officer, "The lack of woodland management has led to rapid declines in specialist woodland wildlife, like the rare and beautiful Pearl-bordered Fritillary” Well, yes, there has been a decline in the national population of this butterfly, but what does that mean for these woods at Tytherley? Since the Pearl-bordered Fritillary has a distribution that covers the whole of Britain, why should the woods near West Tytherley and others in the project area in SE England bear the brunt of an interventionist program for the maximisation of butterfly numbers? I just don’t think Butterfly Conservation are capable of seeing the woods from the trees in this situation. Perhaps the lack of management of these woods has instead given rise to an increase in other woodland specialists such as the flowers and lower plants that favour the shade, moisture and lack of disturbance? Thus in that sense, the lack of management has been a positive rather than a negative, and does not warrant their consistent use of the pejorative term “neglect”. In the aims and objectives of Butterfly Conservation, their “ultimate goal is nothing less than the restoration of a balanced countryside, with butterflies and other wildlife returned to the profusion they, and we, once enjoyed” If that is the case, then I wonder why, if Butterfly Conservation is so concerned about the lack of managed woodland nowadays, that they don’t leave our established woodlands alone and instead consider putting their money where their mouth is and buy up some farmland, plant some new woodland and then wait a few years so that they can then coppice the life out. In fact, why isn’t Butterfly Conservation supporting a campaign for an overall increase in woodland cover in Britain? But of course that would mean them taking a strategic view that is not just centred on butterflies. Would this ever be a part of their balanced countryside? Perhaps it is unfair just to single out Butterfly Conservation because there is so much public and charitable funding sloshing around nowadays - which seems only too keen to support UKBAP targets for things such as butterflies - that every part of the conservation industry is out to bag some for themselves. Last December, Kent Wildlife Trust pocketed £2.3m of Heritage Lottery Funds to support a four-year promotional and management program in the renowned woodland area of Blean near Canterbury (1). The trust has plenty of prior form for interventionism, as it has been coppicing away on some areas of the 2,600 acres that it manages since 1987. A project officer has been appointed to the Blean Conservation Complex project, and the intent of what the trust hope to achieve is signified by the fact that Mike Enfield is a butterfly specialist. Would it have been too much to hope that a woodland specialist would have been appointed for what is a large area of woodland, because trees aren’t really wildlife to a butterfly specialist, and will as usual end up being disposable. There is often a convenient lack of intellectual rigor apparent in many of these conservation programs, relying as they do on simplistic, unimaginative approaches that win approval because they fit the current orthodoxy and are supposedly cost effective. There are many butterfly species associated with woody scrub plants – thus there are 296 butterflies and moths, and 124 true bugs that feed on willow and similar numbers on birch - but you have to ask yourself how it is that the lives of these butterflies now seem dependent on our intervention? Where would their natural habitat be? It certainly isn’t the manufactured artifice of a coppice, the often inappropriate harshness of which is never questioned and which does present difficulties for other woodland creatures. The aim of coppicing is to manufacture a supply of pseudo early successional woodland edge and shrubby habitats, but the biodiversity benefits of a large-scale return to coppice management are very questionable. As we know, a coppicing approach limits the amount of old dead and dying wood, a key feature of a varied woodland ecosystem. Large-scale coppicing renders extensive areas unusable for up to five years because they eliminate any element of the woody species until re-growth has occurred, and because it creates open ground that the smaller animals are reluctant to cross. The latter can act as a barrier to such as Dormice reaching their important food resources, putting a pressure on individuals and reducing a population to vulnerable levels. In addition, it is generally recognised that re-introduction of coppicing is only successful in woodlands that have been coppiced in the last 50 years and where areas of open space have retained their woodland edge species. Thus, while we may associate certain species of invertebrates with coppice woodlands, it is not the management system that they are attracted to but the open space or shrubby habitats which they require. Other than species specific requirements, butterflies are associated with woodland for the physical structure that it affords, and to the biotic and abiotic conditions which this imparts. It is the greater diversity of microclimates available (i.e. sunny and windless) and the architectural complexity of woody growth that provides a greater diversity of feeding and egg-laying sites, hiding places from enemies, and overwintering sites than do structurally simple plants such as the forbs. It is foolish for us to think that we are the only agency capable of achieving these conditions, especially since they are already present in wild nature in the various scrubland landscapes we have (2), and which are likely to be a truer natural habitat for butterflies. Scrub exists as an ecotone between woodland and open habitats. It can be found as an integral mix of scrub species, or of a single species at different seral stages, and provides a complexity of three-dimensional structure far in excess of coppice or grassland communities. In general, a close-knit mosaic of vegetation age, structures (including edges) and species is more useful to invertebrates than large uniform blocks. Scattered scrub may support different invertebrates to mature scrub. Large, isolated bushes may be major sources of food for nectar and pollen feeding insects, and provide favourable conditions linked to architecture such as shelter, in addition to supporting their associated communities.
As a report on the
nature conservation value of scrub in Britain from a few years ago laments
(2): I despair at this. Where is this much vaunted landscape scale approach of the conservation industry? Will it ever have the more valuable vision of more woodland, more scrub, and much more wildlife in “the profusion they, and we, once enjoyed”. Will these conservation professionals rise to the challenge of maintaining species-rich scrub mosaics without falling into their old, simplistic and destructive habits? Thus the complex mosaics and edge structures that develop during the successional growth of scrub are rarely evident in scrub that is managed by rotational cutting, which is effectively just coppicing it. Regrowth from the cut stumps of felled scrub is never going to be as valuable as the varied and natural regeneration as new scrub develops at woodland edges, in woodland openings resulting from tree fall, and in open landscapes such as wetland and grassland. Because the opinion that scrub is of low conservation value is widely held within the conservation industry, it is vitally important that there is a challenge to the assumptions of these big funding projects: firstly on the basis that they lack ecological rigor, but also because it is our public money that ends up being used to unnecessarily persecute woodland.
(1) £2.3m
boost for wildlife area, Kentish Gazette, 24 December 2007
www.kent-online.co.uk/news/default.asp?article_id=37084 http://archive.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/2008/3/20/373464.html 26 March 2008 The threat to remove Federal protection of the grey wolf in America has rumbled on for years in the face of repeated protests from ranchers whose hunting originally brought them to the brink of extinction. Then finally last year, the population of grey wolves in the western Great Lakes area was removed from the protected species list of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). With this report in the Observer, the protection is now going to be taken off in the northern Rockies as well. According to Lynn Scarlett, deputy secretary of the Department of the Interior “Grey wolves in the northern Rocky mountains are thriving and no longer need protection” Ranchers have always had the option under the ESA to obtain a Federal licence to hunt wolves when they could be proved to be killing livestock, but now in these two areas the rancher need only apply to local state authorities who are considered to be more willing to issue them. As would be expected of US wildlife groups, there is anger and sadness that grey wolves should be in danger since all the evidence indicates that man is a greater threat to wolves than the wolves are to livestock and, anyway, ranchers are compensated for any such attacks (1). The grey wolves that now roam the woods in Minnesota got back there from hopping over the border from Canada, as did the wolves in Montana, but there is a sense of tragedy about the loss of protection in Wyoming and Idaho. It was in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem that the grey wolf was successfully reintroduced in the mid-90s, and the population may not be large enough yet to be resilient in the face of renewed hunting, prompting environmental groups to consider bringing a lawsuit to reverse the decision. See the addendum below There is another good reason why efforts should be made to have this loss of protection reversed, and which is not covered by McKie in his Observer article. The grey wolf is the key element of the trophic cascade in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem that has brought about a recovery in the population of pronghorn antelope. Recent studies have shown that wolf packs keep coyote numbers in check by killing them outright and by causing them to relocate out of wolf territories. Since coyotes—but not wolves—prey heavily on pronghorn fawns, the fawns have higher survival rates when wolves share their ecosystem (2). In an afterword to a new edition of his famous book on wolves in North America from 1978, Barry Lopez considers the current state of knowledge and the recent efforts to reintroduce wolves to their former habitats in America. He believes that “In the reintroduction of wolves we have demonstrated that we are more capable now of living in a give and take relationship with the natural world than we were”. Unfortunately, Barry tempers that thought with some caution since he had been around to many of the farmers meetings in Idaho that he went to long before the reintroduction of the grey wolf - he said he had heard the same tired old arguments about wolves from farmers that he had heard many years before (3). These arguments have also been heard from farmers in Britain in their responses documented in a recent study that advocates reintroducing wild wolves to the Scottish Highlands, where they were hunted to extinction in the late 1700s. The authors of the study say wolves would benefit local ecosystems as they would prey on red deer, rebalancing the ecology and giving tree and bird species a chance to establish themselves (4). The study also notes that the public are generally positive to the idea whereas farmers hold more negative attitudes, but far less negative than the organizations that represent them. Thus a spokesperson for the National Farmers' Union in Scotland, said: "The reintroduction of wolves into the wild would present significant problems in terms of sheep predation, and that is the reason why it is not widely popular among farmers" (5) If not wolves, then maybe the reintroduction of lynx in Scotland would be a better bet since they are considered to be more elusive in the landscape than wolves? In the same way that wolves have benefited the ecological balance in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem – and could benefit the ecological balance in the Scottish Highlands – the reintroduction of lynx would also have potential benefits for ecological balance since the main prey in the lynx diet is made up from roe deer, of which there are sufficient in Scotland to support a viable population of lynx (6). However, I see a parallel here in the vested interest that will protest the re-introduction of the lynx for fear of predation on sheep, but research into the effects of lynx reintroduced in Switzerland shows this is to be a temporary transition, the number of sheep taken each year declining as the lynx establish themselves (7). There is also another reason why lynx should be considered for re-introduction in Scotland, and it is because lynx prey on red fox (8,9,10). Results from a study in boreal Sweden suggest that the lack of large carnivores over most of their former ranges may have resulted in an over-abundance of red foxes in many areas. Allowing large carnivores such as the lynx to reestablish may thus be an effective natural way of limiting fox populations (10). With this benefit in mind, it does makes you wonder why the RSPB is not backing lynx reintroduction on their Abernethy reserve in Scotland since predation of foxes by lynx may ease the pressure on their beloved capercaillie, and I would rather have the lynx making a meal of a fox than an RSPB worker shooting them (see news item below). (1) New threat as wolves make comeback, Julian Berger, The Guardian, 29 December 2005 www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2005/dec/29/usnews.conservationandendangeredspecies
(2) Unafraid of the Big, Bad Wolf, Saving Wildlife, Wildlife Conservation Society, March 2008 www.wcs.org/353624/wcs_bigbadwolf (3) Of Wolves and Men, Barry Lopez (2004) Scribner Classic ISBN 0684–16322-5 (4) Wolf reintroduction to Scotland: public attitudes and consequences for red deer management, Nilsen, Milner-Gulland, Schofield, Mysterud, Stenseth & Coulson (2007) Proceedings of the Royal Society B 274, 995-1002 http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/m668843344788408/?p=2919bfa7f71849a3854cbaadd70b67e5&pi=87 (5) Wild wolves 'good for ecosystems', BBC News Online 31 January 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6310211.stm (6) Using prey densities to estimate the potential size of reintroduced populations of Eurasian lynx, Hetherington & Gorman (2007) Biological Conservation 137, 37-44 (7) Damage statistic Lynx, KORA - Coordinated research projects for the conservation and management of carnivores in Switzerland: lynx, fox, wolf, bear www.kora.ch/en/proj/damage/damagemain.html (8) Diet of Eurasian lynx, Lynx lynx, in the boreal forest of southeastern Norway: the relative importance of livestock and hares at low roe deer density, Odden, Linnell & Andersen (2006) European Journal of Wildlife Research 52, 237-244 (9) Prey spectrum, prey preference and consumption rates of Eurasian lynx in the Swiss Jura Mountains, Molinari-Jobin & Breitenmoser (2000) Acta Theriologica. 45, 243–252 (10) Lynx (Lynx lynx) killing red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) in boreal Sweden – frequency and population effects, Helldin, Liberg & Gloersen (2006) Journal of Zoology 270, 657–663 www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/feb/24/endangeredspecies.conservation 24 March 2008 ADDENDUM AUGUST Endangered Species Act Protections Reinstated For Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Population, Press Release 08-48, US Fish & Wildlife Service, 22 July 2008 The delisting of grey wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains has been overturned as the Press Release confirms: "The U.S. Federal District Court in Missoula, Montana, issued a preliminary injunction on Friday, July 18, 2008, that immediately reinstated the Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains. That area includes all of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming; the eastern one-third of Washington and Oregon; and portions of north-central Utah. This injunction will remain in place until final resolution of this case. The Endangered Species Act provisions reinstated by the court are those that were in effect before wolves were delisted on March 28, 2008. Any and all permits issued by the States under their authorities while wolves were delisted are null and void as of 4:04 p.m. on Friday, July 18, 2008." However, the US Fish & Wildlife Service have not changed their mind about there no longer being a need to protect wolves there, and signal their intention in this press release to seek to have the injunction lifted. www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/wolf/08-48_07222008PressRelease.pdf RSPB criticised over shooting on reserve, Paul Eccleston, Daily Telegraph 11 January 2008
I am indebted to Al Franck, a local RSPB
member in SE England, who emailed me last December complaining of the sour
side-swipes that I take against the RSPB on such things as their hypocrisy
over the shooting of foxes on their reserves (see
They
shoot foxes, don't they?) when the RSPB in turn complain about game
keepers using poison bate to kill raptors (see the latest in 1). Mr Frank
has explained the RSPB logic to me that seems to be very conditional in
which species get to live, and very much depends on it being the RSPB's
choice. Thus according to Mr Franck, even though the fox is a native
mammal, it can be culled without regret as a pest (see
Nature grooming - killing all the wildness in nature, Your Contribution):
What this article in the Daily Telegraph
shows is more proof of RSPB hypocrisy. Robert
Hill, a keen birdwatcher and conservationist, is reported to have been
horrified when he discovered a dead widgeon covered in pellet wounds at
Langstone Harbour near Portsmouth, one the RSPB's reserves. He
subsequently found out that the RSPB allows the Langstone & District
Wildfowlers & Conservation Association to shoot between September and
January on two of five islands in Langstone Harbour. He said:
When asked to comment, Barry Hugill of the League Against
Cruel Sports, said:
As would be expected of an organisation that thinks it
walks with the angels (more likely, walks on water!) the RSPB brushed off
the criticism. In a bizarre piece of logic, Chris Cockburn, RSPB warden
for Langstone harbour, defended the leasing of shooting in the harbour by
saying: I wonder what all the dead widgeon and other wildfowl think about that when they were supposedly sitting out the winter in safety on this reserve? Let's hope they come back and haunt Mr Cockburn. Sour enough for you Mr Franck?
(1)
Poisoning by gamekeepers blamed for loss of rare birds of prey, Times,
28th January 2008 1 March 2008 www.self-willed-land.org.uk mark.fisher@self-willed-land.org.uk |
