November 2019 – Secret Surrey

November 28, 2019

Peace of Mind

I was recently asked a couple of questions relating to the benefits I find from going out in the countryside at this time of year, made me think about the countryside as the core part of my life, offering a constant amidst the surrounding chaos. In some ways I would admit I cannot conceive of living without knowing I am able to find solace and comfort in, and with, all things green and natural.

Over the last couple of weeks I have taken advantage of breaks in the rain to have strolls with my wife and then with my son. Though I love walking on my own the right company seems to add another dimension, shared experience and another pair of eyes and ears. As autumn progresses to winter the countryside quietens but there are different things to wonder at. Walking from Wood Street towards the Hogs Back might be muddy but in the crisper, colder light the sense of slowing down, pause, is palpable.

There is however new life and signs of continuing activity to be encountered.

It’s been a great year for many fungi which are increasingly fascinating my wife. Looks like a better field guide is needed. Good timing….

The time of berries is here but have to admit that most seem consumed by the time I write this. One consequence of this reduction in hedgerow food means my bird feeders appear to be used to excess. More on that another day.

I walked with my son Tom from Sheets Heath in a loop including the Basingstoke canal. Part of the area I roamed with friends in my youth, where it all started if you like. What struck me was this bubble of countryside hadn’t really changed very much over nearly 50 years. Trees must have grown and yes you can now walk over much of Brookwood farm, which was a real no no in my youth, but the feel of the place is as my senses remember.

Birds now tend to be encountered in small groups and as winter progresses these may join up to form large flocks to create the misleading impression of a quiet countryside, unless of course you bump in to one of these super flocks. On the day we did find a real surprise in the shape of 2 Firecrests! These gem like tiny birds were feeding in the trees by the canal but were too fast and tiny to capture on camera. I had never seen Firecrests locally and this was a real treat.

Sheets Heath is remnant of heathland that is one of the areas that has been grazed for a number of years and was, I think, the first road inSurrey to be cattle gridded. It is an indication that there may be reasons to object to grazing on heaths but in reality beneficial conservation grazing really can be become normalised over time.

We did notice one of the other effects of the blurring of seasons, the remarkable inconsistency of tree leaf loss, even between trees of the same species.

As we returned to the car a final surprise, lots of this fungus…

Haven’t noticed this species before, another reason for a new book!

November 21, 2019

Will Things Change?

The environment, the natural world, wildlife decreases, climate change and various other environmental issues under a variety names have never been in the general media as much as they are currently. Every newspaper will have a story somewhere about the perils that the natural world and humanity faces in the time we live in. Personally, I am pleased that more awareness to these serious issues is being made more public and also the fact that many more young people are challenging the way we live and the affects humanity has on the world environment, these are all moves in the right direction. I am slowly starting to feel that public pressure is working and was encouraged to see and hear people at the Extinction Rebellion demo in London the other week and to see how many people had gone out to let politicians know that it’s not just few hippies that are worried about the environment. I met and talked with many different people on the day I went up and in general felt encouraged that 1000s of people are willing to talk about the issues and hopefully make a difference.
We are, as always, are in the hands of government and as you have probably gathered from some of my previous articles I have, in the past, had little or no faith in politicians when it concerns the environment and so you can imagine my joy to find out that we were having another General Election on December 12th. Its obvious that the public pressure about environmental issues is starting to have an effect on the various political parties that will be standing at this next election. Good job as its about 50 years or more too late.

With this added political madness of an election I have been trying to keep tabs on what the various parties are saying about environmental issues and what they propose to try and do to halt the destruction of our country and planet.
There have been a few interesting things said already but I’m still feeling sceptical about some of these big claims
So, we currently have all the political parties claiming that they will make a significant change in policy, trying to halt the environmental crisis. Whoever wins next month has a lot of big promises to live up to and despite my scepticism and fears I also feel quite intrigued to see what actually happens and as always, cling to the hope that serious change will happen. We shall see …..

Before any serious change in the UK starts, we the voters have our own personal decisions to make about who we may vote for and we have to ask ourselves what are the most important issues that this country faces. I read an article last week saying that despite the pressure from many people and despite all the scientific data that has been accumulated about environmental issues, the environment in general is only the 4th most important point that a poll of UK voters named. I find this an equally worrying statistic despite many of the points I raised earlier about being in the news on a daily basis, the British voter still needs to wake up more and think more about the state of the planet we all live on. Unsurprisingly the number one reason given in the above-mentioned poll was Brexit, which in my nature conservationist mind has been a very dangerous distraction from the environment crisis.

I ask all readers of this site to think of environmental issues before you vote and I’m certainly not going to talk political viewpoints or make suggestions on how/who you should vote but if you genuinely care about our planet and its wildlife you will be thoughtful about where you put your mark.

November 7, 2019

Missing the Point?

Having kept my powder dry for a couple of weeks, and aware of the fact that nobody is likely to listen, I have finally decided to put words to my concerns both for Surrey and the rest of England.

Call be narrow minded or over focused on one issue but I find the existence of “elephants in the room” hard to ignore.

Much is being written and spoken about the climate emergency and the collapse of biodiversity in the UK. Comment and commitments are continually being made by national and local government, pressure groups, NGOs, in fact it seems that everybody has something to say on the 2 topics.

The government finally put forward an Environment Bill (without any certainty that it will now become a reality) and we can now all read the latest State of Nature report. Nearly all of it perfectly laudable in its intent and desired outcome. So what is my problem?

It is stating the obvious that an essential part of protecting Biodiversity and helping to reverse its dramatic decline is to protect what Biodiversity you still have. To at least attempt this requires immediate, constant, sustainable management which requires immediate, stable, sustainable funding.

Hoped for improvements in funding countryside management through the use of planing system and offsetting or the expansion of the principles of Natural Capital are at this time hopes and do not address the fundamental question of who pays, right now, for the management of countryside and the protection of our increasingly appreciated but threatened Biodiversity?

In Surrey we have the largest public open space (largely sites of major importance to Biodiversity) landowner, Surrey County Council still bizarrely promoting the importance of enhancing Biodiversity on one hand whilst maintaining the ridiculous position that managing the countryside should and could be self financing! I could puke at the stupidity of it.

Treating Biodiversity as some weird kind of political issue extends to national government as well.

The flagship wildlife sites, Biodiversity hot spots, are meant to be the designated National Nature Reserves. There are presently 224 of these wonderful places in England, some small but most are hundreds of hectares. So you would think that at least the management of these gems would be secure?

Of the 224 NNRs the majority of them, about 150, are managed by Natural England. By my very rough estimate that means about 60,000 hectares of land is meant to be managed by an organisation that has been financially gutted by successive governments. Natural England’s annual budget has been cut over the last 10 years from £242 million to under £100 million and its staff from around 2500 to around 1500. Now I know that managing the NNRs is only one part of the duties of Natural England but I also know that cutting the overall budget has had real and pretty dire consequences for the teams trying to manage these supposedly critical reservoirs of Biodiversity. We now live in a political world where even the Chief Executive of Natural England stating they have insufficient funding to manage the NNRs raises little comment, not even criticism from ill informed MPs.

What I find even more bewildering is that we are not really talking about huge sums of money, 10s of £millions not the £billions promised to tackle climate change or build HS2. Surrey County Council should be contributing at least a £million to manage their estate and I would suggest that a sustainable budget for the NE managed NNRs should be ring fenced and protected from cuts.

Why is the funding for managing sites of such importance to Biodiversity so ignored or marginalised? If you are a conspiracy theorist then there is plenty of scope for imagination to run wild but my tendency is that the overwhelming majority of politicians either just don’t care or simply don’t believe that government should have a role in directly managing land at all, least of all land important for Biodiversity. My suspicion is that the latter group of politicians think it’s easier and maybe better for conservation land management to be undertaken by charities like the RSPB and National Trust.

Recent history shows that even the Royal Parks were not regarded as important enough for the tax payer to fund directly and have quietly been charitablised. There have been past attempts to sell of the state forestry land and an aborted attempt to shift the Natural England NNRs to a further new charity, the first became such a hot political potato that I doubt that any government will repeat the attempt but the second I fully expect to be revisited.

What is so wrong about using tax payers money to protect Biodiversity directly through the conservation management of land that all of us as tax payers own?

Why is it politically acceptable to spend billions on anything related to climate change but not Biodiversity?

When you vote do ask yourself these questions.