Many a conservation crime is committed in the name of 'tidying up'
I know all too well! In the last few years I've lost my best bramble patch, a damson tree, a wonderfully productive hazel , a wild gooseberry, a great sloe bush, and the raspberries. It means I'm now having to go further afield to get what I want. Though it did mean I discovered a sweet chestnut tree with a bountiful supply of small, but very sweet nuts.
All this in a rural area ,in the name of tidy. Grrrrrrr!
I now have squirrels raiding my bird feeders and destroying them, as their food sources dwindle. Something that has never happened in 23 yrs of being here.
That's what happens in a national park run as a business, by people with degrees who come from a town instead of rural people with no degree, but dozens of years of practical knowledge under their belts.
Sorry, degrees are useful, but practical knowledge is what keeps things rolling along on an even keel in a natural way.
I remember, going on a volenteer work party to clear scrub, mostly bracken and bramble. The park guy was unable to sharpen a slasher properly, so I had to show them. Very poor.
I also watched some guys hedge laying, they were making a right mess and I told them they were killing all the trees on the bank. Showed them where they were going wrong and to this day, you can see the point I intervened, all the prior "laying" is gone and the bank collapsing, as it was constructed in a manner that needed the roots to keep it stable.
That's the sort of practical knowledge that they don't realy teach on a degree.
