Conservation - to do a little...
This week has been full of conservation, with the practice at the beginning of the week, and the theory at the end.
On Monday, we had our first full field day out, and our first encouter with local Cornish conservation. We were taken to three Cornwall Wildlife Trust sites, a managed wood, a heathland site, and some beautiful vegetated sand dunes. There were two main conclusions I reached by the end of the day, one was that I really want to be a ranger, and work for conservation/wildlife in Britain, and the other was that my previous 'get rid of humans and let everything go back the way it was' attitude isn't going to work.
Britain is a totally managed landscape, and has been for so long, that we have actually created new habitats around which our species have adapted. For example the heathland, which the CWT are working so hard to restore, is an old china clay site, and the industrial activities there actually maintained the heath. Once the china clay works shut down, the rhododendron set in and was actually starting to take over. It was a similar story at Devichoys wood, when the CWT took it over, it was full of bracken, Japanese knotweed and rhododendron. The ranger we met was a funny mixture of boundless enthusiasm and pessimism - he said that without intervention, pretty much all of Britain would be covered in rhododendron and knotweed. Overall though, he and the other officer we spoke to painted a positive picture, and everyone came away from the day feeling as if the outlook for the environment isn't totally gloomy.
However, on Friday, we had the complete opposite. We had a presentation from a lady from the Marine Conservation Society, who had worked with turtles in Sri Lanka, and seven student presentations relating to conservation issues. After being bombarded with theory all day, everyone was distinctly subdued, as the complexity of conservation, with human nature being what it is, really sank in. I found a good Edmund Burke quote today though on the Paradise Park website: " Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. "
Maybe that is it, the heart of what conservation is.
On Monday, we had our first full field day out, and our first encouter with local Cornish conservation. We were taken to three Cornwall Wildlife Trust sites, a managed wood, a heathland site, and some beautiful vegetated sand dunes. There were two main conclusions I reached by the end of the day, one was that I really want to be a ranger, and work for conservation/wildlife in Britain, and the other was that my previous 'get rid of humans and let everything go back the way it was' attitude isn't going to work.
Britain is a totally managed landscape, and has been for so long, that we have actually created new habitats around which our species have adapted. For example the heathland, which the CWT are working so hard to restore, is an old china clay site, and the industrial activities there actually maintained the heath. Once the china clay works shut down, the rhododendron set in and was actually starting to take over. It was a similar story at Devichoys wood, when the CWT took it over, it was full of bracken, Japanese knotweed and rhododendron. The ranger we met was a funny mixture of boundless enthusiasm and pessimism - he said that without intervention, pretty much all of Britain would be covered in rhododendron and knotweed. Overall though, he and the other officer we spoke to painted a positive picture, and everyone came away from the day feeling as if the outlook for the environment isn't totally gloomy.
However, on Friday, we had the complete opposite. We had a presentation from a lady from the Marine Conservation Society, who had worked with turtles in Sri Lanka, and seven student presentations relating to conservation issues. After being bombarded with theory all day, everyone was distinctly subdued, as the complexity of conservation, with human nature being what it is, really sank in. I found a good Edmund Burke quote today though on the Paradise Park website: " Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. "
Maybe that is it, the heart of what conservation is.
posted by Simone Webber at 1:35 pm
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