Fnaar
Smutmaster General
- Location
- Thumberland
I liked this one (thoughtful, sad tales of environemental woes), but I promise not to post any more of them (yous'll ahve to joing BookFace and 'like' his page):
Went to my dentist yesterday - a bee keeper for 17 yrs - he had 6 hives - all of them empty this year - Sudden Colony Collapse. I mentioned this in the cafe in Settle later, and one of my mates there said "We had five hives till last year - same thing." 11 hives in such a small area - gone. Driving along the road from Bentham I look out - early silage being cut - so no meadow flowers there then. Verges being cut back everywhere so "drivers can see" No flowers there then. Hedges hacked back and ripped out - so no mayblossom there then.
For many years I've been lucky enough to be able to fish for a few hours a day all summer and have noticed the falling numbers of midges / mayflies / Large Dark Olives etc. The swallows that used to be here in profusion - gone. The Peewits that used to cloud the sky with their swooping flight - gone. The Curlew with it's plaintive call that used to be so plentiful on the wetlands about the house - rare now. The Starlings that used to flock so thick they looked like great moving dark clouds projected onto the sky - decimated.
On the moors of North Ribblesdale which once acted like great sponges taking and holding the water to let it out gradually over time, they planted thousands of acres of Sitka Spruce (with grants and tax breaks for the private companies). The "ribbing" of the landscape meant that the rain now skitters off the land into the becks and rivers and we get flash floods that scour out the redds where the salmon / sea trout and brownies lay their eggs and the same floods also of course cause damage to houses and property further downstream.
Now the forests are being clear felled and the YDNP have given planning permission for the timber to be taken out via Cam High Road - a Roman Road that will be trashed by the forty tonners that will churn along it day by day in all weathers.
Enough of a moan - I'm sure you've all got similar stories to tell - but if you look at this small selection of bad things that are happening in one small area of the world you can see that it is largely down to one thing - our relationship with the land. We no longer see it as something that nurtures us - we see it simply as something to pay us money - whether it's planting non-native and pretty useless trees on the fells / spraying the crops with nicotinoids and decimating the bees insects birds / or spraying the meadows with nitrates and slurry to get as many cuts of silage as possible - we are raping the land and the result will be disastrous for our children and our grandchildren.
Went to my dentist yesterday - a bee keeper for 17 yrs - he had 6 hives - all of them empty this year - Sudden Colony Collapse. I mentioned this in the cafe in Settle later, and one of my mates there said "We had five hives till last year - same thing." 11 hives in such a small area - gone. Driving along the road from Bentham I look out - early silage being cut - so no meadow flowers there then. Verges being cut back everywhere so "drivers can see" No flowers there then. Hedges hacked back and ripped out - so no mayblossom there then.
For many years I've been lucky enough to be able to fish for a few hours a day all summer and have noticed the falling numbers of midges / mayflies / Large Dark Olives etc. The swallows that used to be here in profusion - gone. The Peewits that used to cloud the sky with their swooping flight - gone. The Curlew with it's plaintive call that used to be so plentiful on the wetlands about the house - rare now. The Starlings that used to flock so thick they looked like great moving dark clouds projected onto the sky - decimated.
On the moors of North Ribblesdale which once acted like great sponges taking and holding the water to let it out gradually over time, they planted thousands of acres of Sitka Spruce (with grants and tax breaks for the private companies). The "ribbing" of the landscape meant that the rain now skitters off the land into the becks and rivers and we get flash floods that scour out the redds where the salmon / sea trout and brownies lay their eggs and the same floods also of course cause damage to houses and property further downstream.
Now the forests are being clear felled and the YDNP have given planning permission for the timber to be taken out via Cam High Road - a Roman Road that will be trashed by the forty tonners that will churn along it day by day in all weathers.
Enough of a moan - I'm sure you've all got similar stories to tell - but if you look at this small selection of bad things that are happening in one small area of the world you can see that it is largely down to one thing - our relationship with the land. We no longer see it as something that nurtures us - we see it simply as something to pay us money - whether it's planting non-native and pretty useless trees on the fells / spraying the crops with nicotinoids and decimating the bees insects birds / or spraying the meadows with nitrates and slurry to get as many cuts of silage as possible - we are raping the land and the result will be disastrous for our children and our grandchildren.
