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Barra Councillor |
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My name is Donald Manford and I am the Councillor for Barra and Vatersay. On this page I will be informing you about local and regional authorities and how they work, my plans for developing Barra and Vatersay, matters of urgent priority and long term plans. I am also awaiting your suggestions, proposals and participation. You can phone me on 01871 890288, or better still you can always contact me by E-mail. Western Isles Council web site http://www.cne-siar.gov.uk/
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Dear Sir or Madam,
SNH Letter to the West Highland
Free Press
I refer to the
letter from SNH’s, Simon Fraser, 29th Oct and printed by the West Highland Free
Press.
I would like to state that my speech broadly expressed concerns
about environmental dictatorship and highlighted the frightening methodology of
attack and vilification of those who dare to take issue with
them.
I enclose a copy of
the speech that I made and I would ask that people read what I actually said and
then make a judgement.
Yours sincerely
Donald
Manford
PEOPLE – THE FORGOTTEN
SPECIES
I am delighted to have been invited to give this talk and it is entirely appropriate that it takes place at a Conference entitled, “People – The Forgotten Species”. It is a topic I feel passionately about. It is always a good idea at the start of any speech to deal with definitions, so how do we define environment? If you look up the dictionary, under the word ‘environment’, you find the following type of definition:
Noun: surrounding; surrounding objects,
region, or conditions, especially circumstances of life of person or
society.
My personal definition of ‘environment’ is that it is everything
which surrounds us and has to do with everything and everyone which plays a part
in our lives. It is constantly
evolving; we are part of it. It is
moulded by us and we by it. The
environment incorporates all the natural elements around us, including, and
remembering the title of the conference, people and their attitudes to
themselves and others, the rules and customs by which we govern our lives and
the responsibilities we impose on ourselves. The environment is sometimes
seemingly constant, but it is always changing, often in subtle and almost
imperceptible ways. These
changes can sometimes be misinterpreted and mis-represented by those who do not
want to understand the complex mechanisms at work. I would say that the environment is
always under threat from those who are envious, resentful, or who believe vainly
or naively that that which you cannot direct by earned respect or through
collective accountability, must be dictated centrally. We may see our role as
fending off or moderating the would-be environmental dictators, but in reality
we are the victims of these modern day “Great Improvers” just as surely as our
forefathers a hundred years ago. In order to live in and sustain our
environment, we must be able to earn a dignified living from it. We must be able to contribute to all
life forms, even broader than our immediate environment. I stress we must be able to, not allowed
to, by the grace and favour of those ‘Great Improvers’. To achieve the kind of environmental
balance I think everyone in this room would wish to see, we must facilitate the
development of economic viability, with the ability to act quickly to changing
circumstances, an entrepreneurial ethos which makes living and working in the
places we love enjoyable and affordable.
Chad Holliday, the Chief Executive of DuPont, eloquently expresses my
own thinking on the way we should go about tackling economic growth when he
said: “sustainable growth seeks to make more of the world’s people, our
customers, and to do so by developing markets that promote and sustain economic
prosperity, social equity and environmental integrity”. We all wish to retain our
beautiful natural environment for ourselves and our children and for all those
who wish to respect our Democratic Environment and contribute to it.
Do I then aspire to the unattainable?
Does freedom and responsibility for our own environment threaten or
deprive anyone?
Let us assess this.
I was interested to read recently a speech given by Romano Prodi to
the European Parliament. Prodi said
a lot of interesting things and pointed out that “sustainable growth is not just
about the environment, but about ensuring that economic growth, social cohesion
and environmental protection go hand in hand. Far from being contradictory, economic,
social and environmental objectives are actually complementary”.
These are reasonable aspirations in a democratic society and lie at
the core of the European model of society which I agree with Prodi, we want to
see us build on and preserve. With regards to agricultural policy, the
President of the European Commission went on to say that the European Union’s
latest objectives focus on high quality, healthy food production, rather than
quantity. The Commission aims to
satisfy consumers, whilst at the same time taking full account of farmers’
interests and of course, coming from Barra you would expect me to say this,
crofters’ interests. Prodi further
said, We Europeans – and I would
stress this – are right to be proud of our social model, although we do seem to
have lost the thread rather, in recent years and to have ceased to be as proud
of it as we once were. He goes on, But this may well be a reason why we need to modernise,
so that our model of society will work for future generations. From what I have read of the work of the
European Commission, I believe that it is now ready to prepare the necessary
technical solutions and political compromises to help us solve the difficult
problems we currently face. Prodi reminds us that what is needed now is
flexibility on the part of all negotiators and a strong political commitment to
reaching agreement even in the most sensitive areas. Flexibility and good sense now appear to
be the qualities we most need.
It is not enough to repeat, for the umpteenth time that politicians
need to communicate more effectively with the citizens of Europe and that the
real issues are often distorted and misunderstood. What is required is for policy
formulators and decision-makers to take on board and listen to, the
people. Prodi is absolutely right when he says that what we cannot have are
cliques of advisors and governments meeting behind closed doors. It is imperative that we stop this way
of working. So these truly democratic sentiments are not being expressed
by some enlightened idealist, rather they are coming from one of Europe’s chief
bureaucrats.
Who could possibly take issue with these wonderful democratic
sentiments? Scottish Natural Heritage that’s
who.
SNH is a very powerful, wealthy organisation. I do not believe that it operates in an
open and transparent way. It seems
to me that it is not accountable directly to those whom it exists to serve and
there are worrying examples that those who take issue with them and who try and
engage in public debate are marginalised and painted as being either
objectionable or unreasonable.
Sometimes I think the SNH strategy is to say to local people, ‘it’s
all the Government’s fault’ and to say to Government, ‘it’s all the fault of the
local people’.
The sums of money SNH deal with are very large.
The organisation has a budget of £50m, half of which it spends on
itself and of that £50m, less than £10m is set aside for direct aid. So for every £5 it gets from taxpayer’s
money, they set aside £1 to invest back into the community, or to put it another
way, for every £1 it returns to the environment, it spends £4 to do it. Even these grant making processes are
not transparent. There is no set
grant table where the decisions, or policy behind allocations can be easily
understood. All too often,
assistance, from the public perspective is seen to be highly discretionary and
local officers of SNH play a very powerful and unhealthy role in the way money
is dispersed. I do not think this
is an appropriate way to deal with public money as it can lead to unfairness,
and sometimes those who apply for a grant to SNH could be forgiven for believing
that they are being treated like natives in the days of the Raj.
The Imperialist approach often taken by SNH, not only instils a
pompous arrogance but creates deep anxiety. Why can’t we have an independent
complaints procedure or a proper appeals mechanism? If only to deal with a bureaucracy
who only deals with itself to a point where if it were not so damaging, would be
laughable.
If what I have said up until now has been a little theoretical and
abstract, let me swoop down to the nitty gritty issues that affect people on the
ground and let me tell you the story of the Barra Bunnies.
The Barra Common Grazings encompass a flat area of machair
ground. It is classified as a Site
of Special Scientific Interest and together with the hill to the north, covers
an area of approximately 400 hectares.
We have the perimeter fence to allow the cattle to graze and roam
over the flat land and the hill unimpeded.
This allows the cattle to find shelter depending on the direction of the
wind and rain.
The area has a serious rabbit infestation problem.
It also has a problem with ragwort, but that is definitely another
story.
Under our wonderful new environmental managers, we were led to
believe that we would be allowed to control the rabbit numbers sensibly. To us, the local crofters, who have for
generations cared for the land, the obvious method was to initiate a programme
for the entire machair and the hill area, as the sandy terrain is the ideal
ground for the rabbits.
But not a bit of it.
We were instructed that assistance for eradication was only available
for machair rabbits. Not hill
ones.
My simple question is why?
I should explain that the area is made up of different
designations. The south machair is
an ESA/SSSI, the in-bye, an ESA, but not on an SSSI and the hill is an SSSI but
not an ESA. Scientific reasons
underpin these bureaucratic designations that are hard to understand or get to
grips with.
Crucially, neither do the cattle nor the rabbits.
So why is it that we have to deal with the rabbits on the machair but
not the rabbits on the hill as the same rabbits move up the side of the hill
when the machair water table rises in winter and back down again as the water
table falls. These rascally rabbits
refuse to respect the finer points of the clever SNH and SEERAD bureaucrats, and
their letter soup of designations.
So what were the local crofters required to do in order to receive
the blessings of Scottish Natural Heritage?
They were required to build a mile long fence across the middle of
nowhere and to what purpose? Well,
it was an ESA/SSSI boundary. As the
rabbits chose to defy SNH designations, we built a £5,000 border, a frontier, a
Barra Bunny Berlin Wall.
Like all frontiers, creatures develop a strategy to get round them
and the wily bunnies were up to the task.
They simply hopped on to the beach, round the fence, on to the ESA/SSSI
and retired to their enclave on the SSSI hillside whenever the gasman visited
the ESA/SSSI.
What purpose does the £5,000 fence serve? Well the answer to that is simple. No useful one.
Let me turn now to the cattle.
They once roamed freely but now they were hindered by the
fence.
But they like the rabbits, simply walked on to the beach and round
the fence. That of course gave rise
to problems with young calves who often, found themselves on a side of the fence
other than that of their mothers.
Panic set in, the calves got distressed and in some cases they were
injured. Now after all these
problems and difficulties, it would seem sensible to remove this ridiculous
fence but were we as crofters allowed to do that?
No we were not. We were
in a contract to be environmentally friendly. The fence had to stay for at least five
years. It looks as if the Barra
Bunny Berlin Wall will come down, only when the contract ends or when SNH and
SEERAD apply some common sense.
To continue the theme of fencing.
Last year we found it necessary to replace a few hundred metres of
boundary fence to prevent cattle straying on to the beach. It is crucial at this point for me to
explain that the beach in Barra also serves as an airport and it goes without
saying that the mixture of cattle and aircraft can be a highly dangerous
one.
The Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department
advised us that our fence repair did not require prior approval and that we
could just get on with it, so that is what we did. On completion, the township paid 45% and
authorised SEERAD to pay the contractor the balance. This they refused to do as there was no
accompanying letter from SNH to sanction the fence replacement. From all the promises given at the
outset of these scientific designations of land and there is a whole alphabet of
them, that they would not interfere with the good running of our township seem
to be broken. We now find that we
need SNH permission to replace our fence even though under Crofter Commission
regulations, we have a legal obligation to maintain our boundary. This to some may seem trivial, but this
is only ona example. Added pitfalls
are in fact rights stolen. Delaying
or preventing payment ensures no further work takes place, further cripling an
economy already accepted to be in crisis.
These kinds of bureaucratic games sap the energy and vitality of even
the most doughty crofters. Who
completely in line with the vision of Romano Prodi that I mentioned earlier,
wish to stem and reverse the trend of depopulation and bring young people back
to our communities.
We see a tremendous opportunity with the introduction of a vehicular
ferry link with the Western Isles to bring that about.
We had good reason to feel optimistic with an area of our coastline
identified in our five-year plan for fish/shellfish farming development and with
the imminent introduction of a daily vehicular ferry, that the real interests of
fish farming companies were being addressed.
But again the hand of SNH loomed large.
They proposed an SAC designation in the precise area identified for
development and in response to many in the Barra community’s concerns and that
of the fish farmers regarding this designation, insisted that there was no
conflict. The response of
interested fish farming companies was, ‘only a fool would believe them’. I most certainly echo that
remark.
There then ensued a consultation exercise, which in my view was
shambolic. Without wishing to
embarrass the MacNeil of Barra, he expressed the same view cogently when he
said, “local consultation was a farce”.
Yet SNH ploughed on and published an article in its magazine of March
2001 headlined “public meetings reassured Sound of Barra concerns”. This upbeat tone was reflected in the
advice they gave to the Scottish Executive
Yet the whole community is against this designation. The community commissioned a response to
the outrageous claims, which concludes.
To say that the people are reconciled is a simple lie.
But this remarkable story does not end there. The SAC area chosen by SNH is slap-bang
in the middle of the only site identified in the Barra and Vatersay Local Plan
for fish farming. Not only that,
the SAC is meant to contain mearle beds, unfortunately none are in the SAC in
any appreciable quantity. Plenty of
mearle beds exist off Barra but you will forgive me for not telling you where
they are as you never know who is listening. Finally the sandbanks SNH referred to
fall in between two areas identified for the SAC, but as the chart says, they
are constantly shifting sands.
This type of example seems to underscore the growing perception that SNH
exist only to serve what they see to be their own interests and with their
significant budget, they do this frighteningly well. They continue to increase their powers
by bombarding every organisation and agency with literature, ostensibly seeking
consultation, but continually try to increase their powers.
For example in ‘The
Nature of Scotland’, SNH have been successful in putting up a smokescreen of
words to confuse organisations and individuals over their desire to increase
their power in SSSIs. They now want
to be able to give and refuse consents for operations; previously they simply
required notification. I could give
other examples but I would be here all day.
Their reach is a long one and seems to penetrate every area of
the community with a view to manipulating the delivery of their own agenda. They then proclaim that every good thing
in the community is undertaken under their influence and direction and that
everything bad is the fault of those who oppose them.
My own experience has been that opposition to SNH is first isolated,
then defeated by innuendo and whispered slurs or classed as extremist. These tactics are simply not worthy of a
democratic society in the 21st century.
Those individual
officers, and there are some, who at first believe that they can change the face
of the organisation, are quickly encouraged or coerced into serving their
masters. It is to their credit that
some officers within SNH feel uncomfortable with some of the work they are asked
to undertake and if officers within any public service organisation find
themselves in that position, I go along with the view that there should be
appropriate ways for them to raise their concerns without it having an adverse
effect on their careers. That is
the kind of straightforward approach, which should be taken by any public
service organisation. All too often
it does not appear to be the type of approach taken by SNH.
Quite simply, what I am saying to you is that there is little
resemblance between what I see with the work of Scottish Natural Heritage and
the objectives of Romano Prodi, I referred to earlier. His vision, my vision and your vision of
a democratic environment, seems to find little support with
SNH.
But what lies behind SNH?
It is after all only an organ of government and government should
ensure that they manage their affairs in a way that serves the best interests of
communities and not to work against them.
If government fails to hold those who act in its name to account, then we
must hold government to account. We
must be unstinting in that fight and ensure that we use every legitimate means
to ensure that our rights and our communities are defended.
It is the responsibility of all elected representatives across the
whole political spectrum to stand up for their communities, often on issues,
which are not easily understandable.
To emphasise the non party political stance I am taking, I would like
to praise not only MSPs in my own party but also Alasdair Morrison, MSP for
having the courage to oppose the SNH designation for the Sound of Barra .p SAC
and risk the vilifacation which is heaped on those who dare to confront
them.
We have not only inherited the natural environment from our
ancestors, it is also said we borrow it from our children. If we destroy it by capitulating the
democratic environment to the SNH dictatorial environment we will not be able to
return what we have borrowed. We
must not leave our children that shameful legacy.
An SNH Officer recently wrote a book entitled, ‘Rhum, a Landscape
Without Figures’. I hope this is
not the first of a series.
The beautiful and
special Island of Barra which I have the privilege to represent is an island fit
for people. We want to play our
part in implementing the vision of the European Commission for sustainable
development. I ask you today to
help us do that.
Donald Manford
11th October 01.