National Trust members have an opportunity to vote on a couple of important issues, and on their new Council members, in person at the NT AGM on 21 October 2017 or by other means before then. I voted a few days ago online and you have until midnight on Friday 13 October to cast your votes online or to get your postal vote to the NT.
NT membership is pretty pricey – I always think – and so you might as well make the most of your investment and make your views known. The process is very easy online – you’ll need your NT membership number (on your membership card) and very little else except to have made up your mind – click here.
The issues:
1. Trail hunting – should the NT allow it on their land?
What is trail hunting? I found this useful from IFAW.
The NT position – click here.
The LACS position – click here (but it seems to depend on trail hunting really being covert fox hunting).
The Countryside Alliance position – click here or here (but I warn you, each is a bit odd!).
I voted for the members’ resolution (vote YES) and against the NT position because I don’t want the NT to allow trail hunting. This was not because I found the LACS position very convincing (although maybe you will) but was certainly partly because the Countryside Alliance position was so poorly argued. I read it, both articles, and thought – ‘What are they on about?’ – and this is mostly an ad hominem argument rather than an argument for trail hunting.
But in essence I voted against trail hunting not because it is an absolute disaster (although maybe it is) but because I just can’t see why the NT would want to have this activity on its land. Just because something is legal, if done legally, doesn’t mean that everyone has to sign up to facilitate it and help it happen. I can’t see any reason at all why NT would actively want trail hunting on their land, and they certainly don’t need it in order to meet their charitable objects, and so I voted against it. And there was another reason, the NT needs to take much more notice of nature conservation issues (eg use of lead ammunition on its land, grouse shooting on its land, working to increase farmland bird populations on its land) and its members are part of the means of making the NT think of these things rather more actively than they have so far. A kick up the backside on this issue won’t do the NT any harm at all.
2. A tunnel at Stonehenge?
The NT think there should be one along the lines of the current plan – and I agree with them so I voted NO on the resolution.
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I asked the candidates a question about shooting leases on NT land. If it has been put before the candidates then their responses will be on the website about October 5th. I am waiting to see what they say before casting my votes.
There will be a limited number of questions put before the candidates, so mine might not be included. It does seem rather last minute to get these responses on the website but better late than never. It will surely lead to more informed voting so I am pleased the NT have introduced this.
I forgot to say – this is about voting for Council members, not the voting for Resolutions. But equally important.
Mark – you have not summed up the vote on Stonehenge at all well, and I fear you may mislead people.
This is a vote about whether the proposed scheme is good enough. You are an advocate of conservation being better champions of our heritage. The resolution is suggesting the National Trust is not trying hard enough.
The problem with the current design is it will lead to damage to the Outstanding Universal Value of the World Heritage Site – there will be road works within the Site. ICOMOS are opposed to the proposal. This is like the IUCN voicing opposition to a road scheme that cut through nature reserves.
You once generously gave me the chance to applaud NT for their conservation work at Hindhead. But would either of us have been happy with a cost effective compromise here? The latest Stonehenge scheme is like the northern tunnel portal at Hindhead being in the heathland near the youth hostel.
The UK is the only country in Europe (apart from war torn Bosnia) to have any of its World Heritage Sites on the Amber warning list. Stonehenge cannot join that list. It is not good enough that the National Trust say “well its time we found a cost effective compromise that Highways England can afford”.
We must vote in favour of this motion – the Trust must try harder on cultural heritage as well as natural heritage.
Fully agree with you on trail hunting – very important that all members vote.
David, thank you.
Stonehenge is a WHS. It does not need partial protection, it needs complete protection.
Stonehenge is not an isolated antiquity but is one of many sites in the area. The road need to be completely re-routed and the tunnel has to be much longer.
This is a once only chance of giving the area the full protection it so badly needs.
Please, before voting, take out a road map and look at the problem for yourself. The correct decision will be painfully expensive, but this is a WHS!
This is much more than a tourist issue. It’s about doing what is right and correcting wrongs done in the past.
From my perspective Heritage is not the same as wildlife. Indeed the needs of Heratage more often than not conflict with the needs of nature conservation. For example, the Cultural Landscape of the LDNP. This has,, and continues to be used to prevent environmental improvements. As for ICOMOS, where do I start. In their submission concerning WHS status for LDNP they stated that all the issues of intensive farming in the hills has been solved (a lie). Requested that money be moved away from environmental payments to cultural payments. They even stated that natural flood management was a ‘risk’ to the cultural landscape suggesting that more efforts be put into dealing with the results of flooding, rather than actually try and prevent them in the first place. ICOMOS is anti nature conservation and a real threat.
I don’t think you can say ICOMOS are “a real threat”, nor indeed anti-nature conservation – they have a lot of common cause with us, and yes there are areas of conflict between natural and cultural heritage – including at Stonehenge. I have no doubt they would put cultural heritage before nature, just as most nature conservationists would do the reverse..
If we have to regard ICOMOS as anathema to our interests, and thus part of the enemy, we are not going to get very far in solving our nature conservation challenges.
I share your concerns about the Lake District. Perhaps we have not spent enough time talking with them and helping them understand what is important to us? Nature has a cultural value (that’s cultural ecosystem services to policy wonks) of its own, and it seems at the Lake District we have not expressed to ICOMOS this value sufficiently.
Finally this vote is about the Stonehenge landscape, and whether the National Trust is robust enough in its defence. The Trust is our best hope in conserving vital natural and cultural heritage assets. If they are to do that, they need good and complementary advice from the two halves of the conservation world.
I disagree, I see ICOMOS and their cheerleaders in the ‘landscape’ and heritage sectors as a real threat. One of our biggest. Unless we address this and stop allowing heritage to be seen as a priority, and acquiescing in this narrative, nature is doomed. We have spent plenty of time telling everyone how important nature is, yet we are simply ignored. We are ignored because, when push comes the to shove, they know we will back down. The dogma of ‘partenership’ at all costs that dominates thinking in the conservation sector, is simply allowing nature to be dismissed. That includes by people like ICOMOS who you think would be our friends. They are not.
“We have spent plenty of time telling everyone how important nature is, yet we are simply ignored.”
hmmm. Perhaps “telling everyone” is where we are going wrong.
I recommend Futerra’s Branding Biodiversity – a deliberately provocative title, which I originally recoiled at.
This is the best analysis I have seen yet about why our message about the natural environment is not having the impact we would like.
Yes, telling positive stories is on3 method. It’s one already being used (check social media feed of any nature conservation org) but it is all meaningless as long as we refuse to actually fight for what we believe in.
Neil, you’re correct, heritage is not the same as wildlife and sometimes there are clashes. But you’ve wandered off-topic. WHS are designated for many different reasons, sometimes even for biodiversity and nature conservation reasons. These are all designated by UNESCO who rely on specific bodies to provide expert recommendations: ICOMOS in the case of monuments and sites. They are not anti nature conservation, it’s just not in their remit, just as I wouldn’t expect the IUCN to make any judegements on the Pyramids of Giza. The Lakes were designated a WHS, against many experts advice, because of their cultural heritage – that is the manmade landscape and arts movements, not because of any nature conservation reasons. This is an oversight and certainly should be addressed.
At Stonehenge, there are two choices of tunnel: an expensive, short one, which will impact significantly on the setting, or an even more expensive one which is longer and avoids most of the ancient sites. NT want to back the cheaper option. This is what this resolution is about and why it is so important. f not the longer tunnel, the current traffic-jam infested A303 would remain the better option. The damage is done, and at least queueing drivers get to see it.
Unfortunately in reality trail hunting almost always never actually happens.Rarely is a trail laid, so effectively a fox hunt carries on as it would pre the 2004 Hunting Act using trail hunting as a cover. Consequently almost all the hunts in England are acting illegally. So in reality the vote is about not allowing foxes to be chased and killed by a pack of hounds on NT land.
I’m a member of The National Trust for Scotland (partly as I believe it needs my money more, mostly as the National Trust is just too expensive and on the slippery slope of ever increasing rates). It seemed to accept my login and vote on the NT website, so I would urge NTS members to take part.
For me, the big thing that is wrong with trail hunting is that it makes the current law banning the deliberate hunting of foxes with large packs of hounds virtually unenforceable.
And one of the (many) things wrong with the continued, widespread, deliberate hunting of foxes with hounds is that it gives enormous encouragement to the people who kill other wildlife, including raptors. Nothing reassures someone involved in, or contemplating, the illegal killing of raptors as much as seeing foxhunters breaking the law on a regular basis with almost zero fear of any negative consequences for themselves.