Should we be congratulating the South Somerset District Council and their employees for the efforts made at the Chard Nature Reserve after another year of habitat destruction?
They have after all successfully
managed to convert the nature area into a country park without many
local users noticing, that is unless you ignore all the wildlife
experts and bird watchers who's cries to protect the area as a Nature
Reserve have gone unheeded over the years and ignored as the SSDC who have told us in
the past “no one is going to tell them how to run Chard Reservoir
Nature Reserve” end quote. Not even the ratepayers have a say?
Lets look at the definition of a Nature
Reserve :-
"A
nature reserve (natural reserve, nature preserve, natural preserve)
is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or
features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved
and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for
study or research".
Consider this in
comparison to the definition of a country park:-
"The
purpose of a country park is to provide a place that has a natural,
rural atmosphere for visitors who do not necessarily want to go out
into the wider countryside. Visitors can enjoy a public open space
with an informal atmosphere, as opposed to a formal park as might be
found in an urban area. For this reason country parks are usually
found close to or on the edge of built-up areas, and rarely in the
wider countryside".
You can see that
Chard LNR ticks all the boxes as a country park. This should be of no
surprise as the management approach of SSDC which manages Yeovil and
Ham Hill Country Parks and its philosophy extends to Chard Reservoir
where public access is made paramount and conservation is last on
their list. This is apparent in the concentration of effort of the
management to attain the Green Flag status which has little to do
with conservation and more to do with public access.
No attempt has
been made in the last 6 years to make fresh plantings of trees that
would benefit the resident or visiting population of bird life that
remain. Anyone can tell you that if you want wildlife they must be
provided with a source of food. In denuding the reserve of this
source of food you also drive away wildlife.
Public access
should be managed in this reserve to protect what little wildlife
still exists here.
As ratepayers we
contribute to the cost of running this place and it does seem
reasonable to me that local Chard residents should have some say in the
running of this place. The formation Chard Friends of the
Reservoir group may be an option or simply to pressure those “yes
men” appointed on the steering group to do something more positive.
An alternative
is to officially downgrade this place as a Country Park, Angling venue and dog exercise area for that is what it
is.
Thank you SSDC and all the willing people who have unwittingly supported them in depriving us of a place that could have been good for nature.
Thank you SSDC and all the willing people who have unwittingly supported them in depriving us of a place that could have been good for nature.
