 |
||
|
In contemplating the events of last year, it is tempting to review the year by handing out awards, albeit that most of them would be raspberries, as there was little good news about wild land to applaud. To paraphrase Thomas Jeffferson’s view on the extinction of species, it is unfortunately true that in the pursuit of countering the ideology of the conservation industry in Britain, which is so destructive of wild land, that “every victory is temporary, every defeat permanent”. The one award I will make is STINKING UP A WOODLAND, as I fear this will become increasingly common, based on the evidence of the Progress Report of the Independent Panel on Forestry (1). The winner is Yorkshire Wildlife Trust for it’s excessive dedication to the dogma of woodland management in Grass Wood, near Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales. The woodland experience in Grass Wood is marginal at best, with its lack of mature native trees and thus little area of high canopy and woodland interior. This is due to its history as a worked woodland common, of coppicing and felling, and of its replanting with non-natives that have extensively modified its composition, making it a less natural woodland than the adjacent Bastow Wood. While the wood no longer has the burden of a productive purpose, the Wildlife Trust and their volunteers are nevertheless driven to industrialise the woodland through sanitary logging and coppicing, leaving the evidence of their intervention as piles of saw-chained logs and brash, as well as the ludicrous dead hedges, none of which are in anyway analogous of structures found within woodland in wild nature. Constructing dead hedges is a method of stock proofing that has no contemporary context in Grass Wood, but which is a common way of the conservation industry in disposing of large amounts of coppice material that would have been taken away when the wood was worked for poles and charcoal-making. The Ten-Percent world of lost wild heritage
The inherent tragedy of this constant humanisation of
everything by the conservation industry was brought home to me by a phone
call I had a few weeks ago from James Mackinnon, a writer who lives in
Vancouver. He’s working on a book about rewilding. His is the well trodden
path of recognising accumulating extirpations adding up to extinction, and
of the
shifting baseline, where there is a generational erosion of reference
points for wild nature.
Mackinnon
explains this in an article about the reinstatement of
the
bolson tortoise (Gopherus flavomarginatus) to New Mexico
(2):
Mackinnon writes that for millennia, today’s Chihuahuan Desert, which
encompasses
New
Mexico, Arizona, and western Texas to most of the Mexican Plateau,
was almost
certainly the original range of wild bolson tortoises. Then, about 10,000
years ago, late in the Pleistocene era, they disappeared from the New
Mexico area of the desert at a time when humans were spreading rapidly
across the Americas. Fossil records of the area at that time throw up
tortoise shells, blackened by the fires of humans, along with the bones of
the now extinct megafauna.
Today the bolson tortoise exists in one percent or less of
its prehistoric range, the miracle being – as Mackinnon says - not that
the tortoise has disappeared, but that it has survived at all in the face
of human-driven extirpation. For Mackinnon, the living world is revealed
by the story of the bolson tortoise as “an echo and a shadow of what
came before”. It is a lesson of ecological history that is
uncomfortably clear to him, that we appear to survive in a greatly reduced
state of wild nature:
Mackinnon develops his idea of the
Ten-Percent World in a later article that starts with his discovery of the
wildlife of a park
along the neglected River de la
Plata, outside of the city bustle
of Buenos Aries. Two
fork-tailed flycatchers flew in front of him, seemingly enjoying the
freedoms of the air in this relatively wild place (3):
The presence of an absence, and not knowing how
large that absence is, became the journey of his article, its conclusion
making the case for ecological restoration: In contacting me, Mackinnon wondered what the cost had been to Britain of having lost much of its original wild heritage, and whether I thought it meant we had also lost an attachment to nature. The potential premise for his book on rewilding is a dreadful prospect - that Britain is the premier example of what every country could end up as, through the gradual loss of its wild heritage, and he wonders whether that is tolerable in terms of quality of life and the regard for wild nature. I explained that I have always had the view that without readily accessible areas of wild land in Britain, we have no experience that can provide us with a value system for wild nature (4). We don’t have the literature, the language, the protected area legislation or even the passion or emotion for truly wild land. That since undertaking the review of wildland in Europe, I am always so impressed with the language of other countries who understand it so much more. I also emphasised the loss of freedoms we have from the loss of wildland – and the modern day restrictions on access due to the reinstatement of control through the agricultural pressures of fencing and grazing. He hadn’t come across that. Of course, living in Vancouver, he has wild land on his doorstep, with 94% of British Columbia publicly owned (5) and with 14.3% protected in national parks and ecological reserves that encompass designated wild land areas (6). It must be difficult for him to think of a world without it. Not for him, the trespassing I sometimes have to do, to get into unmanaged worlds in a land that is so much private property in Britain. The drivers for the contemporary loss of wild land What I failed to talk about with Mackinnon in any detail were the drivers for this contemporary loss of wild land in the locations that have seen an ecological restoration over the last 50-100 years as they fell out of agricultural use. These are regarded by the conservation industry as failures in maintaining a culturally driven “biodiversity”, and have had that awakening of wild nature destroyed as control is reasserted. However, George Monbiot is another writer bent on producing a book on rewilding. In our correspondence, it is clear that Monbiot understands these drivers, and the dangers of the conservation industry, its specialisation and narrowness, and that its practitioners have “forgotten the wonder, the beauty and the spontaneity of nature”, and have come to see it as a problem that must be parceled up, managed and suppressed – “Nature must now do as it is told”
He explored this in an article in the Guardian where he posed the question
whether the United Kingdom is the most zoophobic nation in Europe? He had
listened to a radio interview with a Forestry Commission worker about
whether or not the returning wild boar are damaging our woodlands. Monbiot
noted that the program did not mention that the boar is a native species,
but was discussed as if it were an exotic invasive animal. He also
bemoaned the fact that the program did not explore the possibility that,
far from damaging native woodland, the wild boar is a missing member of
that ecosystem, and that it creates habitats for other species (7):
Monbiot also goes right to the heart of the contemporary drivers for this
mania for command and control management when he researched who were the
major recipients of agricultural subsidies. He found that the conservation
industry was amongst the “top
blaggers”
in 2010, with the RSPB receiving in that one year alone a combined income
of £4.8m from the Single Payment Scheme as well as agri-environment
subsidy such as Countryside Stewardship Scheme or Higher Level
Stewardship, the National Trust got £8m, and the various Wildlife Trusts a
total of £8.5m. He remarked (8):
Monbiot is quite right on that latter point - that this money comes with
preconditions about its use. To receive Single Payment Scheme subsidy,
farmland has to be kept in
Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition.
That is
to “avoid encroachment of unwanted vegetation, to protect habitats and
to maintain land not in production” (9). Thus “land abandonment”, a
value-laden term, is not allowed: scrub has to be cut, and “rank”
vegetation has to be grazed to prevent encroachment of scrub. The
pre-conditions for agri-environment subsidy are similar in “continuing
to apply agricultural production methods compatible with the protection
and improvement of the environment”
(10). The context is given in this strategic guideline (11):
If you are in any doubt about the association between such things as
Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) and the constant imposition of a farming
pressure, then the proposals for the continuance of agri-environment
schemes after the current period ends in 2013 has this explicit link on
use of the funding (12): Managed as heathland, not farmland
In relation to this, I must applaud the clarity with which
John Davies, the Countryside & Open Space Manager for Suffolk Coastal
District Council, understands agri-environment schemes like HLS. When
asked by objectors to tree felling and heathland restoration on the
publicly owned Sutton Heath why the land is classified as farmland, he
replied (13): It was only through a Freedom of Information Request (FOI) by the objectors that the details of the HLS funding for heathland restoration that the District Council secured from Natural England were obtained, the agreement being signed in 2009 without consultation with local people (14). Yet again, this shows that the lure of HLS takes away the ability of local people to decide for themselves, and puts it in the hands of Natural England. The HLS agreement reveals the 10-year road map for the destruction and loss of freedoms that is being perpetrated on Sutton Heath, the felling and coppicing of trees, the spraying of bracken, the imposition of fencing and the reinstatement of grazing after a gap of many years. So what, Mr Davies, is the difference between managing as farmland or managing as heathland? Sutton Heath has been caught up in the wider drive to restore heathland in the Suffolk Sandlings Heaths (15). The Sutton Heath Users Group, set up by the objectors, has a clear aim to keep Sutton Heath as an accessible amenity area for local people and visitors by finding a fairer balance between conservation objectives and the amenity rights of a substantial and increasing number of local people and visitors (16). They don’t want to become involved in the wider issues of heathland restoration in Suffolk, but theirs is a compelling and focussed argument. A visitor survey of the Sandlings Heaths area concluded that Sutton Heath in particular receives high visitor use compared to other sites (17). Thus the Sutton Heath Users Group makes the point that Sutton Heath is just 2% of the South Sandlings, but accounts for 40% of total visitors to this area. Forgoing heathland restoration on Sutton Heath would have little impact on the overall Sandlings Heath, but going ahead with it would have a massive impact on the freedoms of local people. The empire building of the Wildlife Trusts
There has been another driver for the loss of freedoms. I
keep meaning to get around to writing something about the Heritage Lottery
Fund (HLF) and its bankrolling of the empire building of the Wildlife
Trusts. They have all done astonishingly well out of HLF, even though the
application process would suggest that there is at least an element of
scrutiny and competitiveness for the funding. I started sometime ago to
trawl through the grants on the HLF website to total up what a few
Wildlife Trusts had received, but it was a laborious task. For one example
alone, Sheffield Wildlife Trust received 17 grants between October 2000
and October 2010, totalling nearly £2.2m. It would have been a long job to
have gone through all the individual grants of the other 46 Wildlife
Trusts. However, I came across a leaflet, put out by HLF in March last
year that gave me a headline figure. The leaflet bragged about the sixteen
years of the Wildlife Trusts and the HLF working together (?!) (18): Under the Land and Biodiversity program of the HLF (19) more than 70,500 hectares of land of “importance for wildlife” have been bought mostly by the Wildlife Trusts, such as the 55ha of Gibb Torr in 1995 by Staffordshire WT with a grant of £220,000, and with much contested plans for it thereafter (20, 21). Sheffield Wildlife Trust got £941,500 in 2000 to set up nine nature reserves, based on taking over public lands owned by Sheffield City Council and leading to the carpet bagging of Blacka Moor, a public space whose wildness is being destroyed by the Wildlife Trust (22, 23). The Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) got £49,900 in 2006 for the bogus consultation of the Nettlebed Commons Grazing Project that sought to turn the self-seeded and wild woodland on Kingwood Common into a fenced and livestock grazed wood pasture (24, 25). A more cynical person than me might conclude that applications from Wildlife Trusts have an easy ride through the regional committees of the HLF, always getting a priority pass that ensures their success in funding. HLF just seems like another big payday for the Wildlife Trusts, another source of public money where the public have little say. A cavalier approach to the use of agri-environment funding The contested nature of the involvement of the conservation industry at Blacka Moor and Kingwood Common are not just a facet of the funding from HLF. The actions by the conservation industry at both locations at various times have also received financial support from agri-environment funding through the Countryside Stewardship Scheme (CSS), the forerunner to HLS. In both cases, Freedom of Information requests have revealed a cavalier approach to the use of this funding. At Kingwood Common, the FOI request revealed that a Compliance Inspection in 2004 by the Rural Payments Agency towards the end of the 10-year CSS that covered the Nettelbed Commons, showed that the Conservators and BBOWT had overstated the area of hay meadow on Peppard Common, and had to return part of the money (26). The document states that they were claiming for hay meadow management on the B481 road that crossed the field. More seriously, they appear to have over-represented the area of heath maintenance and restoration in a number of locations on the Nettlebed Commons, so that the claimed area was reduced after the inspection from 39.6ha to 11.4ha. The most spectacular over-claim was on Kingwood Common, where the assessor reduced the heath area from 19.2ha to 4.3ha. Puzzlingly, they were not required to return the £15,000 that they had received in that overpayment. At an early meeting of the "steering group" of the Nettlebed and District Commons Conservators Grazing Project, formed in 2002 in anticipation of the CSS funding coming to an end, the consultants to be employed to write a management plan stated that an aim was to develop wood pasture at Kingwood Common. That aim was carried over into the management plan (27), but it does not appear to have been an openly declared aim in any of the subsequent "grazing project" documents that I have seen. Thus the "consultation" funded by HLF on a management approach was not adequately informed since it only dealt with heathland management and restoration, and did a poor job even then. The aim for wood pasture and not just heathland in that management plan explains why so much of Kingwood Common was intended to be enclosed within fencing and grazed by livestock, as it would maximize the amount of income that could be obtained from a follow-on of agri-environment funding under HLS, and avoid an overstatement of area of heathland as before. It is to be thankful that the Public Inquiry on the application to enclose Kingwood Common was thrown out on the grounds not only that the fencing was not allowed under the Nettlebed and District Commons (Preservation) Act, 1906, but also because there would be “an overall negative effect on the interests of the neighbourhood and the public interest" (28) The public interest has been badly served at Blacka Moor. An FOI request by Neil Fitzmaurice revealed that Sheffield Wildlife Trust (SWT) applied for CSS on Blacka Moor in 2002 (29) and thus before a lease for the moor from Sheffield City Council was issued to the Trust in June 2006 (30). Everything now fits into place for those, like Neil, who have watched the wildness drain away. The Wildlife Trust applied for agri-environment funding without any consultation with local people, who should have had a say on publicly owned land. Moreover, as soon as SWT signed that CSS agreement, local people lost the ability to have any say about the management of Blacka Moor. Subsequent events should all be seen in light of that. Thus when FOI was used to obtain the minutes of a closed meeting in October 2005 between SWT, English Nature (now Natural England) and the Peak District National Park Authority, it showed agreement amongst those at the meeting that the issue of cattle grazing and fencing should not be negotiable (31). We now know that this was against the backdrop that funding for that management approach had already been obtained, the prescription being re-imposition of livestock grazing, spraying and clearance of scrub, felling of trees, and spraying and cutting of bracken. Thus the public consultation sessions on management at Blacka Moor that took place with the facilitator Icarus over 2006, funded by SWT, were a sham from the outset, especially since there was never any mention of the fact that a CSS agreement was already in place. It also explains why SWT just ignored the outcome of the consultation because the management approach had already been decided in the application for CSS. Sheffield Wildlife Trust started off on Blacka with HLF, then obtained CSS, but has claimed Single Payment Scheme (SPS) funding as well (32). SWT also had additional funding under the Wildlife Enhancement Scheme of £8,500 for fencing and walling to allow "conservation grazing by cattle", plus an undisclosed amount under the same scheme for management to limit scrub and bracken encroachment and to restore some grazing (29) the latter appearing to be a duplication of funding under the CSS. SWT also discovered the woodland on Blacka, which would yield them even more funding under an application last year for English Woodland Grant Scheme, revealed by another FOI request by Neil, brought in nearly £21,000, and which also licensed the inevitable tree felling that accompanies woodland management (33). The bizzarre consequences of this dogmatic management are trees on Blacka left looking like standing poles, all branches removed and probably destined for death by being ring barked above ground level (34). What hope would there be for the wildness of Blacka Moor, developed over the 70 years absence of farming, under this onslaught of management funding? Close watchers of Blacka Moor were relieved when in 2008 and 2010 there were no cattle grazing on the moor, as it showed up how damaging their presence was (35). The question that has to be asked now, after the revelations of the FOI request, is why did SWT claim a total of £15,000 in CSS and SPS for those two years (36)? What freedoms have we? It is a painful irony that Freedom of Information is revealing why ordinary people are losing the freedoms of being able to experience nature in the absence of farming. These freedoms were a key part of an extraordinary report written in 1865 by Frank Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who had designed the layout of Central Park in New York a few years before. Olmsted had moved to California, and became one of the first Commissioners of Yosemite Valley after it had been granted by the Federal Government to the State of California – “upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation; [and] shall be inalienable for all time” (37).
Olmsted drew up a preliminary plan for the valley, in which
he brilliantly described its natural, scenic beauty, and how important it
was for ordinary people to experience it (38): Olmsted would appear to have been at the forefront of thinking about the importance of contact with wild nature for human well-being, the effect of natural scenery on human perception, and the moral responsibility of democratic governments to preserve regions of extraordinary natural beauty for the benefit of the whole people - a democratisation of wild nature. Thus realizing how easily a few men could destroy such a place for their own material gain, Olmsted argued that “portions of natural scenery be properly guarded and cared for by the government”, that “laws to prevent an unjust use by individuals of that which is not individual but public property, must be made and rigidly enforced” and that there should be a duty to make it widely accessible through it being “held, guarded and managed for the free use of the whole body of the people forever”
Almost 50 years later,
Olmsted’s son, Frank Jr., was instrumental in drafting the legislation
that set up the National Parks Service in America. He drew on the legacy
of his fathers vision in the report on Yosemite when he crafted the
definition of purposes for the National Park Service Organic Act 1916 that
established a unified system of national parks and a professional bureau
to manage them (39, 40): There is plenty of evidence that the conservation industry in Britain deludes itself in to thinking that their aims for publicly owned land are similar (41) when the evidence of their actions in killing wildness proves otherwise. Why can't we have natural spaces that are ours to freely walk and where we can get away from farming? Mark Fisher 6 January 2012 (1) Forests in Europe - learning the lessons for the UK, Self-willed land December 2011 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/europe_forest.htm (2) The Opposite of Apocalypse, James Mackinnon, The Walrus March 2009 www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2009.03-bolson-tortoise-tortoises-conservation/ (3) A 10 Percent World, James Mackinnon, The Walrus September 2010 www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2010.09-environment-a-10-percent-world (4) Looking for wildland - developing a value system for wild nature, , Self-willed land April 2006 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/look_wild.htm (5) Crown Land - A Definition, Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, British Columbia www.for.gov.bc.ca/resort_development/crown_land/index.htm (6) Facts and Figures, BC Parks www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/aboutBCParks/fact_fig.html (7) How the UK's zoophobic legacy turned on wild boar, George Monbiot, Guardian 16 September 2011 www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/sep/16/zoophobic-wild-boar? (8) We're all paying for Europe's gift to our aristocrats and utility companies, George Monbiot, Guardian 28 November 2011 www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/28/utilities-aristocrats-eu-agricultural-policy (9) Agricultural land which is not in agricultural production (GAEC 12) Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition, Single Payment Scheme, Rural Payments Agency (10) Section 35, Council Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005 of 20 September 2005 on support for rural development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32005R1698:EN:HTML (11) Council Decision of 20 February 2006 on Community strategic guidelines for rural development (programming period 2007 to 2013) (2006/144/EC) THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32006D0144:EN:HTML (12) Article 5(4), Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on support for rural development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) EUROPEAN COMMISSION Brussels, 19.10.2011 http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/cap-post-2013/legal-proposals/com627/627_en.pdf (13) Sutton Heath Oct 3 Public meeting notes, Suffolk Coastal District Council (14) Response to FOI request CMS 30048, Freedom of Information Group, Suffolk Coastal District Council, 30 November 2011 www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/financial_information_regarding?unfold=1#incoming-231549 (15) Rare and precious – words devalued by the conservation industry, Self-willed land May 2011 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/rare_precious.htm (16) Sutton Heath Users Group www.suttonheathusersgroup.co.uk (17) Cruickshanks, K., Liley, D. & Hoskin, R. (2010). Suffolk Sandlings Visitor Survey Report. Footprint Ecology/Suffolk Wildlife Trust. 10 February 2011 (18) Valuing our natural heritage: Sixteen years of The Wildlife Trusts and the Heritage Lottery Fund working together, 31 March 2011 www.hlf.org.uk/news/Documents/Wildlife_Trust_handout.pdf (19) Land and biodiversity, Heritage Lottery Fund www.hlf.org.uk/ourproject/projectsbysector/landandbiodiversity/Pages/index.aspx (20) Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, Heritage Grant, Heritage Lottery Fund November 1995 www.hlf.org.uk/ourproject/Pages/Nov1995/29de3d80-cc59-43a2-b6b1-03cb752c3d9a.aspx (21) The defence of woodland – Forest Neighbours and Gib Torr, Self-willed land January 2010 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/gib_torr.htm (22) Sheffield Wildlife Trust, Heritage Grant, Heritage Lottery Fund October 2000 www.hlf.org.uk/ourproject/Pages/Oct2000/ff921ccb-5836-4a21-8367-ded97e8dbbe0.aspx (23) Blacka Moor in peril from the conservation professionals, Self-willed land December 2005 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/blacka_moor.htm (24) Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, Your Heritage, Heritage Lottery Fund November 2006 www.hlf.org.uk/ourproject/Pages/Nov2006/dbd1ac4e-b17d-4b99-b66f-ec61ceaad08d.aspx (25) The grazing war comes to Kingwood Common, Self-willed land April 2010 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/kingwood_common.htm (26) Amendment arising from RPA Compliance Inspection on 23 November 2004, DEFRA 26 January 2005 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/amendment_CSSagreement_nettlebed_2005.pdf (27) The Nettlebed Commons Management Plan, ecoconsult August 2005 (large file = 12Mb) www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/nettlebed_common_management_plan_2005.pdf (28) Application Decision, Kingwood Common, Oxfordshire. The Planning Inspectorate 27 May 2011 www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/pins/common_land/decision/com_165_decision.pdf (29) Agri Environment Schemes for Peak District Moors SSSI, Freedom of Information request to Natural England 26 July 2011 www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/agri_environment_schemes_for_pea (30) Blacka Management Plan, Sheffield Wildlife Trust January 2008 (31) Four strands of barbed wire - a Blacka Moor update, Self-willed land March 2007 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/barbed_wire.htm (32) Subsidy Anyone? Blacka Moor 12 October 2011 http://theblackamoorsite.blogspot.com/2011/10/subsidy-anyone.html (33) Details of Grant Applications from Sheffield Wildlife Trust, FOI Request to the Forestry Commission 4 February 2011 www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/details_of_grant_applications_fr (34) Glades and Mini Glades, Blacka Moor 6 April 2011 http://theblackamoorsite.blogspot.com/2011/04/glades-and-mini-glades.html (35) A Tale of Two Years, Blacka Moor 31 October 2011 http://theblackamoorsite.blogspot.com/2011/10/tale-of-two-years.html (36) Public Money and Public Scrutiny, Blacka Moor 6 September 2011 http://theblackamoorsite.blogspot.com/2011/09/public-money-and-public-scrutiny.html (37) ACT OF JUNE 30, 1864 (13 STAT., 325). An Act Authorizing a grant to the State of California of the “Yo-Semite Valley,” and of the land embracing the “Mariposa Big Tree Grove." in Laws and regulations relating to Yosemite National Park California, Department of the Interior, Washington 1908 http://ia700408.us.archive.org/21/items/lawsregulationsr01unit/lawsregulationsr01unit.pdf (38) Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove: A Preliminary Report, Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) August 9, 1865 www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/anps/anps_1b.htm (39) The Olmsteds and the Development of the National Park System, National Association for Olmsted Parks (40) The National Park Service Organic Act 1916, USA www.nps.gov/legacy/organic-act.htm (41) Planning and Plotting, Blacka Moor 24 September 2011 http://theblackamoorsite.blogspot.com/2011/09/planning-and-plotting.html url:www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/natural_scenes.htm www.self-willed-land.org.uk mark.fisher@self-willed-land.org.uk |