25 years ago, the Penwith Moors were under severe threat, with money being offered to farmers/landowners to break in moorland when we were already overproducing. This destroyed huge areas of wildlife habitat and archaeological remains. Public pressure overturned the entire policy, with the formation of Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs), and money being offered to farmers to farm traditionally and to conserve the moorland areas. Penwith was in the first group of ESAs to be designated and the scheme has been amazingly successful.

Now, the Penwith Moors are under threat again – this time from an unholy alliance of Natural "England", and the National Trust. These have formed what they call "The Heath Project", which aims to utterly change the wild character of the moor by introducing cattle to graze them and encourage the widespread growth of heath. Why? Because some plum-voiced suit in an office far away has decided that this is what these wild Cornish moors should be like.

As usual, not a single Cornish voice is involved. Not one iota of Cornish expertise and advice has been sought. And, of course, we won't get extensive heath. We'll get cropped grass, much like Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor. But Penwith isn't either. Its wild, overgrown nature sets it apart, giving its unique character and the mystique that so many commentators have marvelled at.

This threat will oust the present wild life, particularly ground nesting birds which will be left devoid of cover, and replace it with another. This cannot be acceptable. The threat will endanger archaeology – cattle will congregate around the stones, creating deep craters and oceans of mud and muck around each, undermining them and eventually toppling them. Ann Preston-Jones of the Historic Environment Service (and whose salary is paid by "English" Heritage) says that the scheme will benefit archaeology. Rubbish – her own colleagues have recently had to carry out expensive remedial works to the Trippet Stones of Bodmin Moor because of this very cattle damage. Much more fragile archaeology, such as field system remnants, will not stand up to cloven hoofs. Utterly unacceptable.

The areas concerned will, – for the first time in history or prehistory – be fenced in, using fences that are totally alien to local tradition, plus gates and cattle grids that will also restrict your right to roam in these areas which were recently designated as open access land.

The areas currently involved will be: Carn Kenidjack, Carn Galva, and the Nine Maidens Common (Ding Dong) – and more are under consideration.

Let's take just one of those areas: Carn Kenidjack, the bulk of which is under blanket protection as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. A strip on its southern edge is the property of the Brian Warren Estate, the northern strip is owned by the Lords of Trewellard, but the majority of the area is the property of the Tregothnan Estate (Lord Falmouth). WHY is the public's hard-earned money being spent on wealthy landowners?

Once again, unelected, unaccountable bodies are whooly involved: in this case Natural "England" and the National Trust (aided and abetted by "English" Heritage). Once again, Cornish residents are being disenfranchised – but it is their hard-earned money which is being wasted, and their hard-earned rights which are being ignored, by these unelected organisations.

This proposal MUST be stopped. Stifled at birth. We need the same level of public outrage as that which worked 25 years ago.

An on-line petition is available at http://www.savepenwithmoors.com

Please log on and sign up, but a petition will not be enough. Individual letters must be sent to the addresses below, if a real impact is to be made, making clear that the protest is against the Natural "England" HEATH Project for the Penwith Moors.

Andrew George MP, "Trewella", 18 Mennaye Road, Penzance TR18 4NG.

The Rt. Hon. Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR (Benn is mostly concerned with the Nine Maidens Common ,as it is registered common land, but Natural "England" itself is answerable to him).

Many thanks. Please do look at the website mentioned above and, if you have even a fraction of the love for the Penwith Moors that I have, then let's tell these people in no uncertain terms that twenty thousand Cornish people (and non-Cornish people, too) will know the reason why.

edited by: marhak, Jul 05, 2008 – 06:51 AM

I rarely disagree with Marhak, but my feelings are mixed over this.
I spent many years living and working around the very areas of concern, and wandered miles around the old tracks and ways on foot with lurcher and spaniels, and carefully across some tracks in a 4×4 until many accesses were closed due to 'traveller' ingress.

A lovely, lovely area, BUT different in character from when my grandfather first travelled around the same moorland.

Before the two world wars the West Penwith moors WERE grazed, and had been for tens of centuries, as Marhak well knows and THAT was the more historically accurate state of the moors over most of recorded history.

In the last 60-80 years, changed farming practises have led to the moors being as they are now… WE have grown up with them as they are, but the natural diversity of centuries of management and grazing of the moors has been lost.
I am in two minds about this. I was miffed when me and others were stopped from driving some of the 'old green roads' in Penwith, but understood why, so I can sympathise with wanderers on foot and horseback whose accustomed free access will be restricted, BUT I DO believe that the project will INCREASE natural diversity over the Penwith Moors as a whole, and that there will still be considerable amounts of the moors NOT grazed, that will remain as they are now.

..And don't forget the CHOUGHS… a nesting pair have returned to West Penwith for the first time in 150 years, apparently in an area where this renewed grazing and traditional management HAS been taking place.

It was almost certainly the abandonment of heath and moor grazing which were part of the 'farming changes' that led to the decline and disappearance of choughs from Cornwall in the first place.

Check the below link to see the other side of the argument.

http://www.theheathproject.org.uk/content_pdf/en/Web_article_Nov_07.pdf

Sorry Marhak, but I won't be signing the petition. I think this project might be worthwhile.

Graham.

edited by: Coady, Jul 05, 2008 – 08:44 AM

That all went quiet after a few protests were made but might well be resurrected under this current project. Eyes are being kept on it.

Coady is right up to a point – large areas of the moor were grazed, but only in summer months, up to the mid 19th century. Photographs from the late 19th and early 20th century show that the habitat of the moor hasn't changed significantly. BUT they were never fenced as proposed now.

Make no mistake – this is about the control and enclosure of land. Modern governmental/quangoid thinking is now that even areas of wilderness must be "managed" when all that needs to be managed on the Penwith moors is the spread of bracken and modern garden escapes such as Japanese knotweed. Cattle, however, do not eat bracken, which is carcinogenic; nor do they eat Japanese knotweed.

The alien fences and gates will restrict your right of access. You will no longer be able to give your dog a free run on open land.

The Heath Project people say that this "management" will prevent such disastrous fires as the huge one which occurred on Carn Kenidjack a few years ago (which enabled me to map the underlying field system and find the tor enclosure on the Carn itself) – except that the fire referred to was caused by the very same (and sole) farmer who will benefit from this scheme, even though he is supposed to have retired. He is, presumably, a Tregothnan Estate tenant rather than a commoner, as Carn Kenidjack is not registered common land. So what rights of farming does he have on those areas of this chunk of land that do not belong to Lord Falmouth? In fact, I'm beginning to wonder just how much the actual owners of the land know about this. Have they given their permission for the use of the land? For the utterly non-Cornish, and certainly non-Penwith types of fences, gates and cattle grids proposed? Those gates, of course, will soon become impassable due to the fact that each will become seas of liquid mud, etc.

And what sort of cattle will be run on the Carn? Longhorns. Now there's a nice native Cornish breed!

edited by: marhak, Jul 05, 2008 – 08:24 AM