Outdoor sports wreck the outdoors…

This one could be interesting if it gets into the mass media. There’s a comment from a Surrey Hills local which isn’t too positive about bikes in the area.

I think it’s quite a naive story really, has the writer never been to the Peaks or Snowdonia and understood that the landscape was being lived in and worked on for centuries before we started using the outdoors for leisure?

Comments beneath are interesting.
I quite like this one: ‘What a bizarre article. Climbers, Mountain bikers, Walkers etc operate on an imperceptible amount of the landscape. Surly the real damage is caused by farming, quarrying, forestry urban sprawl, roads….. Get real!’

I agree

oh well we better give up get fat and cause more expense to the overburdened NHS etc.

But at least the countryside will benefit returning back to it’s pre-industrial state – get real!!

The whole article is written from the pov that the 20th century landscape is an entirely natural creation. A very predictable beeboid pov.

The idea in the comments that the woods of the Surrey Hills are a natural environment when they are a working forest/extension of Vaughan Williams garden shows how modern man really does think he is the be all and end all. Those pine trees growing in neat lines and rhododendrons are certainly part of the ancient woodland.

If people want a return to how things were let’s rerelease wolves, lynx, bears and maternal wild boar to the hills . That will liven up the dog walking!!

If people spend more time in the country then it is less likely to be bulldozed, concreted or generally shat on by the Man.

Which of course excludes Lady Bray 🙂

Earthworks from Neolithic flint quarries and Iron-age hill forts are regarded simply as good jumps

well WTF other use do they have?
will the UK ultimately become 60m acres of museum?

Most of the uplands in England look the way they do because of sheep farming and game bird shooting. They feed on the heather shoots. Without them, most of the Peaks and NYM etc would be scrubland.
I’m sure a few grouse may get spooked by the odd mountain biker. I’m very sure the shooting party in the Range Rover churning up a jeep track on the moors will cause much more damage and the resulting toll on the ‘wildlife’ will be quite devastating!
This is an ancient land and we’ve been using it for centuries. It’s just that nowadays people have the money, time and inclination to go out and run, walk and cycle on the more remote places. Some people whose ancestors stole the land from the Saxons in 1066 don’t really like this!
“get off my land!”
“eh? what makes it YOUR land?”
“I inherited it from my father”
“where did HE get it?”
“HIS father.”
this conversation carries on a bit but finally…
“and where did your great great great great great grandfather get the land?”
“He fought the Saxons and won it.”
“Right, put ’em up I’ll fight you for it!”

interesting article 🙂

Pretty much our entire country is an industrial wasteland of one sort or another. It’s not a natural landscape and it’s certainly not wilderness.

Not worth worrying about and certainly not worth ‘protecting’.

As a climber I’ve oftem wondered why no one had pointed out that we stripped huge areas of some habitats of every living thing

But cycling and walking only touch a tiny % of any habitat

At woburn I was thing that the cycled on area was creeping up, should I be worried. Then they started felling and and thining. You’s need 10 times as many bikers working for several years to create the same impact as that log carrier driving through once.

‘Of course, we’re all hypocrites. The only true act of an environmentalist would be to shoot himself in the head. Otherwise he’s still contaminating the place by his mere presence.’

Environmentalist and writer Edward Abbey (combative conservationist; anti-development; anti-tourism, and anti-mining essayist)

There is no doubt that leisure pursuits are damaging the countryside. To point at some thing else is the same as a kid saying “but he did it first”. Is that a legitimate excuse? Of course not.

A distinction has to made between those who earn their living and those who wreck something for amusement. I seriouly don’t think that the motorways up our mountains were made by sheep farmers and the mess that is any cycle centre isn’t either. come and look at the FoD. We have cafes and cycle trails, none of which are protecting the natural features, or the main made but now reverting to a semi natural state. Visitors demand all sorts of things. why not come to an arera for what it offers rather than change it to what you want. We had a perfectly good cycle trail here but now its been trashed with gravel so it can be ridden without people getting muddy FFS. the new one is as bad.
Nope, outdoor recreation doesn’t do any good at all. To deny it is burying your head in the sand in the same way that outdoor mags and manufactures preach eco friendly practices. If they meant it they would encouage us to stay at home.
The leisure industry is hypocrisy personified.

Nope, outdoor recreation doesn’t do any good at all. To deny it is burying your head in the sand in the same way that outdoor mags and manufactures preach eco friendly practices. If they meant it they would encouage us to stay at home.
The leisure industry is hypocrisy personified.

Somewhere along the line, you might want to give some substantive evidence if you want people to do anything other than dismiss your point of view.

The existence of human beings has an impact on their environment – the only way you can avoid that is to eradicate human beings. If you want a bit of perspective on the impact we have, you might go and have a look at the aftermath of the earthquake and tidal wave in Japan to see the amount of damage plate tectonics can do to the environment. Somehow, despite it all, the earth keeps managing to sustain life.

All the good riding spots round here are made or massively altered by man:

Local FC woods (Cann, Bellever, Haldon etc): mostly conifer/fir plantations in nice neat rows.

Dartmoor: used to be covered in trees, mostly chopped down for buildings and ships, landscape since turned over and over in extraction of tin, lead, arsenic, copper, china clay, peat. Bit like an industrial wasteland but with grass on the top.

Gawton DH: mining area and forestry, too steep to get the trees out economically so not actively forested.

Tavi Woodlands DH: Spoil tips, mines and forestry.

…and so on…

Here is an interesting one. Some huntin shootin fishin stuff helps protect the lanscape – especially shooting. Not the grouse moors of burnt off heather but pheasants like woodland edges as do deer – so you get managed woodlands as there is a finacncial incentive to retain the woodlands. Without the pheasant shoots these woodlands would be turned into grazing or crop fields
[/devils advocate]

That writer would probably hang himself if he went to a ski resort!

mattsccm – Can I have your bike if you’re not going to use it anymore ?

TJ, for once I agree with you.

Not only does game shooting do the woodland protection, but it also encourages cover crops on arable land which benefit the smaller birds and song birds. There’s also a greater level of pest control (magpies, crows, foxes etc) which also benefits songbirds.

Grouse shooting also benefits the environment it is in. Even burning the moors encourages new shoots and makes things refresh and because it is managed, there’s less predation from the usual suspects (see above), so the knock-on effect again benefits other animals.

This is why the FC are such an important body for MTB. Basically they manage the competing interests whilst ensuring that their statutory obligations are fulfilled. If theres no FC expect a lot more of this sort of crap in the future.

We had a perfectly good cycle trail here but now its been trashed with gravel so it can be ridden without people getting muddy

armouring trails is tostop them getting wider

what % of the area of the forest of Dean is cycle trail?

willard – the grouse shooting is very debatable – vast swathes of monoculture heather and the burning casuse erosion and reduces biodiversity. I know places where from horizon to horizon is nothing but short heather – multiple square miles.

also red deer in the highlands are overgrazing the landscape widely and causing damage.

another point is the money it brings in. teh whole hunting shootin fishin debate is an interesting one from a green point of view. without would there be more monoculture?

best comment on there

. At 14:15pm 4th May 2011, BillG wrote:

I don’t think the wildlife has any more right to enjoy the wilderness than I have.

lol

armouring trails is tostop them getting wider

Eh?! The bridleway through my local woods was (max) 12″ wide singletrack, now it’s a 20ft wide stone highway!

DEZB

what some onemade it wideras they armoures it?

Or did use increase after gravelling

There is no doubting that MTBers are to blame for the dinosaurs being wiped out. 🙄

“burning the moors encourages new shoots “

But it tends to kill all the invertebrates, lizards and snakes etc – basically anything that cant escape quick enough and find somewhere nearby to make a new home. This has happened recently to a small area here (by accident) and you could go and pick up all the dead adders and slow worms. The visible greenery grows back fast, but the endangered small animals are stuffed.

I imagine Handa Bray is having quite a chuckle at Steve, the sixth commenter, at the moment. What a muppet.

What makes me laugh about the Surrey Hills bit is that people wax lyrical about unofficial trails damaging the environment, yet no-one bats an eyelid when a whole film crew are allowed to devastate a whole area like they have up at redlands as they build roads and car parks, while chopping trees down right left and centre.

Surrey Hills is a big area – I’m sure a few trails being scratched in here and there aren’t going to ruin the eco system, and lets face it, the official trails are lame.

Heheheh

Grouse shooting also benefits the environment it is in for grouse shooting.

I’ve heard raptors don’t do so well though, especially Hen Harriers.

Pretty much our entire country is an industrial wasteland of one sort or another. It’s not a natural landscape and it’s certainly not wilderness.

Not worth worrying about and certainly not worth ‘protecting’.

Disagree with this. Ancient woodland and unimproved grassland are certainly worth protecting IMO, especially as there is now so little left after decades of abuse and neglect. The government seem to agree with you though e.g. plans for the route of HS2.

IMO alot of the problems with habitats being trashed are caused by people not knowing how to behave at best or just being plain ignorant at worst. E.g. chucking down litter when out in the countryside, carving new trails through rare plant colonies in an SSCI, letting their dogs run wild in a nature reserve with ground nesting birds etc.

Also the ever increasing population is putting more pressure on the remaining undeveloped areas and wildlife finds it increasingly difficult to avoid disturbance.

I would have thought there are activities having much bigger impacts than outdoor pursuits to attack though.