Sunday at Bill's Mother's: 4th August 2024
In the week of National Ranger Day, a celebration of the world's essential planetary health workers, and a reminder of the 140 killed last year in our service.
Morning. I’ve met many rangers over the years, working in our parks, moors, woods and swamps. They generally get on with things without any fanfare, mending walls, building paths, chatting to farmers and landowners and visitors as required.
Today’s post is about these landscape custodians. Say hello next time you see one, they’ll appreciate it. And if you meet (or know) any politicians, maybe tell them why we could do with a few more rangers out there.
I also have a recall of our last Secret Seating quiz, as it was clearly too baffling for readers last time. Can any of you new readers get the answer before our usual bench loving quizmasters?
Ranger Roll of Honour
Last Wednesday was World Ranger Day. So have a think about all the people working for you in the Peak District and the country’s other national parks, and in Sheffield’s woods and green spaces. Maybe also have a think about a few of their colleagues across the world who lost their lives last year doing their jobs, protecting the world’s animals and plants and landscapes.
Imran Yousaf Wani and José Ángel Pelcastre, for example, both killed by timber poachers, in India and Mexico. Or Tran Van Khien and Konstantin Nachinyonov, killed while firefighting in Vietnam and Kazakhstan. And the six rangers killed in the war in Ukraine while carrying out their work, or the 36 rangers killed by elephants, tigers, bears, snakes and buffalo, animals they spent their lives trying to protect.
Altogether, 140 rangers from 37 countries lost their lives in service between June 2023 and May 2024 according to the International Ranger Federation. Since 2006, the organisation have published an annual roll of honour every July, recognising rangers killed in the line of duty.
They’ve recorded well over 2,000 ranger deaths since that time, and add there are probably many more unrecorded deaths, often at the hands of poachers looking for animal products or rare wood that some of us may later buy in the shops.
Over the years, I’ve met many local rangers, and seen the variety of work they do. I was told that despite the dangers of the job in many parts of Africa or Asia, in essence the nature of the work across the world is very similar.
Ted Talbot spoke to me a few years ago after meeting rangers from across the world at an International Ranger Federation conference. (Ted worked as a ranger with Sheffield Council in his youth, and then looked after the ranger teams of the National Trust in the Peak District before returning to Sheffield to work for the local Green Estate social enterprise).
“The issues for all of us are climate change, loss of habitat and biodiversity, inspiring the next generation, managing visitors, and the conflict between humans and wildlife,” he said. Some rangers do their best to look after elephants and rhinos, others try to protect water voles and bumblebees.
He used the example of the north Australian Be Crockwise campaign to keep people away from the area’s 3-6 metre long saltwater crocodiles.
“It’s actually the same principle as our Take the Lead campaign asking people to stop their dogs chasing sheep on the moors,” he said.
The International Ranger Federation (IRF) call the world’s rangers essential planetary health workers and campaign to ensure they are properly equipped, trained, resourced and looked after. The Thin Green Line charity, linked to the IRF, raises money for training and essential resources for rangers, and to support the families of rangers killed in the line of duty.
I met National Trust ranger Chris Lockyer who spent time working with the Thin Green Line, learning about rangers in other countries. He told me about ranger Muhammed Akram, who was shot and beheaded while trying to protect the forests of Abbottabad in northern Pakistan.
“Ranger Akram came across some illegal loggers, and they offered him many times his monthly salary to leave, but he refused to take their bribes, so he was killed for performing his job,” said Chris. “It was an incredible selfless act, and I think people in those situations need and deserve our support.”
Potential buyers of furniture made from exotic hardwoods should think about Ranger Akram, Chris said. “You could almost say that buying these things contributes to these situations. There’s no need to buy wood from a forest on the other side of the world, there’s plenty of wood produced in this country.”
I’ve written about former Peak District ranger Gordon Miller in an earlier post - Gordon worked with the International Ranger Federation until he sadly passed away last year.
“You might get into arguments if people don’t like it when you’re asking them not to do something, but you very rarely experience violence in the Peak District,” he told me.
“But when you talk to African or Latin American or South East Asian rangers, you hear that many of them are actually working in a conflict zone, usually to do with commercial poaching.”
Gordon met widows of African rangers who were left to look after their children alone after their husbands had been shot by poachers, and the Thin Green Line charity were able to provide equipment to help them earn a living sewing or making clothes. And donating second hand radios helps rangers keep in touch with each other to avoid ambushes from poachers or criminal gangs.
“You might get stressed out when you’re putting in a bit of fencing on the moors here in the Peak District,” Chris Lockyer said. “But in the grand scheme of things that’s nothing compared to the struggles people are having dealing with poachers.”
The Thin Green Line are at: https://thingreenline.org.au
Just Another Day In The Office
Bundled in their scarves and boots and fleeces, I joined a team of rangers heading out for what they called ‘a day in the office’ a few winters ago. What they were actually doing was spending another normal day (for them) high on the Howden Moors, pounding stakes and stones and plastic dam walls into the mud to help recreate the wetland landscape on our high moors destroyed by the industrial revolution and years of moorland misuse.
Their work is now helping to prevent flooding down in the valleys and bringing birds and insects back to our moorland that haven’t been seen in generations. (I wrote one of our earliest posts about that day here).
The face we usually see of the rangers working in our countryside is when we meet them at countryside hotspots like Edale or Longshaw, with an air of long learned knowledge of the wild lands around us, and the birds and animals that live there. And maybe a spot of diplomatic advice about the weather today on the tops, or how you might manage those dogs at your side.
Over the years I’ve spoken to rangers about their working days, and priorities. Here’s what a few of them told me.
Mark
“Nobody dare do anything around my boss when I started. If you’d got a dog off a lead he'd chase you, and if you’d got a big rucksack on he’d follow you to check you weren’t going camping somewhere you shouldn’t. It was: ‘Don’t do that, don't do this, can’t do that’. It’s a lot more welcoming now.”
The main difference in a ranger’s life in the 30 years he’s worked in the Peak District is how much busier it is now, Mark said, adding that visitor numbers have at least doubled since the early 1990s.
Mark has mellowed over the years he’s worked, now mainly around the Hope Valley, and I met him teaching volunteers how to build dry stone walls, monitoring bird life in Padley Gorge or managing the Christmas tree sales at Longshaw. He recently worked with local refugees on dry stone wall projects.
Mark explained the basics of the centuries-old craft and discovered the refugees already knew some of the principles from carrying out similar work back in Africa.
“The team got a lot more done than I’d expected, and I think they really enjoyed it - they were singing while they worked,” Mark said. “It was nice for me to be part of helping them on their way.”
Lucy
Lucy started rangering in the Peak District more recently, and has worked with young people and volunteers recovering from drug addiction, as well as the more usual practical tasks like fence mending or habitat work, such as yanking out over-prolific ragwort on cattle fields.
“Some groups who come out here have never seen a sheep or a dry stone wall, or been to an area where there aren’t any buildings. It makes you see the landscape through different eyes,” she said.
“I think the way people see the countryside has changed over recent years, and if people aren’t connected to the countryside they don't see a reason to look after it. There’s a perception that it’s been there for ever and it will be there for ever, but in fact a lot of the habitats we look after are extremely fragile.”
I met Lucy and some of her colleagues one day at Big Moor, when they’d spent hours fighting and then damping down a summer fire raging across the heather. They were blackened and worn out, and the fire, caused by a visitor to the moor earlier in the day, left destruction in its wake. She told me emotionally of the blackened remains of eggs and nests and all the ground nesting birds the fire had probably killed.
“Rangers are often modest people who just get on and do their job, and don’t ask for any recognition,” she said to me later. “Our work is often highlighted, but people don’t always see the people behind that work.”
Frank
I met ranger Frank from south Germany on a walk around Edale during a visit celebrating the International Ranger Federation. Back home, he’s working on education programmes about the wolves now moving into the countryside he helps looks after.
He said many continental national parks have the motto ‘let nature be’ with large areas without traditional farming to ensure wildlife can develop on its own without disturbance.
“But in the Peak District there are lots of small villages and land users and farmers,” he said. “Here I’ve learned that the meaning of nature protection should be in the service of the people. For 2,000 years western societies have put a distance between nature and themselves, but now I think the key is for people to become sensitive again to the nature around them and think: ‘if I do something for nature protection, I do it for my health, for my wellbeing, I’m not separate I’m part of the whole thing.’”
During the visit I heard from another local member of the International Ranger Federation, who reflected on the need for more political support for rangers and their work, after years of cuts “that have impacted on the countryside people know and love,” he said. “So if you value your countryside, learn about it and get involved, but don’t take it for granted.”
What’s On Out There (from Sunday 4th August)
A tiny selection from our monthly, regularly updated, What’s On Out There post, covering a myriad of outdoorsy things to do. This service is now free and open to all, but takes me ages to collate, so a pocket money paid subscription to help keep you (& others) informed would really help. Please do share these posts with your mates.
12th July to 4th August - The Big Butterfly Count - citizen science for 15 mins whenever and wherever you like.
Sun 4th - History Walk at Sheffield General Cemetery (£8)
Mon 5th - Fri 9th - Daily health walks in parks and green spaces from Step Out Sheffield, 10 am start
Mon 5th - SRWT Volunteering - Crabtree Pond
Tues 6th - Longshaw through time history walk (£5)
Weds 7th - Social Walk from Longshaw (5m)
Weds 7th - Sheffield Cycle Tours from Russell's Bicycle Shed (Neepsend) - to Millhouses
Thurs 8th - Cycling Confidence & Learn to Ride (CycleBoost) at Greenhill Park - booking required
Sat 10th - CycleBoost Learn to Ride & Cycle Confidence Training - Heeley & Endcliffe, booking req’d
Secret Seating 6 (revisited)
Our double header brought no answers from our Secret Seating fans last time. Was it too difficult? If so, feel free to identify either of the below to get the ball rolling.
Surely someone knows the seat on the left, photographed on a popular family route by reader Ellen? The other is trickier, but easily found on a back lane under a crag next to a busy commuter route. Answers (or guesses) in the comments below, please!
Thanks for reading. These posts come to you thanks to our wonderful full subscribers who are stumping up the pocket money sum of £4 a month (or less) to help pay the bills that allow this publication to function.
Trying us out for free for a few weeks is absolutely fine, but after that could you stump up less than the price of a pint a month to join the team? Thanks.
The bench (picture on the left) is roughly 2/3rds of the way along the walk from Whirlowbrook Park up to Sheephill Rd. I've spent many a rest or picnic there with or without my three boys, who would paddle in the stream. About this time of year and into the Autumn there's also a fabulous view of Rowan trees with their orange /red berries.It's often muddy underfoot there, mind you! It was also wonderful to read about the Rangers. When my children were younger there was time and money for the Rangers to put on many events for children, and we took advantage of those on many occasions. Now they still do great work, but it's terrible that they have to spend time putting out fires destroying our peat and moorlands , caused by a few extremely selfish, thoughtless and stupid people.
My kids, now all (just about) in their 30s, love to rag me by asking about what it was like to be chased by a dinosaur etc., but looking at places like Alport Castles I could almost tell them. Many rock formations are much older even than the dinosaurs, but seeing the separate layers of rock, especially where they are contorted, is such a visceral way of imagining the immense passages of time before there were humans (apart from me of course 😉).
The poet Keats supposed that to unweave a rainbow was to consign it to the “dull catalogue of common things”, a criticism of Isaac Newton’s analysis of the rainbow of colours produced from sunlight by a glass prism. Having studied geology (and other sciences) with the Open University, I can tell you that nothing could be further from the truth. My awe at the geology of the Peak District, and other areas of visible rock formation, increased beyond measure when I learnt that they weren’t merely visually interesting, but told a story far greater than I could otherwise have realised.