Volunteering in Conversation Rant

This one is a bit personal. 

So I suppose we need to actually talk about me.


I'm not just unemployed. I have aspirations. I have plans. I even have dreams (see my rather unrealistic to do list...). And - as much as I may joke about the impossibility of it - the core of it is that I sat through genetics lectures in order to get enough credits to keep learning a bit more about conservation. Because I love wildlife, and I love nature, and would really like to conserve it.


Then we get to the part with my s***ty dissertation. It was poor topic, more than regulation hours of lab work, and far too small a sample for there to be more than a fractional chance that anything of interest would be found. This didn't put me off, until my statistics showed me that actually I'd found something quite useful, but that unhelpful voice reassured me that nothing would ever come of an undergraduate dissertation. So I had a low patch and effectively self-sabotaged, turned in an atrociously under-written dissertation and as a result missed a good grade by 1.2%.


The result of this is that - in order to progress any further in academia, I really have to have some practical experience (not to mention money). Apparently self-directed practical experience from 22 years analysing the differences between the degraded UK environment and the rapidly degrading central african environment doesn't count. The best thing to do, or so I'm told, is volunteer.

And here lies the point which I want to discuss.

The UK's version of conservation sucks. Yes, their protective laws are groundbreaking, and their capacity for enforcement of laws is brilliant, but they seem to have forgotten that nature exists. It doesn't help that a lot of conservation organisations - home and away - are actually run by hunters who want to conserve nature in such a way that makes it easier to shoot (bluntly), but environments are overmanaged.

It is a garden state and many "pro-conservation" people firmly believe that maintaining the patchwork of farmland is important because the countryside has to be in use. They also can't seem to grasp that a healthy ecosystem is self regulating and, by controlling any native organism, you are reducing the food of its natural predator and thereby causing yourself to need to keep controlling.

Heathlands - which are a species rich but transitional habitat - are over-maintained. Naturally it would appear when woodland burns, and disappear once soil recovered and a bad season limited grazer numbers enough for trees to recover. But grouse are easier to shoot on open ground, so charities maintain vast areas of open moorland and heathland because the landowners have had centuries to instill in us that trees will destory the habitat.

Broadleaf forest - which naturally covers more-or-less all of the dry land in the country and thus regulates rainfall - is all but gone. Where it's not gone, the forestry commision has "dangerous" trees removed - that is to say, old trees which are becoming hollow and thus perfect for woodpeckers, bats and countless beetles. Dead wood is gathered up, and all our decomposers are disappearing as a result - or moving on to live plants (slugs being a notable example of an animal that, in the absence of its primary food source, become a major pest).

Waterways have been straightened and cleared, and I have actually seen parks noting their good work in clearing trees along banks where they were outshading other vegetation. Because, you know, that won't reduce soil stability and increase runoff and stifle the life within the pond/lake at all. Straighter waterways are maintained because it "reduces flooding risk" - my arse. It creates a flood/drought cycle instead: water runs fast down hills, creating flash-floods on the flats which, not dampened by bends, can become dangerous. On a small island, it gets to the sea quite quickly, and heads off into the channel leaving us parched for the rest of the year.

Britain is also the only country I know of where the vast majority of nature reserves are actually in use as grazing land.

Because "that's what the ecosystem needs".

Many of our ecosystems, such as heathland and some areas of downland, do benefit from low-intensity grazing. You can tell low intensity grazing because the grass isn't clipped right down to the earth in such a way that one good day of rainfall washes everything away. High intensity grazing creates a disturbed habitat which is about as species-rich as astroturf, and only slightly more natural.

And everyone says "you should get involved".

As an entry level volunteer, you don't really have any opportunities to innovate, change and sent things in a less ridiculously counter-productive direction. As an entry level volunteer in UK conservation, the best you can hope for is that your contribution doesn't do much extra damage.


Okay, rant over. Point is, I'm going to volunteer at a charity shop instead until I can get paid work at a zoo because frankly, they encourage wildlife a shedload better than british nature reserves do.