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becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys · 10 months

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Hi! Big fan :) You're an environmental lecturer, right? I recently got into a debate with someone about rewilding in the UK, and the clash with farmers and agriculture. To me, this is a no-brainer - I absolutely do feel for farmers losing their livelihoods, and I think there needs to be a system to help them transition to something else, but also, the planet is dying. But you explain things well, so I wondered if you have thoughts? Particularly on the Welsh side of things. Thank you in advance!

Hah. I literally have a lecture on this. Or, well, a chunk of a lecture, anyway; so yes! I have thoughts. I'll use those notes, and stick a big reference at the end in case you want to read more

I'll talk about this specifically from the Welsh perspective, okay so:

The rewilding project in Wales is the Cambrian Wildwood, launched in 2004ish by a guy who bought an abandoned farm in the northern end of Mid Wales with the express intention of rewilding it. The aim is to convert some 7000 acres, and the initial mission statement said they'd reintroduce wolves and lynx. That's the project I'm going to talk about, because it's a great case study for how to spectacularly fuck something up (and eventually realise you've spectacularly fucked up, and do something about it.)

These are the Cambrian Mountains:

When looking at that, there are two competing viewpoints that are relevant here:

The Cambrians are ecologically depleted. Their biodiversity has crashed since the Second World War, when modern farming methods were introduced. Environmentally, there is a perception of emptiness and degradation.

The landscape is a glorious one that has been shaped by the human actions taken on it for generations, as we are a shepherding culture – culture and land are inextricably intertwined.

That's a big fundamental difference! Two people can look at that same photo, and see something diametrically opposed. But there's more lying on it, so you also need to understand the socio-political background.

Socio-Political Background

(I know! Headings! So professional)

A lot of rewilding – Cambrian Wildwood included – is taking place in areas where farming is declining for various political/socio-economic reasons, so this can be ENTIRELY FAIRLY seen as yet another threat. This goes hand in hand with rural migration and community decline, too.

In Wales, we’re mostly rural, and characterised by extensive upland livestock farming (sheep in particular). Most farms are small to medium family-run setups. ON TOP OF THAT, the vast majority of Welsh farmers are Welsh-speaking, and the right to operate a farm the ‘traditional’ way without UK government oversight is seen by Welsh Nationalists as an important post-colonial act.

Many of them didn’t even like the National Parks being set up, as they were seen as an English outsider imposition that ignored the working nature and cultural history of the land. Remember: the farmed uplands are often seen as a heartland of Welsh identity, and those have historically been intentionally destroyed by UK central government land management decisions (e.g. Tryweryn, Elan, Claerwen, etc)

“Over the past half century we have witnessed the arrival of countless environmental fundamentalists… seemingly oblivious to the fact that their new-found paradise is already occupied by people whose connection with the land is deep rooted, dates back thousands of years, and is embedded in their language and culture.” (Nick Fenwick [Farmers’ Union of Wales] 2013)

SO IT’S CULTURALLY DICEY

(And in my opinion an incredibly stupid idea to go and give it a primarily English name with a Welsh translation as an afterthought but that is Elanor’s Opinion and not Scientific Fact)

(But fr fr if you ever have to get involved in these sorts of projects you will go a long way if you have the basic respect of learning the Welsh names and pronouncing them right rather than lazily expecting everything to be in English sorry sorry I digress)

From the Cambrian Wildwood’s Mission Statement on their website, their objective is:

“To rewild or restore land to a wilder state to create a functioning ecosystem where natural processes dominate by carrying out habitat restoration, removing domestic livestock, and introducing missing native species as far as feasible.”

Can you see the controversial bit of the statement

Can you see the bit where they directly say they want to remove domestic livestock

Jesus Christ

Cultural Differences

AND THEN HERE'S THE BIGGER PROBLEM

‘Culture’ in Welsh is diwylliant – literally, a ‘lack of wildness’. There is no direct translation into Welsh for the term ‘rewilding’ – the closest you can get is anialwch or diffeithwch, which mean ‘wilderness’ in the sense of ‘desert’ or ‘wasteland’. So right off the bat, if you tell a Welsh-speaking farmer that you want to rewild the place, what they hear is "We want to make it dangerous and empty and degraded."

A related concept is cynefin - knowing one’s ‘patch’ and the feeling of belonging associated. The term has its roots as a description of the way grazing animals know their area of mountain land, but it is also used to describe how people come to form an intimate experiential knowledge of place - and specifically, a Welsh farmer's cultural attitude.

Basically, Welsh literature and oral traditions speak of a relationship with the land, not a separation and longing for an untouched wilderness. Farmers feel this especially keenly. Culturally, this is a big part of why they do it – they’re rooted to the land, and therefore to their identities.

“Interviewees conveyed this by referring to areas proposed for rewilding as being comprised of “a quilt of cynefinoedd: interwoven stories, the layered and collective place-making of families and individuals over-generations, co-constituted with the physical landscape” (Wynne-Jones, Holmes and Strouts, 2018)

So, to them, rewilding is erasing and disregarding these stories. To them, this is not just a land-use change, but the latest colonial attack. They've known the family who lived on that farm for generations - every birth, marriage, death, joy, triumph, loss, everything. You are saying that you are going to strip that family, all those stories, all those people out of that land, to be forgotten.

…

However. There is a counterpoint to this.

Many farmers taking this view have therefore identified themselves as the only “truly Welsh” people in the debate, accusing environmentalists as being outsiders. The problem with this being, most of the environmentalists involved with the project are also Welsh; so who the fuck are they to say who is or is not Truly Welsh? It's what we on the internet would recognise as gatekeeping, with a big side order of No True Scotsman fallacy.

Also this quote sums it up well:

“Sheep farming in this country goes back a few hundred years. I think if you go deep enough into our culture and ancestry, we have a really deep native relationship with wild forest areas and with the wild animals that are native to this country…I just don’t agree that sheep farming is really part of our traditional culture.” (WWLF Interview [15] 2016) (Wynne-Jones, Holmes and Strouts, 2018)

This is also a fair point. It is true that upland sheep farming, the way we now practice it, is only a few hundred years old, and at the current intensity only a few decades (since WW2).

On top of which, there has been plenty of exploration over the years of farmers as being a government-subsidised landed gentry, which I won't go into here, but it also contains some fair points.

In truth, all of it and none of it is true. It’s far more complex and nuanced than either side might want to believe.

Solutions So Far

This is an ongoing project and they're still learning and changing new things and stuff, but a big thing they did was get someone in to basically be a mediator and listen to both sides, because Jesus, those sides were not listening to each other.

But to date:

They actually worked with a first-language Welsh speaker (WHY DID THEY NOT DO THIS FIRST I'm sorry I'm fine). Originally the Welsh translation of the project was Tir Gwyllt – wild land. But given that Welsh connotations with gwyllt are something out of control or dangerous, Coetir Anian has been chosen – anian refers to a sense of natural order and creation, a sense of health and vitality. Similarly, ‘rewilding’ is being translated as ‘di-ddofi’ – ‘de-taming’. This acknowledges the labour and culture taken to tame it, and just suggests an avenue for discussing some relaxation of farming practice in appropriate locations rather than, you know, releasing packs of wolves directly into sheep pens

In online materials and in community engagement events where traditional storytellers and musicians have performed to celebrate the Wildwood, the trustees have drawn heavily from Welsh myth in the form of the Mabinogion. Enormous amounts of the Mab lovingly and respectfully feature wild woods and wild animals. The emphasis is therefore on how wilderness is also part of Welsh identity – and arguably a much older part, going back to the Celts. (This is clever, in my view, but something to approach with care - it's rarely a good idea to play the game of "What's the most Welsh". But so far it's been done sensitively)

Land purchased for the project has so far been wholly limited to that available in the public domain. The main site, Bwlch Corog, was empty and unfarmed for six years before purchase, which has been stressed in all media interviews and releases; this is important, because farmers do have a sense of "Productive land is being stolen by environmentalists".

Large predator reintroductions have largely been abandoned. Lynx and wolves are no longer on the agenda. It’s possible they’ll be included in the future, but it is acknowledged as currently impractical (both from clashes with farmers and lack of habitat).

Instead, they’ve supported smaller species reintroductions, such as the Vincent Wildlife Trust’s pine marten translocations, and some proposed red squirrel ones.

Bwlch Corog is to be managed as an experimental plot that farmers are encouraged to engage with.

Assessing the potential for new income streams (from improved tourism and educational activities) rather than just the ecological benefits – this has become central to the project, and the emphasis is on how this might benefit farming communities and keep them together. This has been huge, and has also been successful in rewilding schemes in Europe.

Tensions are a lot lower now than they were ten years ago, but ultimately the problem was a bunch of outsiders came in and decided they knew best without listening to anyone else's point of view, and that meant both sides really dug their heels in. Much better now.

Ultimately... yes, I am in favour of rewilding, in a general sense. But I think it needs to go hand in hand with supplying farmers with the necessary subsidies to transition back to more traditional and sustainable farming methods, and the two elements run side by side. You can't do one without the other, not if you want them to succeed. The Pontbren Project is a great case study for how a farmer-led scheme can successfully aid them economically while also improving environmental outcomes, and we need to learn and incorporate more lessons from it when discussing this kind of landscape-level management.

Also, with land management in general, I think you're a fucking idiot and dangerously arrogant if you think you can get anything done without all stakeholders being on board. And potentially wandering down the ecofascism path, circumstances dependent.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Source:

Wynne-Jones, S, Holmes, G & Strouts, G (2018), 'Abandoning or Reimagining a Cultural Heartland? Understanding and Responding to Rewilding Conflicts in Wales - the case of the Cambrian Wildwood.' Environmental Values, vol. 27, no. 4.

#asks #environment!#long post

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fionamccall · 3 months

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St Fagan's - some very old Welsh houses

Kennixton farmhouse dates from 1610 and was originally sited on the Gower peninsula.

Abernodwydd dates from 1678 and was originally in Powys.

Cilewent farmhouse is an example of a Welsh longhouse, dating from 1470, originally in the Claerwen valley in Powys.

Garreg Fawr Farmhouse from Caernarfon dates from 1544. Its two stone chimneys were status symbols.

This Tudor merchant's house from Haverfordwest dates from 1470-1500. The living quarters were on the upper floor, while the goods were stored on the lower store.

#St Fagan's Open Air Museum #fifteenth-century houses #sixteenth-century houses #seventeenth-century houses #Wales #Cardiff

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doginprogress · 9 months

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Ibizan Hound AKC Standard

For my first historic critique, we have Claerwen Golden Puma or “Sixpence”

Sixpence was born in the UK in 1974 to Eridu Rojissimo and Ivicen Snow Leopard and has a 5 gen COI of 15.38 (though she has an incomplete pedigree). It appears she was bred once to Sin’s Late Night Extra and had four offspring, two male, two female. One of her sons went on to be bred 4 times, resulting in 30 grand-puppies.

At the time she was born, Ibizans had not yet even been added to the AKC, but it’s the standard I’m familiar with and will be breeding to, so I’ll evaluate using it.

Overall she looks like an Ibizan Hound. Breed type is important and it sounds silly to type out that first sentence, but it is such a big part of evaluations. She’s got substance without appearing too heavy, though her neck does seem rather thick where it meets her head. It’s possibly also a bit ewe necked.

From what I can see of her head, I do like it. It seems to have parallel planes and be in proportion. I do think I’d like a bit more underjaw. Ears seem appropriately sized and positioned.

She’s not stacked beautifully, so I will have to make some inferences and educated guesses about her front. I believe her topline would be nice if she were stacked squarely. The breastbone is prominent, but not protruding, which is perfect. I would like more layback on her shoulder. But her legs look nice and sturdy, her pasterns are great and her feet appear to be well arched.

Proportionally I do think her chest to loin ratio is excellent. I would suggest a prefer her chest be a smidge less deep. Her croup is good, but could be steeper. Her tail set appears nice, though the tail itself could be longer imo. Her rear is nice and moderate, something modern Ibizans can struggle with, as overly angled rears tend to be popular in the show ring.

She looks well muscled and well fed (possibly a bit too much 😅) and I prefer my Ibizans a bit closer to hunting fit, but there’s also no telling how old she is in this photo or how she looked throughout her life. This is but one snapshot of a second in this dog’s life. A beautiful girl who I’m sure made her owner’s life a little bit more joyful.

#ibizan hound #podenco ibicenco #historic Ibizan critiques

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incomingalbatross · 11 months

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royally-obsessed · 2 years

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Queen Elizabeth II leaves the ceremony site after opening the Claerwen reservoir and dam, the last dam to be constructed in the Elan Valley Reservoirs scheme, in Radnorshire, Wales on 23rd October 1952.

#queen elizabeth ii #prince philip #duke of edinburgh #philibet

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kingsshilling · 2 years

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I think you’ve mentioned Ned being from County Donegal and Bedwyr from near Aberystwyth(?) But more importantly do you have any voice claims or accent claims that you reckon they sound like?

OOH THIS IS TOUGH I do have a fair idea of what they sound like myself like I can Hear them in my mind, but trying to compare them with someone... for ned I have to try think of people I know that are from donegal at All. and all that comes to mind is daniel o'donnell. and he does not sound like him

it doesn't help as well that there's dozens of variations on the donegal accent to begin with, and most examples you hear come from further north of the county while ned's from killybegs specifically.. and I'm no expert on the accents myself so Help

same problem with bedwyr really since while i'm at least familiar with donegal i have been to wales Once. twice if you also count just passing through on the train to/from the ferry. and could not tell you a thing about the differences in welsh accents from either end of the country let alone all the variations that likely come up within individual counties.. so what i'm hearing in my mind is likely not accurate to where he's specifically from in the first place

(WHICH i haven't 100% decided on to be honest cus again. while i'm familiar with donegal and immediately knew where éamonn was from down to the exact location irl of where his house would be, my knowledge of welsh geography beyond maps is limited to what i saw in the week i was there LMFAO but where i have in mind for the moment is somewhereeee inland of the northern half of ceredigion.. maybe closer to the border with powys? claerwen-y direction maybe (though not quite In there)? but aberystwyth would've been one of his nearest Big Towns regardless)

i'm rambling again without having given you the answer you actually asked for. i can't help at all with éamonn except to say that he has a very low, flat voice that doesn't show much emotion (usually), but the accent he has is Very thick (and in one of his many odd contradictions he consciously makes zero effort to mask it at all, despite the whole thing with using a simpler nickname like ned because he thinks éamonn is "too irish" and draws too much attention, and how he tries to separate himself from his home as much as possible.. he's strange)

with bedwyr i can at least throw out a name or two (but again accents probably don't exactly match up). there's no point in trying to hide how much inspiration i took from trystan gravelle for him in Many aspects LMFAO his manner of speech is much the same as his in.. i'm thinking about him in the aliens specifically (which is really really INSANELY good it's on 4OD i really recommend it) where there's a lot of emotion and ups and downs in How he speaks (but obviously he's nothing like the character actually played in that show JNDGDG), but his voice itself is a bit deeper (though not quite as deep as éamonn's)... more on the level of rhod gilbert deepness-wise, but not as rough?

and like éamonn his accent is extremely thick, cus he wouldn't have actually learned much/any english til he was in school, and he has an even more arrogant streak (rightfully so) than him where he'd refuse to try dampen it for any reason

sorry this is so long JNDGJN i'm physically incapable of giving short answers to anything i'll explode if i don't try to get down nearly every detail. thank you so much for the ask this is something i honestly really love thinking about :]]

#bits and bobs #éamonn #bedwyr #sorry rhod i don't mean rough in a bad way it's an excellent quality just not what i'm hearing here.#i do Plan on properly learning the regional variations on welsh accents not just for this but because learning accents has just been #a hobby of mine for yearsss upon years like in the same vein as loving maps and geography i just love that kind of thing #hopefully when i'm Literally Living In Ceredigion i'll have a better grasp of it all LMFAO #also again on the aliens. it's so so insanely good and has two other actors i love in it (jim howick and michael smiley) PLEASE watch it #really really funny AND the twists and turns in it genuinely had my jaw fucking dropped and it's SO hard for shows to get me like that #asks

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theroyalhistory · 5 years

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Queen Elizabeth II at the opening of Claerwen Dam, 1955

#royalty #royal family #queen elizabeth ii #1950s fashion #50s fashion #1950s #midcentury #claerwen dam #claerwen #wales #1955

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mtbcymru · 6 years

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Sunny skies and dusty trails, just can’t get enough of it! #claerwen _________________________ #Wales #FindYourEpic #mtb #adventure #justride #mountainbiking #mountainbike #mbwales #mtbwales #bike #ride #ridemore #biking #enduro #explore #ridetolive #livetoride #ridemadison #mtbguide #livelife #outdoors #picoftheday #bikestagram #bikelife #instadaily #cycling #outdoors #photooftheday #beautiful #CambrianMountains 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 _________________________ Thanks to: 🚵🏻‍♂️ @madisonclothinguk 🇬🇧 @saracenbikes 🇸🇪 @uswesports 🚴🏻‍♂️ @madison.cycles 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @kingudproducts 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @mountainbikewales 🧘‍♀️ @mountainyogabreaks 🚐 @witter_towbars 🚵🏻‍♂️ @renthal_cycling (at Rhayader)

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cydrhos · 6 years

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Mid-Welsh desert.

#original photography #photographers on tumblr #landscape #cloudscape #sky #summer #desert #Cymru #Wales #Claerwen #Elan Valley #Afon Arban #home #photobombed by the solitary cumulus #1/160sec ISO400 f/11 20mm #2 Oct 2016 #not quite as disturbing

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westmeath · 2 years

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lord above

#poast #s #this is the claerwen dam #Forgot where I was for a moment and accidentally greeted a couple with howya and heard them chuckle a little when they walked by #it's all over I can never come back

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theclevercollectorpirateuniverse · 3 years

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Claerwen James

Girl without a Basket of Flowers (after Picasso), 2014

#claerwen james #artist #painting

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milliondollarbaby87 · 4 years

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True History of the Kelly Gang (2019) Review

The story of Ned Kelly an Australian outlaw who was forced to hide from the authorities with his gang in the 1870s. Based on Peter Carey’s novel of the same name.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

(more…)

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grandmaster-anne · 3 years

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1952, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, open the Claerwen Reservoir, Britain's biggest Dam, in the Elan Valley, Radnorshire

#queen elizabeth ii #prince philip #duke of edinburgh #philibet #british royal family

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thornstocutyouwith · 5 years

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Anyway, last august I finally, after years of trying to get into it, joined a Dungeons and Dragons campaign that was pretty much more than a year old. And my character I made, which was detailed. I even posted his bio in my style, on here, for interaction. The group I had joined weren’t much into the roleplaying aspect ( The thing that makes it fun!) and always ignored Claerwen when he tried to be more open and convey he was tortured and enslaved most of his life. But they would ignore him, OOC, and IC. Which over the next few months would become tiring as hell.

So after sometime Claerwen gave up on being their useful little tool, and I was there mostly to observe how the game was played, rather than to bother with getting too involved since most of the rest of the time would be filled with “ BATTLE. WE HAVE TO BATTLE. DO A BATTLE! Fuck character development. fuck our characters getting to know or CARE about their teammates. SAVE THE WORLD WITH PEOPLE WE ARE FORCED TO BE WITH AGAINST OUR WILLS!”

Ugh, anyway, after months of frustration with this group, the campaign finally ended last night. My character was threatened to be murdered by his teammate for not handing over KEY items till the end, to another character who kept THREATENING the group. Then he was called SOULLESS for not caring about anything that the BIG BAD was trying to manipulate him with, seeing as my character was raised to not care about anything it was fucking easy for me to have him avoid the big bad trying to use his own family against him, by making them all act OOC when he was walking over to place a rune in it’s proper place.

THEN when I asked if the DM had read my bio, he said he hadn’t even looked at it again in eight months and I was just like “S o you’re a fucking idiot who is trying to use my characters family against him, and you don’t know how to even make it convincing...” Anyway, my character was pretty much rendered useless after placing his rune down and then he stole the necrinomicon and I don’t have to be back to interact with those people who couldn’t Roleplay their ways out of a wet paper sack if it saved their life, for at least the next three weeks. And then I’m probably only going to go to the campaign that my friend wants to start that will be done every other saturday.

But yeah, most of my first dungeon and dragons campaign was mostly fucking annoying, nothing happened that I cared about. Claerwen couldn’t be made to care about it because he wasn’t utilized properly by his teammate or the DM. AND worst yet, they very obviously only cared about him when they benefited off of my being more strategic minded and not throwing Claerwen out to fight giant Octopuses in the middle of the ocean, before it got frozen over. And more stuff like that where they didn’t care about how he attacked, as long as he DID attack. And He was a Bard NINJA, like, I don’t know how many times I had to explain to these fucking people that he’s not going to be getting up close and personal with most of the enemies just to deliver five damage. lol His best attack is delivered while hidden, and I could use it continuously. BUT I wasn’t going to just use it and have him end up close to the enemy to use as a human shield so their characters own stupidity wouldn’t effect them lol

Claerwen got hit once because he wanted to be helpful and almost died, at the beginning of the campaign, because one of the players pulled their character out of the way and let him almost die, despite their armor class being much better than Claerwen’s at the time. I just. Hated and liked it, but mostly I was fucking frustrated with the idiocy and basically nonexistent roleplaying.

#OOC #Skies #I'm just going to be frustrated about it for the next few weeks #and will give Claerwen a proper ending and roleplaying experience #on here lol #Along with any other future characters I end up making with this group of people lol

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