This week’s offering is about organisations that are often little more than a name. Yet despite their lack of corporeal substance these outfits enjoy considerable support from the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’.
Which is bad enough, but Wales has far too many of these organisations, and their numbers seem to be increasing monthly.
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The title of this piece is taken from an old English song about a lad whose father dies leaving him, his mother, and five siblings, to fend for themselves. The lad goes to a farm seeking work. The farmer’s wife and daughter take pity on him, and he’s hired. He marries the daughter, and when her parents die, he becomes the farmer.
Here’s a good pub version from West Yorkshire.
And here’s an interesting version by Shropshire singer Fred Jordan. The old rhotic accent of the central border coming through well.
God! I spoil you.
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SONS (AND DAUGHTERS) OF THE SOIL
This first section is about a shindig planned for November called the Wales Real Food and Farming Conference, at the University of Wales Trinity St David in Lampeter.
Where else? For this venerable institution is to where Jane Davidson, authoress of the Future Generations legislation, retreated after leaving Corruption Bay.
I particularly love their use of the term, ‘Real farming’. Does it suggest those involved enjoy a monopoly in knowledge of the subject? Inferring that those beyond this coterie are wholly ignorant of farming?
So who are these enlightened ones?
The website is a minimalist creation, perhaps explained by the fact that this group comes alive only for the annual knees-up. Like some sort of Earth-botherers Brigadoon.
Here’s the line-up (from the match programme, 6d from the boys at the turnstiles):
Hazel Thomas, who might actually know something about food. But after that promising introduction it’s downhill all the way.
Laura-Cait Driscoll, University of Wales Trinity St David Lampeter. Whose life is a mystery ere she rocked up in Lambed in 2016 to work at Shapla Tandoori.
Catherine Hughes. Is it a local Plaid Cymru councillor? Or this Catherine Hughes? If it’s the second, then she works with the ‘Welsh Government’.
Alicia Miller, Sustainable Food Trust. An international organisation, reflected in its directors. Monmouthshire council among the donors tells you who’s moving to rural north Gwent, have taken over the local Labour party and, through it, the council.
A farming source tells me Patrick Holden, founder of SFT, is a good egg, but my source fears his organisation is going the way of others, like the Soil Association, in being taken over by anti-farmer activists. Or worse.
Dr Jane Ricketts Hein, Cynidr Consulting. Is there such a company, or is it a one-woman band? The name crops up in relation to this 2017 conference, and then, nothing. Though Dr Hein seems to be connected with Bangor university.
To confuse matters(?), there was a company called Cynder Consulting.
Lowri Hedd Vaughan, GwyrddNi, which is a climate action group . . . at a conference on food and farming?
Ieuan Davies, Natural Resources Wales. ‘Welsh Government’ representative.
I said it was downhill after the full-back, and now it starts to get slightly ridiculous.
Jackie Pearce-Dickens, Whole Health Agriculture; from Oxfordshire, which wants us to consume less meat and fewer dairy products. A perfect fit for a food and farming conference in a dairy farming area of a livestock-raising country.
Lisa Mundle, Landworkers’ Alliance Cymru. An organisation of middle-class fantasists who want to be seen as peasants, such as might be found in Asia or Latin American. Sad, really.
The group belongs to La Via Campesina. So Viva La Revolucion!
Delyth Phillips (actually, Phillipps), of Wildlife Trusts Wales. An organisation that haunts me, because – and as I’ve reported more than once – it doesn’t exist.
Wildlife Trusts Wales dissolved as a charity in 2021, and as a company a year later. Thereby surrendering Wales’ distinct identity in that sphere. But reflecting the English takeover of the ‘nature’ and ‘environment’ rackets in Wales.
Despite lacking any legal structure Wildlife Trusts Wales carries on as if nothing happened. Led by dissembling Rachel Sharp. Ably assisted by Tim Birch, the Extinction Rebellion nut-job who was run out of the Peak District. And now, we have Delyth Phillipps.
How many more are there in this wraith-like organisation?
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But do you know what’s missing from that line-up? That’s right – a farmer!
And that’s because we’ve reached the stage in Wales where conferences can be organised to discuss food production, land use, the rural environment . . . yet genuine, traditional, Welsh, farmers, are excluded.
I’ll explain this in the Conclusion.
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TIR NATUR
This is a gang I’ve mentioned a few times before. And that’s despite them climbing aboard the environmental bandwagon only very recently. Here’s their website.
I think the first time Tir Natur appeared here was in July 2022, in a Miscellany post, scroll down to the section headed with the name.
But I think they’re worth another look. So let’s turn to the website, where we see Tir Natur’s vision laid out:
A Wales where beavers return to build their dams . . . where cranes dance in the setting sun and golden eagles soar above Eryri once more.
Poetic, like, innit?
But seriously, what soul-dead ghoul among you could not be moved by the uplifting images of foxtrotting cranes and soaring eagles?
And there’s more.
A Wales where large grazing animals roam freely in natural herds . . .
Note that Tir Natur is not referring here to cattle. If previous TN output is anything to go by, then this is a reference to European bison. In fact, an image of said beasts appears on the TN website.
Picture it! It’s 2035, and herds of bison roam from Crickhowell to Caeathro and from Crymych to Caerwys, pausing to rub themselves against the wind turbines, many of which have now toppled. Useless, unrecyclable, their owners untraceable.
The bison often wander into towns and villages, trampling people, wrecking cars, buildings, and gardens, but nothing can be done – because they’re protected. And that’s because, unlike cow farts, bison farts do no harm to the planet!
This is re-wilding. And it’s what Tir Natur is all about. So let’s get to the nub of it.
Tir Natur is a rewilding charity, set up to address the nature & climate crises in Wales. The state of nature in Wales is truly devastating . . .
Globally, 1,000,000 species are at risk of extinction, and Wales is one of the worst culprits in the world for loss of nature. We are ranked 224th out of 240 countries for biodiversity intactness . . . but rewilding offers hope
What you’ve read there is how modern environmentalism operates. Imagine or exaggerate a problem – then come up with the solution. A ‘solution’ that will greatly benefit those who identified the problem in the first place!
Such an elegant and circular solution to the woes of the world.
If you think I’m wrong, then tell me who decided that, ‘The state of nature in Wales is truly devastating‘, and that Wales is, ‘ranked 224th out of 240 countries for biodiversity intactness‘.
Was it some respected and impartial authority, or was it off-the-wall activists such as we find at Tir Natur? Come to that, who accepts these ‘findings’? The truth is that it doesn’t matter what you and I think; what matters is getting politicians and funders to pretend they believe this garbage.
But look around the world, for God’s sake, where forests bigger than Wales are being cleared, where species are hunted to extinction, at countries with no environmental controls whatsoever – yet we are expected to believe that little Wales, where hardly anything has changed, where regulations get tighter by the year, is ranked in the top 10% of countries suffering biodiversity loss.
Insulting bullshit. Insulting to all Welsh people, but especially to farmers, for they are the real target of these lies.
I was directed back to Tir Natur a couple of weeks ago because of two new arrivals.
First was Sally Weale, zoologist and maker of documentaries. She had previously been a director of The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales.
Weale greeted her appointment with, and very predictably:
With the loss of so much of Wales’ once abundant wildlife, I’m excited by the scale and ambition of Tir Natur’s vision
I don’t know what species have been lost in my lifetime, but I suspect it’s very few, if any. Which leads me to believe that when Sally Weale and others talk of ‘loss’ they’re thinking in a much longer timescale.
Which then allows them to include beaver, lynx, wolf, and other animals as having been ‘lost’. If I’m right, then how far back do we go? To bears? Pterodactyl?
But while using the longer timescale they still want to pretend that we, living today, are responsible. Or, at a stretch, it starts with the Industrial Revolution.
This is a deliberate and dishonest conflation designed to deceive us, and benefit them.
The other recent recruit was none other than Tim Birch, still looking over his shoulder for mutton-chopped Derbyshire gamekeepers.
I conclude this section with another extract from the TN website. Go to the ‘About Rewilding’ tab, then click ‘What is Rewilding?’ Where you’ll be regaled with:
Here in Wales, where ecosystems are more depleted and 88% of land is managed in some way for agriculture, rewilding is about restoring the complex and dynamic mosaic of habitat that once was.
The link is now clearly made between ecological degradation, species loss, and farming. An environmental tragedy created by farming that can only be remedied by taking land away from farmers and giving it back to nature.
Well no, not really. The land must be given to organisations like Tir Natur. Who will introduce all manner of strange critters, some of which were never known in Wales. Such as the Konik horse. For as all Wales knows, from Gower to the Carneddau, we have no wild equines of our own.
And that, my friends, is ‘rewilding’. It’s a colonialist land grab by shysters who know nothing of our country, or us. But then, we Welsh don’t figure in the future they want.
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CONCLUSION
Readers may have noticed that the methodology employed by the environmental and land grab scammers is remarkably similar to that used by climate alarmists. That’s because they’re directed by the same source.
I refer now to the UN, WEF, EU, assorted supranational bodies; the mega corporations like BlackRock and Vanguard; and unhinged multi-billionaires like George Soros and Bill Gates, who think their wealth is a mandate to dictate our lives.
They too operate by dreaming up a crisis, then, like magicians producing rabbits from top hats, they come up with the ‘solution’. This pattern is now established.
The ‘climate crisis’ demands we rely on heavily subsided – and therefore expensive for consumers – ‘green’ energy, reject the internal combustion engine, have fewer children, and radically modify our diets.
A number of ostensibly unconnected agencies and movements have been recruited by the Globalists to promote the ‘destabilisation leads to control’ agenda.
These include Cultural Marxists pushing BLM, ‘trans rights’, open borders, and the idea that all white people are guilty of slavery, etc. Done to encourage division and violence that will be used to justify increasing censorship and authoritarianism.
Also, environmentalists, vegans and others, who’ve been platformed in recent decades because they too serve the Globalist agenda.
Simple, really. Control the food supply, control the people.
Which is why the Globalists encourage and fund environmentalists to demand an end to farming. While simultaneously pushing the idea of eating bugs, and ‘meat’ made in laboratories.
But the Globalists may not want the land from which farmers have been evicted for themselves. Other than perhaps what they can use for carbon offsets and other scams.
The priority is to ensure that that land no longer produces food.
Now I don’t know about you, but if, after all we know about Bill Gates’ involvement with Covid and the vaccines, you’re still happy to eat ‘meat’ from his factories, then the best of luck to you.
(You’ll find his ‘meat’ factory next to his mosquito breeding sheds.)
Call me old fashioned, but I’d prefer to stick with the Welsh countryside as it is, dotted with Welsh family farms producing good, wholesome, and natural food.
And helping maintain Welsh identity.
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© Royston Jones 2024
