Much of what follows may look, superficially, like a rehash of that earlier piece; if so, it’s because that’s unavoidable in bringing the story up to date.
But there is more evidence. Which convinces me I was right.
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THE BACKGROUND
We’ll start by looking at what I think are the major milestones in this saga, in the order they happened.
1/ The Thomas family, who owned Gilestone pre-2010, had problems with the (then) Brecon Beacons National Park. They felt hounded. It cost them a lot of money to fight officialdom, and resulted in them selling up in October 2010.
(A curious feature of the business was that the solicitor acting for the Park was a Julie James. Who, in May 2011, became the Labour Assembly Member for Swansea West.)
2/ Next, seemingly out of the blue, a buyer in the form of Charles Weston turned up. He bought Gilestone for £900,000 through his company Sharpness and Severn Transport Ltd, re-named CWW Farming Ltd in November 2019. (Though the title document I’ve linked to does not cover all the Gilestone land.)
(Sharpness, Bristol, Newport, and Cardiff, are the major ports on the upper Severn estuary.)
3/ In March 2018 Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water (DCWW) organised a trip to Wales for representatives of the Watershed Agricultural Council based in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. This is the body responsible for keeping the Big Apple’s water supply up to standard. This visit was reciprocated in October 2019, when a party from the Beacons visited the Catskills.
(Which meant DCWW was studying a model under which a rural catchment area supplied water to a metropolis some 100 miles away.)
4/ This link resulted in DCWW setting up the Brecon Beacons Mega Catchment (BBMC). Though apart from the change of name to Bannau Brycheiniog I can’t see much recent activity on the website. There’s been nothing on the Facebook page since July 2022 and the Twitter/X account has been closed.
The Beacons Water Group was established under Welsh Water’s Bannau Brycheiniog Mega Catchment initiative (BBMC), our landscape-scale approach to safeguarding our drinking water sources now and for the future.
Among the founders we find Weston of Gilestone and his next-door neighbour across the River Usk. (Weston left BWG in October 2022.)
BWG definitely enjoys political support. As does DCWW, which seems to get a free pass from the ‘Welsh Government’ and ‘environmental’ groups when it comes to river pollution, with farmers copping all the blame. One director, Hugh Martineau, was an ‘advisor’ with Coleg Soros in Talgarth.
5/ In March 2022 the ‘Welsh Government’ bought Gilestone farm for £4.25m. The reason given was to allow the Green Man Festival to expand from its Glanusk Estate site.
OK, that’s enough background. Let’s try to put meat on the bones and get up to date with other developments and findings.
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FILLING IT OUT, RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
What I suggested back in October 2022 was that the key to understanding the purchase of Gilestone might lie in the proximity of, on the one side, the River Usk, and the other side, The Monmouthshire and Breconshire canal.
Even so, this in itself tells you little. For it to make sense we need to link this abundance of H2O in Wales to southern England running dry of the stuff.
And let’s remember that, in addition to the river and the canal, Gilestone is just a couple of kilometres from Llangorse Lake to the north east and the same distance from Talybont reservoir to the south west.
The reservoir already connects with the Usk very near to Gilestone. It would be relatively simple to connect the lake.
Senior Conservatives are floating the idea of a ‘Great Boris Canal’ named after the outgoing Prime Minister to transfer water from the north of Wales to the south of England.
The “Cotswold canals” mentioned must be the Thames and Severn Canal, currently being restored.
Alternatively, the water will be piped straight into the Severn. Then it will be abstracted lower down, either at Deerhurst, north east of Cheltenham, or near to Sharpness.
Which serves to remind us that Charles Weston bought Gilestone farm in the name of Sharpness and Severn Transport Ltd, based in Sharpness docks. Where the Gloucester and Sharpness canal begins, connecting with the Thames and Severn canal in Gloucester.
It seems like every which way we turn in the Gilestone saga we hit water.
Taking us further and further away from farming and music festivals.
While the plan to transfer water from Wales to southern England has been mooted for decades, one reason for increased urgency in recent years is the planned growth in the numbers of AI data centres.
But it’s not just London and the south of England affected, there are other areas that will need much more water. Such as Cambridge, where there are (somewhat vague) plans for a ‘Forest City‘ of one million people.
One of those behind the plan, while admitting that water from Wales is a serious option, fears we Welsh are a bit touchy about the subject. Us!
Maybe that’s why the talk is of using rivers and canals. Perhaps some people think we’ll be too stupid to notice.
Having mentioned AI data centres, it’s worth remembering we have them in Wales, too. Especially around Newport and Cardiff. With more planned. Let’s get back to Gilestone.
We’ve seen that the River Usk and the Monmouthshire and Breconshire canal flow over or close by the property. Both waterways then run in a southeasterly direction towards Newport and the Bristol Channel.
My original thinking was that water could be transferred in either direction, whichever best suited the purpose of the exercise at any given time. But the canal only runs to Cwmbran, and is now effectively banned from taking water from the river.
Earlier this year, Natural Resources Wales imposed new restrictions on the canal’s long-standing abstraction licence from the River Usk. It means that during periods of low water, the canal is no longer permitted to draw water from the river – a supply it has relied on for more than a century.
This has affected those who rely on the canal for their livelihoods, largely in the tourism businesses. Which seems to have resulted in intervention by the ‘Welsh Government’ with what looks like compensation.
It seems clear that the flow of water in the Usk is a priority, and must be safeguarded.
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CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Earlier I said that Charles Weston of Sharpness & Severn Transport had turned up at Gilestone out of blue. Perhaps I made him sound like a wraith appearing from nowhere. Which would be misleading.
Because before buying Gilestone Weston had, in 2004, bought 182 acres at Tan-y-fedw, south of Sennybridge. This sits on Afon Crai, which runs into the reservoir a few kilometres south.
And as AI Overview says of the reservoir: ” . . . much of its water is diverted to the Swansea Valley, while the remainder flows down to meet the Usk”.
Four years later he bought 76 acres at Allt-fechan, a couple of kilometres north west of Brecon. This holding stands on Ysgir Fechan, which runs into Afon Ysgir, which runs a few more kilometres into . . . the Usk.
Having received its orders from London the ‘Welsh Government’ plays its loyal part in this scheme. We see politicos, DCWW, and Natural Resources Wales, all working towards the objective . . . without being able to say what they’re really up to.
With the ‘environmental’ lobby chipping in. Remember Gail Davies-Walsh, former employee of DCWW, now of front organisation Afonydd Cymru, which shields the water company from criticism by blaming farmers for all river pollution?
In the very same building in Talgarth where Afonydd Cymru is based we find the cross-border Wye and Usk Foundation, with its staff of 34 and its considerable income. Roughly half the grant money comes from that generous old soul, “Other“.
Ah! sweet Talgarth. Home of that noted and venerable seat of learning – Coleg Soros.
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Finally . . . We know there’s a plan to take water from Llyn Efyrnwy, into the Severn, and then, via pipe and canal, to the Thames. I believe there’s a wider plan that includes the Usk, Wye, and other sources. And this may be where Gilestone fits.
It would be relatively simple to connect Usk and Wye to the plan shown above. It would then be a multi-source option less likely to draw attention and criticism. For as Severn Trent is keen to stress (my emphasis):
This will be using water that is currently taken from Vyrnwy and occasionally redistributed elsewhere. No additional water will be taken from Wales.
This, “some from here, some from there” approach, with no valleys drowned, will avoid another Tryweryn.
And seeing as Usk and Wye are within Dŵr Cymru’s territory, it explains the Catskills connection, Mega Catchment and Beacons Water Group. Why else would DCWW study how a hilly rural area supplies water to a metropolis 100 miles away?
Another factor worth considering is flooding. The existing wind farms on hills above the Severn and its tributaries cause greater run-off of rainwater, increasing the risk of flooding. With more windfarms planned, this risk will only increase.
So taking water from the Severn could also serve a flood prevention purpose. Though this is unlikely to be admitted, and never linked to wind turbines.
The wider plan I’m suggesting would also explain the quasi-sacred status given to the Wye by writers like George Monbiot, and bodies such as the Wye & Usk Foundation and Afonydd Cymru. For no other river in Wales gets this attention.
Whatever the details, it’s clear that Wales is to supply water to southern England. Much of it from resources in Wales owned by Severn Trent of Coventry.
PLEASE APPRECIATE THAT I GET SENT MORE INFORMATION AND LEADS THAN I CAN USE. I TRY TO RESPOND TO EVERYONE WHO CONTACTS ME BUT I CANNOT POSSIBLY USE EVERY BIT OF INFORMATION I’M SENT. DIOLCH YN FAWR
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Envirocolonialism may not be a term you’re familiar with, but I’ve coined it to describe two separate but linked phenomena.
The first of which is companies from outside of Wales building wind farms, wave power installations, and other facilities, that provide few if any jobs for Welsh people and contribute little or nothing to the Welsh economy.
The second is eco-warriors of various hues, including ‘rewilders’, also from outside of Wales, demanding land and funding to put into practice what are often insane schemes working against the interests of Welsh people and their communities. Or simply milking the funding system.
Yet both these forms of envirocolonialism are encouraged by the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’, which dresses up this exploitation as an economic strategy by which Wales will become prosperous while also saving the planet.
This lie, and the ugly colonialism it disguises, must be exposed and rejected.
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‘BLOWIN’ IN THE WIND’
Last week the Guardian told us that the Crown Estate had given permission to a subsidiary of the French oil giant Total for floating wind turbines off the north coast. The English Crown giving a French company the go-ahead in Welsh waters.
One of the Irishmen is also found at Simply Blue Energy (Scotland) Ltd, but the other director is Scottish, with an Edinburgh address. The secretary, though, lives in County Louth, some distance from both The Rebel County and Auld Reekie.
This announcement was soon followed by news of what I take to be a separate development of some 100 turbines. The beneficiary here is RWE Renewables, the German conglomerate. With the the usual flotilla of small companies from over the border following in the giant’s wake.
‘Renewable energy targets’ that bear no resemblance to Wales’ needs. Just a fig leaf to disguise exploitation. Click to enlarge
There will soon be wind turbines off the coast from the border to the Menai Strait. And the benefits for Wales will be counted in a few dozen jobs. Though from what I hear, those already doing the jobs seem to have arrived from a few hundred miles east of Mostyn docks.
But never mind! There may be no Welsh companies involved, and no Welsh jobs, but we can still get a warm glow from sitting in our deck chairs, looking out to sea at hundreds of wind turbines making Wales’ contribution to saving the planet.
A contribution so insignificant that it can be wiped out by just one more coal-fired power station in China or a day’s logging in Amazonia.
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RIDING THE WAVE . . . BUT NOT IF YOU’RE WELSH
With wind power being unreliable, the short life span of the turbines, the landscape damage, the killing of birds and bats, and now the increased risks of flooding, public opinion is turning against onshore wind power.
This goes some way to explaining the increase in offshore wind power, such as we looked at in the previous section, and also wave-generated energy.
Which is the cue to introduce another company, one that hasn’t gone through the charade of taking out a Pembrokeshire address.
In fact, it would be odd if Wave Hub had moved to Wales . . . seeing as it’s 100% owned by Cornwall County Council. And before the council took control in November 2017 Wave Hub had been owned by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
Did you know we had an ‘Internet Coast’? Click to enlarge
According to the linked article, the City Deal will provide £28 million with this “expected to help leverage a further £32 million of public and private funding”. No doubt a sizeable chunk of the remaining £32 million will come from the Welsh public purse.
And what will we get in return?
Research and development will almost certainly be conducted outside of Wales, and we can guarantee that Wales will not see the profits. Which leaves jobs. How many will there be and who’ll be monitoring the situation to ensure that locals get them? Answers: very few; nobody.
So let’s stop deluding ourselves and recognise a rip-off when it’s staring us in the face and twisting our gonads.
Here’s my interpretation of Wave Hub’s move to Wales.
Once it became clear there were to be City deals for Swansea and Cardiff clever minds in London sat down and thought, “OK, so we’re giving the Taffs this money . . . now how do we get back as much of it as possible?”
The Swansea Bay City Deal was signed off in March 2017 by Prime Minister Theresa May. The gestation period would have been at least a year. So let’s see how that fits with the Wave Hub timeline.
Chubby Cheeks looking miserable – tea but no biccies? Click to enlarge
Despite having been in existence since December 2011 the accounts for y/e 31 March 2016 show net assets of just £3,638. A company just ticking over, maybe waiting for a project.
March 2017, Swansea Bay City Deal signed off.
November 27, 2017, Cornwall County Council takes control of Wave Hub Ltd. Is this to make it more acceptable to the Welsh public?
September 18, 2019, Piers Basil Guy sets up Guy Energy Ltd. Hoping to make a bit for himself on the side?
June 11, 2020, announcement of £60 million funding for Wave Hub at its ‘Welsh’ operations.
June 11, 2020, elsewhere we read, with no mention of Pembrokeshire: “The South West Floating Offshore Wind Accelerator is being led by Wave Hub in collaboration with the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), University of Plymouth, University of Exeter, the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, A&P Group, Cornwall Council and Plymouth City Council.
Why the hell are WE, through the Swansea Bay City Deal and the ‘Welsh Government’, funding a project with no Welsh presence beyond a shed in Pembrokeshire? Where are the benefits for Wales?
All the companies listed for Piers Basil Guy are owned by Vattenfall, the Swedish company that has so much influence with the ‘Welsh Government’. A number of the wind farms listed were built on land managed by Natural Resources Wales, an agency of the ‘Welsh Government’. This includes of course the massive Pen y Cymoedd.
In addition, Basil George Guy has worked directly for a number of Vattenfall companies, sometimes through what I think is its Dutch arm, Nuon.
In this BBC article from October 2011 Guy is described as, “Nuon Renewables head of development”; while this wind energy site says in November 2012 that he’s, “Vattenfall’s head of Onshore Wind Development in the UK”.
Money is being showered on a company that might, or might not, be owned by Cornwall County Council. Either way, it has but the lightest of footprints in Wales and shouldn’t be given a penny until we are assured of tangible benefits.
Finally, is there a connection between Simply Blue (Wave Hub) Ltd and Wave Hub Ltd?
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Up at the other end of the country from Pembrokeshire a genuinely Welsh outfit, Menter Môn, also has plans for wave energy, but it is being thwarted by a cat’s paw acting for Natural Resources Wales and the ‘Welsh Government’.
Perhaps what the RSPB and NRW found offensive was, “Morlais is a Menter Môn project which aims to benefit local communities . . .”. That’s not how envirocolonialism works.
Though there has been opposition from other quarters, mainly the Trearddur Bay Sailing Club and the owners of ‘seasonal properties’ at Rhoscolyn. This explains the intervention of the constituency’s Conservative candidate a few weeks before last December’s general election.
She gets out of him what he has perhaps been primed to say – the Morlais project could be bad for tourism. Mmm. Is that a negative any more?
Virginia Crosbie, friend, possibly tenant, of Jake Berry, the Tory MP for Rossendale and Darwen in east Lancashire. How many properties does Berry now own on Ynys Môn?
Joking aside, let me spell this out quite clearly, for the avoidance of any doubt.
The RSPB would not have objected to this scheme if it had come from a developer viewed more favourably by Natural Resources Wales and the ‘Welsh Government’, neither of which wants to encourage genuinely Welsh initiatives.
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TALES OF THE RIVERBANK
For a couple of years now a few people have been urging me to take a peek at the The Wye and Usk Foundation. At first sight, there seems to be nothing to worry about, the Foundation is a body trying to improve rivers and riparian environments. It of course works closely with Natural Resources Wales.
Admittedly, it’s a cross-border organisation, with most of the territory it covers being in Wales but, as is usually the case, with a majority of its trustees from outside.
But then, the more you look at the Wye and Usk Foundation the more the doubts creep in. It can be a little thing, such as this sentence found under ‘Climate Change’, on page 5 of the latest Trustees’ report.
“The summer drought also led to an increase in fodder crops being grown in the Welsh uplands which pose a serious risk to our rivers this winter.”
This is an organisation based in Wales, so why not just say, “uplands”? Using the term “Welsh uplands” makes it sound like an alien, and hostile, area. Something that could have been written by a 12th century Norman chronicler.
And of course, there’s the inference that Welsh farmers harm rivers. Which could have been written by that scourge of Welsh hill farmers, George Monbiot.
“In the west of Britain, the main issue is livestock farming. As dairy and poultry units have consolidated, the manure they produce is greater than the land’s capacity to absorb it. As an agricultural contractor explained to the Welsh government, some farmers are deliberately spreading muck before high rainfall, so that it washes off their fields and into the rivers. A farm adviser told the same inquiry that only 1% of farm slurry stores in Wales meet the regulations.”
Follow the link and you’ll see that the person who made that allegation about farmers deliberately spreading muck before rain was allowed to remain anonymous. (If he or she ever existed.)
Typical Grauniad, picture of a Welsh river but headline refers to UK government. Click to enlarge
In the same article Monbiot also wrote: “The Wye itself is dying at astonishing, heartbreaking speed.” Yet the The Wye Usk Foundation is far more upbeat. But then, Monbiot is a polemicist and a scaremonger, with a strategy to follow.
Basically, Monbiot’s message is: ‘Welsh farmers are bastards, get them off the land and then turn the land over to people like me’.
So, does George Monbiot have links to The Wye and Usk Foundation?
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TALGARTH, SEAT OF LEARNING
The Wye and Usk Foundation is based in Talgarth, and among the trustees we find Elizabeth Passey, formerly of US investment bank Morgan Stanley, and now the Big Lottery Fund. Ms Passey is also a trustee of the Black Mountains College Project in Talgarth. Though for some reason Ms Passey’s role with the Big Lottery is not mentioned in her BMC bio, below.
On the BMC website Passey is said to hail “from a corn merchant family on the Welsh borders.” But from Talgarth it’s the English borders. It’s only the ‘Welsh borders’ for people who see Wales through English eyes, or from an anglocentric perspective . . . such as those involved in the Black Mountains College Project.
Click to enlarge
I have written about the Black Mountains College . . . or at least, the plan to set up such an institution, and to link it with a similar school in the USA funded by George Soros.
The Black Mountains College plans to offer “planet-centric education”. As we have come to expect with such ventures, there is little Welsh involvement.
Click to enlarge
Just last month, ‘Dr’ Jane Davidson, midwife to One Planet Developments, inspiration for the Future Generations legislation, doyenne of all things envirocolonial, appeared on the putative college’s website.
I assure you there is more crap on this website than Monbiot ever saw in the Wye. And the same could be said for Davidson’s book.
We see the £75,000 grant last year from the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority. A fresh grant of £49,036 from Arwain (money taken from farmers in the transfer from Pillar 1 to Pillar 2 made by Alun Davies in 2013). Also, £16,750 from the National Lottery Community Fund. For which BMC can no doubt thank Ms Passey.
There are now three full-time employees; and while no one earns more than £60,000 we can be sure that with staff costs of £105,979 there are three people each earning a good screw.
Though I’d love to know why ‘Legal and professional fees’ jumped from £6,040 in 2019 to £122,415 in 2020.
When he’s not fulfilling the world vision of George Soros, or helping NRW screw us, Blake works with The Green Valleys (Wales) Community Interest Company. As far as I can see there is no other company with that name, so why does it need ‘(Wales)’?
That nagging doubt returns about people being in Wales but still looking at the country through the eyes of an outsider, or else selling it to outsiders.
Now we move south west, to the Rhondda, accompanied by Messrs Blake and Ham.
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HONEST RIP-OFF OR PATERNALISM?
As any self-respecting crow will tell you, the distance between the hill station of Talgarth and the native settlement of Treherbert is just over 20 miles. Though they can appear to be much further apart.
“A former mining village has been awarded nearly £250,000 to develop Wales’ first community ownership project.
The Skyline project wants to take charge of about 1.5 sq miles (4 sq km) of forestry around Treherbert, Rhondda Cynon Taff.
It wants to create jobs in forestry and provide timber for affordable homes.
It also hopes to open up space to grow vegetables and encourage use of the woods for education and leisure.
The money will be used to develop the ideas with the hope of getting up to £2.5m from the National Lottery climate action fund to put their plans into action.”
There is clearly local enthusiasm, but who’s running the show, and what are their ultimate intentions?
We see mention of the Skyline project. I visited the Skyline website, where I found this video of an event held in Cardiff on May 1, 2019.
We hear Chris Blake, because Skyline is run by his Green Valleys company from Talgarth.
We also hear from Ian Thomas who, despite the name, does not sound as if he’s from round by ‘ere. He represents the ‘social enterprise’ Welcome to our Woods. In big type the home page of the Welcome to our Woods website tells us: “We are a community partnership in the Upper Rhondda Fawr, South Wales Valleys UK.”
‘South Wales Valleys UK’! Yet again, that ‘outsider’ phrasing.
WTOW Ltd is a company that has been going since 7 November 2014. Ceri Nicholas, a local who features prominently in the video below, was in at the start, but ceased to be a director in March this year. Why leave when things are about to take off?
Apart from Ian Thomas the directors are Simone Jayne Devinett of the Rhondda Housing Association; and Phillip John Vickery, who used to work for Pembrokeshire Association of Voluntary Services and uses a Haverfordwest address.
Further confusion is caused by the WTOW website still showing Ceri Nicholas as a director, and also a Karen Davies of Purple Shoots, who is not listed as a director with Companies House.
Sort yourselves out!
In the video, locals are given bit parts, but at 2:04 we meet Sonya Bedford, introduced as ‘Head of Energy Stephen Scown Solicitors’. The name is in fact Stephens Scown, and it’s based in Devon. What the hell is she doing there?
The trip to Scotland is revealing, if only for the kind of people they met up there.
All the talk of growing vegetables, and living in cheap, timber housing suggests One Planet Developments. Which only adds to the feeling that this Rhondda project might simply be using locals to further the ends of a select group of outsiders.
People who are largely unemployable in the real world, whose companies are unviable, but who survive through political patronage, public funding, and of course Lottery funding. Which is where Elizabeth Passey of the National Lottery will come in handy.
To complete the picture of a scam being run by outsiders, for outsiders, the BBC was kind enough to tell us that the project manager is Melanie Newton.
Click to enlarge
If that name rings a bell it’s because Melanie was, until very recently, CEO of Summit to Sea, with which George Monbiot and others were deeply involved. This was an attempt to take over a vast area inland and north of Aberystwyth, evict the farmers, plant millions of trees, and introduce all sorts of exotic animals.
Those involved in this population replacement scheme were encouraged by the ‘Welsh Government’s threat to use Brexit as a weapon against farmers. Explicit in Brexit and our land. In fact, the ‘rewilders’ probably influenced the writing of the document.
One obvious channel of influence would have been ‘Game Show Gary’ Haggaty, advisor to and lover of Lesley Griffiths, the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs. Gary hates farmers. So do too many of the civil servants advising that shower in Corruption Bay.
So maybe the people of the Rhondda should worry that the real plan may be to get rid of them, forest the valley floor, and bring in lynx, beaver, and God knows what else. Because Melanie has form, and so do some of the others involved.
The Valleys Regional Park seems to be one of the Labour Party’s periodic attempts to convince Valleys’ voters that they aren’t being taken for granted. The document is page after page of what Monbiot imagined he saw in the Wye, though not without black humour.
Extolling the natural beauty of the Valleys, on page 14 we see:
Click to enlarge
Those “magical moorlands” of Mawr have been desecrated by the Mynydd y Gwair wind farm of the Duke of Beaufort.
Fitting, because Davies’ partner is Anna McMorrin. She has been mentioned a few times on this blog, lobbying for London investors wanting to despoil Powys with wind turbines. She’s been the Labour MP for Cardiff North since the June 2017 general election.
And talking of the Labour Party, Melanie Newton is a staunch supporter, if not a card-carrying member.
Click to enlarge
Connections. Connections. Connections.
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TOMORROW BELONGS TO THEM?
What I’ve described here is not sincere people saving the environment of Wales for the Welsh but a network of ruthless grant-grabbers and would-be colonists trying to take it from us. Which means that at every opportunity Welsh people, and especially farmers – because they hold so much land – must be demonised.
This explains the borderline racism about ‘upland Welsh’ from the Wye and Usk Foundation, and the anonymous ‘sources’ quoted by George Monbiot.
The environment of Wales is being saved by and for more enlightened and superior people. Reminiscent of the Nazi’s idea for removing lesser races from conquered territories in the east and reintroducing (even back breeding) lost species such as the Auroch.
“Lutz began calling for the transformation of newly conquered lands in the east in order to recreate the primordial forest described in the epic Germanic poem Nibelungenlied. Lutz and Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo and president of the Reichstag, became friends and went hunting in traditional dress and armed with spears to try and recreate the heroism of ancient German mythology.”
I’m not suggesting that the rewilders plan ‘Beowulf weekends’, where blond and hearty computer programmers from Solihull roam newly-forested hills dressed as Anglo-Saxon warriors before retiring to the Hall for a saga, a skinfull of ale, and a bit of wenching.
But who knows?
Click to enlarge
This colonialist approach to rewilding goes hand in hand with Wales making such a disproportionate contribution to ‘saving the planet’ that Lesley Griffiths adopts the persona of a madam greeting punters: “Ev’nin’, ducky, which bit of Wales would you like to have your way with?”
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Of course we must protect the Welsh environment, and sensibly increase the use of renewable and clean energies. But this must be done in the interests of Wales; not by using climate change to cloak exploitation, or to promote a form of conservation that is paternalistic colonialism flirting with ethnic cleansing.
Over three years ago, with ‘Gilestone: Thinking Outside The Box‘, I suggested that the ‘Welsh Government’s controversial £4.25m purchase of Gilestone farm is about the transfer of water.
