Cycling UK Forum

Hunter gathering is absolutely not sustainable at our population level. If farming hadn't been invented, there wouldn't be nearly so many of us. Great swathes of Africa are denuded of trees and wildlife simply because people are hunter gathering. Don't kid yourself that even the most conscientious bushcraft supports more than relatively tiny number of people.

In the UK we have been legislated into a position where any "bushcraft" activities we might wish to undertake are already severly curtailed. The vast majority of land is fenced off and landowners can turf us off at will; That which remains is subject to endless bylaws. I am not allowed to collect fallen wood from Cannock Chase without a licence; I am not allowed to trap crayfish, even the foreign invaders, without a licence. I am not allowed to fish in any inland water, or even from the pond in my own back garden without a licence and certainly not for game fish unless I haemorrhage cash. I am not allowed to go after terrestrial game without permission and/or a licence. I am not allowed to take cobbles from a beach. I may find that even if I am the landowner, I might not have the mineral or shooting rights. The wildlife and countryside act means that even picking ramsons, sorrel and burdock from a hedge is not allowed without permission. I am not allowed to light a bonfire in my own back garden, let alone light a fire in a public space. Or pitch a tent on open land. I can't go for a swim in my local reservoir, canal or lake, or take a boat out on it without paying or seeking permission. We have had a narrow escape that if a landowner catches you with a bag full of forage, he can't actually do you for theft.

So, in the name of sustainability, the real bounty of nature is reserved for the priveliged few, while we get to pick over the vermin and the uncommercial. If popularity soars, our remaining joys will go the same way - I dread the day I have to apply for a blackberry license. They are already having rows down in Epping forest about mushroom collecting because it has got too popular. Thank goodness most people are too ignorant, lazy or squeamish to have a go.

Also, don't forget that most of the land which produces game, berries and fish is looked after by someone. Most of the agencies looking after National parks on our behalf would rather you didn't turn up willy nilly to pick the berries, shoot the pigeons, take the wood and eat the fish. They are the ones acting sustainably, not the person who turns up to raid the blackberries without a care in the world, where even your foot prints can be adding to the destruction if you stray from the path. If you want to do sustainable, why not do some voluntary work or find yourself an allotment and look after your own bit of land? You can even cycle to it!

What a depressing picture. In my part of the world you can collect waste forestry wood, council branch prunings and forage about to your hearts content without authorisation and many people just go out and fill there trailers with firewood and pick wildfruit because it is part of the rural idyll. Bushcraft can be sustainable but not at present population levels and a desire for people to eat a lot of meat that gobbles up lots of land for grazing.

NUKe wrote:Lots of people forraging for blackberries in London the other week.

Did they find any?

Hypocacculus wrote:I'm not allowed to catch............ even the foreign invaders, without a licence.

.............. If popularity soars, our remaining joys will go the same way - I dread the day I have to apply for a blackberry license. They are already having rows down in Epping forest about mushroom collecting because it has got too popular. Thank goodness most people are too ignorant, lazy or squeamish to have a go.

Well thats a load off!

Also, don't forget that most of the land which produces game, berries and fish is looked after by someone. Most of the agencies looking after National parks on our behalf would rather you didn't turn up willy nilly to pick the berries, shoot the pigeons, take the wood and eat the fish. They are the ones acting sustainably, not the person who turns up to raid the blackberries without a care in the world, where even your foot prints can be adding to the destruction if you stray from the path. If you want to do sustainable, why not do some voluntary work or find yourself an allotment and look after your own bit of land? You can even cycle to it!

Quite right too IMHO.

Anyway we musn't worry too much,there's always an alternative:- viewtopic.php?f=7&t=54760

Well,err,almost

I agree with you, Hypocacculus, but things are perhaps not quite as depressing as the picture you paint, perhaps. Obviously things have to be highly regulated in a small northern archipelago not far from the Artic Circle with a large population.
You can still shoot on land with the permission of the farmer (assuming you have a gun licence of course) and rabbits and pigeons don't require a game licence. Noone will mind if you pick blackberries along the hedgerows but the number doing so will remain small unless starvation prevails.
Also human beings are part of the ecosystem but of course there are too many of us.
Most people couldn't be bothered to pick blackberries or walk more than a few yards from their parked cars at a beauty spot. That's why I was a great fan of Butlins Holiday camps: they contained the hoi polloi in dense localised concentrations leaving the rest of the country to be enjoyed by people like us. The same role is now served by foreign holiday destinations like some of those in Spain.
We are surrounded by sea so there are great opportunities to sail if you seek solitude.
Cycling is a great way to enjoy and experience the countryside without having to live in it, and it's relatively inexpensive and sustainable. Rather than rampaging through the jungle we can go to the gym, and have a shower afterwards. Rather than swim in a river, we can go to the swimming pool, and have a shower afterwards and dry our hair.
WIth good planning and management often conflicting activities can be provided for and impact on the environment reduced.
They are few if any naturally pristine wild environments left in the UK with perhaps the exception of the Carngorm plateau: everywhere has been settled for thousands of years. Our countryside is as much our creation as our towns and cities.
The hunter/gatherer way of life disappeared tens of thousands of years ago in most societies and it is an anarchronism to try and reintroduce it except for a bit of fun, a TV programme or SAS survival training.
I take your point about an allotment. You can keep hens on an allotment. When I go to my allotment of course I am reverting to a farming/peasant lifestyle which most of our forefathers practiced only a few hundred years ago, rather than a primitive hunter/gatherer lifestyle.
jonty

There is an urban bushcraft where huge areas of old industrial land and a sort of hinterland around towns and cities are full of wild life and overgrown with stuff like elderberry, crab apple, damzon as well as the usual blackberries and currents bushes and trees like willow, sycamore, cherry, ash and hazel which are all useful to the bushman. This urban wasteland is wonderful because it has not been sprayed and cultivated and over managed like so much of the countryside.

Lawrie9 wrote:There is an urban bushcraft where huge areas of old industrial land and a sort of hinterland around towns and cities are full of wild life and overgrown with stuff like elderberry, crab apple, damzon as well as the usual blackberries and currents bushes and trees like willow, sycamore, cherry, ash and hazel which are all useful to the bushman. This urban wasteland is wonderful because it has not been sprayed and cultivated and over managed like so much of the countryside.

But its full of chav's, of course you could hunt 'em but I've heard they taste horrid,and the meat's too fatty

Hunter gatheriing existence is sustainable as the supply of food and raw materials determines the population growth. This has happened since the birth of man and there are some last remaining tribes living a nomadic existence today. It was when man found other ways to increase food production to his own means and greed that the system collapses. A tribe would only eat what is plentiful at the time and say only cut down enough wood and catch enough fish that was needed at the time.
It was the man that would catch more than enough than he needed and traded for other goods or monies that pressurises the system just as capitalism has today and i can guess how thats all going to end.

Hypocacculus wrote:Don't kid yourself that even the most conscientious bushcraft supports more than relatively tiny number of people.

not does it need to. most people are on the costa del sol or skegness or cancun. even those that holiday in the UK do so at travelodge. the few 1000 who want to live off the land can do so with no harm, some of them may not even need a carpark

Hypocacculus wrote:Most of the agencies looking after National parks ....... are the ones acting sustainably

that's nonsense. they wouldn't dream of doing any of their work without a 4x4. each

swagman wrote:Hunter gatheriing existence is sustainable as the supply of food and raw materials determines the population growth. This has happened since the birth of man and there are some last remaining tribes living a nomadic existence today. It was when man found other ways to increase food production to his own means and greed that the system collapses. A tribe would only eat what is plentiful at the time and say only cut down enough wood and catch enough fish that was needed at the time.
It was the man that would catch more than enough than he needed and traded for other goods or monies that pressurises the system just as capitalism has today and i can guess how thats all going to end.

It may be sustainable but it's an appalling way of life: a life expectancy of perhaps 30; a huge infant mortality rate; little or no education or healthcare; running around the jungle in a loincloth firing poisoned arrows at monkeys; perpetual inter-tribal warfare; no bicycles.
Give me a hot bath, a glass of claret and a Marks and Spencer Chinese take-away any day of the week, after a hard ride.
If sustainability means running around like homo erectus erectus, count me out.
jonty

Jonty wrote:...........Give me a hot bath, a glass of claret and a Marks and Spencer Chinese take-away any day of the week, after a hard ride.

Hot bath= walk to nearest hot spring
Glass of Claret=drink the blood of the hunted animal
Marks and Spencer Chinese take away= Hmm,well,err Yep you're right Jonty who wants live in the bush anyway?

If sustainability means running around like homo erectus erectus, count me out.
jonty

Well said that man.The upper lip is all that should be kept stiff IMHO.its not as if we're savages

Jonty wrote:

swagman wrote:Hunter gatheriing existence is sustainable as the supply of food and raw materials determines the population growth. This has happened since the birth of man and there are some last remaining tribes living a nomadic existence today. It was when man found other ways to increase food production to his own means and greed that the system collapses. A tribe would only eat what is plentiful at the time and say only cut down enough wood and catch enough fish that was needed at the time.
It was the man that would catch more than enough than he needed and traded for other goods or monies that pressurises the system just as capitalism has today and i can guess how thats all going to end.

It may be sustainable but it's an appalling way of life: a life expectancy of perhaps 30; a huge infant mortality rate; little or no education or healthcare; running around the jungle in a loincloth firing poisoned arrows at monkeys; perpetual inter-tribal warfare; no bicycles.
Give me a hot bath, a glass of claret and a Marks and Spencer Chinese take-away any day of the week, after a hard ride.
If sustainability means running around like homo erectus erectus, count me out.
jonty

You would have made a good C19th missionary with your ability to change the facts to suit your views, and find excuses to 'civilise' the savages
HGFer lifestyles in areas where that was the predominant life style were pretty good, especially compared to the local proto-farmers and semi-pastoralists. Healthier, more leisure time, lifespans at least as good, no warfare, etc. As far as education is concerned - again, your views would go down well in the days of the old Empire, the smug assumption that only what is taught in the western 'education' system can be called an education, and that the rich cultural heritage of any other peoples counts for nothing.

To be fair, the HGFer lifestyle is harder in areas where farming is encroaching, the HGFers often being restricted to marginal land. But, again, the life style is not necessarily any worse than that of many in the westernised world, where war, disease and poverty kill thousands every day. You, of course, fall into the trap of assuming that the over-privileged few, such as yourself, are typical of the industrialised/agricultural world. Alas, for all your civilised education, you do seem to have little idea of the realities of the subject.

Thank you for the opportunity to spread a little more western education.

Si wrote:You would have made a good C19th missionary

What a horrible thought Jonty in his stiff suit clutching hid Bible supervising what positions are used.

Seriously Si in this country what sort of area would be needed by a small group of people to live as hunter gathers in a sustainable way?

reohn2 wrote:

NUKe wrote:Lots of people forraging for blackberries in London the other week.

Did they find any?

lots along with iphones, TVs Nike trainers.