UKC

It's often a dilemma, you find a virgin cliff and want to climb it. But what if that cliff has rare plants or animals?


Story at the news page of UKClimbing.com http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Cool. The idea of "cleaning" a previously unclimbed bit of rock does make me feel very uncomfortable.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Leave it alone, in just a few hours you could have destroyed what could have taken many years to evolve... my opinion anyway..

In reply to Paul Bowen:


Does it really matter if a few plants and lichens get zapped by climbers? I suspect in the context of man's effect of the plant that its quite immaterial.

In reply to JimR:

Does it really matter if a few plants and lichens get zapped by mountain bikers?

Does it really matter if a few plants and lichens get zapped by farmers?

Does it really matter if a few plants and lichens get zapped by walkers?

Does it really matter if a few plants and lichens get zapped by developers?

etc etc

Woops! No plants and lichens.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Just part of the evolutionary process really. Take a sample and shove 'em in a museum, they'll be much happier there

In reply to JimR:

Together with your climbing gear as an illustration of one of the many environmentally insensitive activities no longer tolerated perhaps?

In reply to JimR:

What? A human or our opportunity to climb?

In reply to Dave Garnett:

Betcha if a large multi national quarrying company wanted it they'd do exactly that. My point is that climbers have been shown to have little or no effect on the local ecology and things like this tend to be a gross overeaction. Once some is out of limits it tends to never come back into limits again, I suspect if we really wanted to, we could find flora or fauna absolutely specific to any environment. I wonder what other "local" factors were also at play here?

In reply to JimR:

There is little evidence to suggest that they have or haven't. Some best examples are where climbers have moved into area where there are raptors or birds of pray. I've seen studies that say climbers have a negative effect on numbers, others that say a positive effect.

The most important point I can think of is that we have to show care and concern for the envorinment we play in. If we don't it risks getting taken away from us.

This for example was avoidable: http://83.231.159.41/bmcnews/NewsItem.aspx?id=1329

And there are other examples across the globe.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:
farmers?
walkers?
developers?


Don't know many farmers, walkers or developers who are interested in 300 ft vertical cliffs. Do you ?

Just being a bit mischievous but this kind of thing can go too far and we can be guilty of beating ourselves with the environmental stick too hard.

In reply to biscuit:


You are probably right. This isn't an issue in the UK. There is no risk of us losing access to any UK crags and we can treat them how we see fit.

Sorry, just being a bit mischievous.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Re Eagle Tor

seems a very similar situation as Craig y Forwyn many years ago. However not an environmental problem in either case, more of lack of respect and common decency.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:


We do treat them how we see fit; in the majority of cases There will always be am minority who ruin it for others by crapping in someones garden or disturbing birds through ignorance or stupidity.

Do climbers generally have a healthy respect for the environment ?

I think they do. I see an awful lot more people being respectful to the environment than not. I'm all for promoting good behaviour though Mick, don't get me wrong, i just think that we tend to be a bit harsh on ourselves and forget the excellent attitudes and work of climbers in general.

If we got to the stage where every new development had to be scientifically assessed it would be a very sad thing, in my opinion.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:
This isn't an issue in the UK. There is no risk of us losing access to any UK crags and we can treat them how we see fit.

You could lose access at any time to just about any crag if it was decided that climbing was having a detrimental effect on a protected species..believe me! And you certainly can't treat them how you see fit - or is that the bit you're being 'mischievous' about?

In reply to Yorkspud:

Of course.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

See ecology of cliffs by Larson et al 2000 - this details the effect of rock climbing on cliffs of the niagara escarpment and shows a clear detrimental effect to the species present in the area through a number of effects. Trampling , gardening etc

These issues can effect any cliff (Both in the US and UK) that is still to be developed

In reply to shoeface:

Yes familiar with that and has been reported at UKClimbing.com

http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/older.html?month=07&year=2006

Jul 5: Climbing Eco Friendly?
by Mick Ryan


In the latest issue of New Scientist it is claimed that, "Rock climbers do not, after all, damage the ecology of cliffs and routes they scale." This statement is based on recent research by Kathryn Kuntz and Doug Larson at the University of Guelph, Ontario. Earlier studies on the Niagara Escarpment, a popular limestone climbing area, claimed that climbers did effect the vegetation on the cliffs they climb on. This research was cited by land managers in the US when placing restrictions of cliffs and gave climbers a bad reputation amongst conservationists. This more recent study found fatal flaws in the earlier research - that the scientists had neglected to test whether cliffs that climbers chose to climb actually had more vegetation to begin with. Or rather researchers had chosen cliffs that were steep and generally devoid of vegetation in the first place and had used this simple fact to come to the conclusion that climbers had destroyed the vegetation.

Nick Colton, deputy chief executive officer of the British Mountaineering Council was quoted in the New Scientist report, he said, "Climbers would always choose solid stone cliffs over plant-covered ones."

You can read some of the report at the New Scientist website