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Climbing on Standing Stones
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thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat
6195 posts

Re: Climbing on Standing Stones
Feb 29, 2012, 11:15
nigelswift wrote:
"Instead we have had some comments about "sending out bad signals""

Well I'm sorry but it does and that's the crux. The statutory guardians and most enthusiasts think (with good reason) that promoting (by example) a culture of widespread climbing on monuments leads to damage to lichens and a general lowering of respect and an increase in damage and vandalism to ancient sites and their surroundings.

Anyhow, that's what I (and loads of people) see as plain, inarguable common sense but if others wish to see it otherwise so be it. Good luck with the rest of the thread.


"Plain inarguable common sense" is still not explaining what's wrong with Goff's picture, or climbing on an upland cairn to photograph it. Damage to lichens - at last, something tangible. I can go along with that, where there are lichens. Didn't see many in Goff's picture though.

I also do not see how recording and publishing information and pictures of sites, rock art, etc is going to lead to a "general lowering of respect and an increase in damage and vandalism", if anything it should do the opposite. Education and information are most likely to increase respect and reduce damage. If you read the thread on the climbing site that The Eternal linked earlier, the majority of the people involved said "well I wouldn't have done that if I'd realised what was there", which seems to me to be education and information leading to a better outcome and less likelihood of a similar incident (dry tooling on a rock art site) occurring again.

As I mentioned elsewhere, the statutory guardians allow people to climb on Stonehenge at certain times of the year. I'm not saying that they're right or wrong in this, but you indicate that they know best. Presumably they are exercising their own expertise and risk assessment skills to decide what the potential for damage to the stones is and therefore whether it is safe to allow. I wouldn't think they would allow this at all (no matter what pressure certain "religious" groups placed them under) if they genuinely believed there was a serious risk of damage.
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