The Park Rangers

Make sure your volume is on: "Patience, understanding and an all-round view"

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I think a large part of our patience does come with people maybe don’t understand why we do things a certain way, or maybe the way that the environment works but it also comes down to some of the work that we do. So when we coppice, you’re not going to see an immediate impact of what that has done to an area, so you need to wait however many years to until you see that impact. Nothing is ever straightaway, unless you are putting up a fence or putting a bench in. So as well as having patience for the people around you, it’s having patience for the job itself.

You have to be understanding as well, because everyone has a different point of view. So a mountain biker just wants to go mountain biking, a dog walker just wants to walk his dog. Birdwatchers are into conservation. So you’ve got all these different conflicts. So you have to be understanding to each person.

And I think you need to be a bit of an expert in everything as well, a little bit. [A ranger wears many hats]. So you need to be aware of the conservation of the site, like Scott says, you still need to be aware of all the activities that go on, you need to able identify a dangerous tree but also be able to fix a fence at a moment’s notice, and deal with the public as well. And it’s very varied, what we have to do.

And being able to balance all of these things going on at the same time. So you may say, “Well, this tree has loads of deadwood in the crown, and that’s dangerous because it’s next to a path.” But you may think although that may be the case, it might be better for the environment to keep that dead wood in the crown and so you might think, “How do I balance the ecological side, and also our duty of care over park visitors?”