This will be of interest to anyone planning fieldwork in the UK in the
coming months....
Since I last posted info regarding access for geological fieldwork in the
light of the UK Foot and Mouth outbreaks on this list back in late April it
is worth noting the access to UK geological sites has improved hugely,
subject to a few precautions. Here are some highlights: Scottish Executive
advice (largely now implemented on the ground) is that the Scottish
Highlands and Islands are now freely accessible. Similarly Snowdonia is
considered to be largely at a pre-FMD state of access. Even large swathes
of the Lake District (subject to fixed entry/exit points) open from
tomorrow (about 3/4 of the fells), in a county that is still seeing the
greatest weekly incidence of FMD in the UK. Much of coastal Britain is
functioning (including Dorset, much of Cornwall, SE Devon, Pembrokeshire...)
These changes reflect greatly modified expert epidemiological advice that
now shows that people who do not have direct contact with livestock
represent a "vanishingly small" risk for spreading the disease.
Access information targetted at the geo-science community has been collated
at the website: http://earth.leeds.ac.uk/fmd (and updated weekly). It
passes onto low maintenance (but is still "live") for the next couple of
weeks while I lead a field class to NW Scotland.
Rob Butler
|