Surveys and Beach Values - but they're only asking some humans!

Seagullz, by flying around and sticking their big red beaks in to interesting spots, actually survey quite a lot. Humans make surveying quite hard work, it seems, by comparison. I mean, every young bird knows not to fly too close to certain humans on the beach: the lurkers in that wonderfully concealing native vegemation for starters - they're very annoyed at any squawking which gives away their position. And young humans who leave behind those nice shiny cans - they can be quite deadly with stones and suchlike. And the big noisy shiny boxes with wheels that chase us up and down the beach - best avoided. But somehow I don't think that these particular beach users will get interviewed by those earnest young humans - get Surveyed about their Preferences for Beach Values. You see, they don't have the Right Beach Values. Any old bird knows that you get the survey result you pay for, and who's running this one? That's right, young gullz, the Greenspace Unit. The Green Spacey guys who want native plants everywhere. Nature at her full, rampant, undisturbed best. Preferably, without those pesky humans.

But if you have to pick the humans least offensive to your Green Spacey self, best stack your sample with the Right People. So you can tell straight away (just like looking down at the back of a Fish and Chip Shop) what's not going to be there. At the chippie, don't go looking for leftover lattes. At the Beach Values Survey, don't go looking for motorcycle or drift car races on the beach, or car parking on the beach. Not the Right Beach Values, you see. Much too diverse. Even though, if you fly over at just the right time of day or night, you can see all these activities and more, if you have beady little seagullz eyes. But I can guarantee you that these won't ever, ever be noted, quoted or voted in a paid-for Survey.

You see, humans want many different things of their Beach, but Green Spaceys seems to want less diversity, not more. We seagullz have acquired quite a taste for the more exotic plants - but that's not the right Green, you see. Greenspace's motto for the beach (they don't have one but seagullz are clevver birds and can invent the odd motto) could well be "Ngaio and Pingao Up the Wazoo", to judge by the plantings up and down the beach. Talk about monoculture!

So, with this Survey, those Green Spaceys really want to confirm their own "Nature (as interpreted by and through Us) Knows Best" meme. Which when you think about it, is really strange, as it means Government by an Elite, rather than by We, the People. I seem to recall a very old gull in my distant youth, saying something like 'it will be a great day when the last emperor is strangled with the entrails of the last priest'. And look what those dumb humans have wound up with. A freaking Green Priesthood. Ain't life funny.

The really funny thing about Green Spacey plantings on the beach is that actual humans hate it. When we go human-watching (and what better than on a sunny clear day or early evening, when one or two of those shiny cans have been consumed, as then humans seem to get a little crazy, but I digress), we head for the sandy bits which is where the humans like to congregate. You don't see too many children happily sliding down the ice-plants, waving and shouting to Mummy and Daddy. And you don't see humans paired off and enjoying a quiet moment on a nice pingao mattress. I mean, have you ever tried to even sit on a pingao plant? Take it from a wise old bird - don't. But we certainly do see little humans rolling down the few sandy slides left, families nestled into sandy pockets of the lower dunes, and those slightly crazy ones well tucked away from the wind and other humans in their little sandy nests. And we get good pickings from them all.

You just have to laugh, don't you. Those stupid humans vote for councillors and pay their rates, and get staff that those same councillors cannot influence, surveys that are used to then confirm staff predilections, and plants they can't even bloody well sit on! And meanwhile the sand just keeps rolling on down to the Spit, untrammelled by Plans, Strategies and Beach Values. Truly, people come and go, but the Sand (and the Gullz) endure.