South Downs awarded National Park status

Part of the South Downs with the Long Man of Wilmington on the right
Image credit Sorcha

6000 years in the making, the South Downs (which includes the Long Man of Wilmington hill figure) was today officially designated as a National Park with an opening ceremony in Petersfield. Back in 2009 BBC news reported that –

“The South Downs area has been given national park status almost 60 years to the day since it was recommended. The South Downs, which covers parts of Sussex and Hampshire, was among 12 areas identified for national parks in the 1940s. Environment Minister Hilary Benn has said the area will become England’s ninth national park…

“The announcement means the area will be given the highest level of protection under the planning system.”

More here – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7973417.stm

The “British Rock Art Collection” has vanished!

Somehow we come to expect that the internet will always be there for us: information, emails, newspaper articles, etc but what happens when you wake up one morning and all that information you have recorded has suddenly disappeared overnight due to a site being taken down? With no word of warning, thousands of photographs and information have disappeared from the British Fotopic site. Sadly, the British Rock Art Collection, an invaluable record of rock art, was hosted on Fotopic and as the following words imply the loss is indeed great…

 

Fotopic hosted not only the “British Rock Art Collection (BRAC)” and the “Worldwide Rock Art Selection (WRAS)” for about six years but thousands of other websites with over 27 million photos on-line. With over 18,000 rock art photos on-line and over half a million photo hits so far, the site was used by many rock art enthusiasts from around the world. But it was not only the photos – hundreds of them contributed by our good rock art friends – that are no longer enjoyable on the web. Stories and literary thousands of links to relevant information are gone as well. Thousands of clients trusted the company and lost all their photos what makes it double sad. The chance of a re-appearance of the site gets slimmer by the day and we foresee that we will never get a glimpse of its content again. And no one saw this coming; no warning in advance… e-mail bounced back, telephone lines dead… over & out!

Hopefully BRAC will rise like a phoenix out of the dust and re-assemble a new website but what has been lost is of course irreplaceable.

Conservation by record? Make sure there are non-electronic (paper) backups of the information!

http://rockartuk.wordpress.com/

No fool like a Neolithic fool