Given some of the issues that still plague the BMC, I question whether it's reasonable to expect it to do much more than it's already doing specifically in terms of outreach to people that aren't paying attention to/aware of things like the RAD. More broadly it also seems a little unfair to suggest that the BMC have failed to resolve situations like the one at Griff's in terms of the assumption that it was the BMC's responsibility to resolve them in the first place.
It was only five years ago that the crustier members of the organisation filed a motion of no confidence on the basis of some mad bullshit that essentially stemmed from the BMC putting more into indoor comps. People like that are obviously outliers, but given the majority of BMC members are hillwalkers, mountaineers, and trad climbers, what would be the response were the news to come out that the BMC is allocating funds to an initiative to work with Instagram influencers to safeguard access to bouldering crags that vanishingly few of the membership have even heard of/care about, and still fewer would even want to climb at?
That's not to say that the BMC shouldn't bother, and obviously they've already done some good work with the 'Respect the Rock' series, but I wonder if we need to do more individually and as a group to hold other individuals and companies to account in terms of spreading this information. I think that that’s particularly important in cases where these posts and bits of content that are behind the disconnect between newer climbers and the BMC/RAD in the first place are proving to be profitable, whether that be content generated by individuals to fulfil/chase sponsorship deals or companies to market products and services. In the thread the other week someone mentioned that the Lattice video about bouldering in the Churnet made absolutely no mention of the access problems there, which seems to me be pretty poor if you consider that video for what it really is - an advert for Lattice - and the likely outcome of it being posted - more visitors to the Churnet (and ones who are unaware of access issues!).
If we post on social media we get something out of it: as an individual that might be a simple connection with other people, the dubious honour of a Third Rock 'Brand Ambassadorship', or maybe even a pair of shoes; as a company, posting will generally grow the customer base and thus increase revenue. But perhaps that platform should come with the expectation that, if you're going to post about and thus commodify climbing venues, you need to highlight important access issues in those posts. My sense with the Wright's Rock ban is that all of a sudden everyone was posting about how a small minority had ruined it for us all by not sticking to the rules, but in the last year or so I've seen loads of posts and media showing ascents of Simple Simon, Fingers, etc. and not one that's mentioned anything about the rules or the tenuousness of the access. Which is to say that there was a good deal of both constructive 'stay away' messaging and less constructive 'people have been logging on days when they shouldn't have been climbing there, let’s try and name and shame them' finger-pointing, but that wasn't preceded by any kind of 'here's a video of me at a place where we need to tread carefully' kind of messaging.
TL;DR: In addition to spraying hashtags and green ticks everywhere, Insta-wankers need to give their followers access briefings. Maybe with a Range West-style pass system?
