There's a pond at the end of my road which is on my way to work. It's not much of a pond, it started out as a depression in the corner of a field, and I'm not even entirely sure if it's supposed to be there, we've had a fair whack of rain over the last few years (the water table is currently higher than it's ever been) and I think it just sort of made itself; there's a stand of beech trees more or less permanently in it, which rather suggests that it wasn't always there. I've watched it change and grow with interest. I lamented last summer when a long dry spell dried it out, I was concerned when I saw piles of earth nearby, thinking the farmer meant to fill it in, relieved when these piles were left untouched and became a series of small islands in the pond, quickly colonised by a variety of plants. It's part of my morning routine, on my walk to work, look over, see how the pond's doing. One morning some fox cubs were playing on its muddy shore, one day I spotted some shelduck cruising serenely. For a muddy depression in the corner of a field, it does alright at attracting a variety of birds.
This, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't count for much, it's hardly the rainforest, half an hour's work with a bulldozer and it would cease to exist. The point, I think, is that whilst it isn't much, it's a little bit of nature nearby where it isn't quite supposed to be, and we all, I think, need that in our lives. It's an unusual disruption to the usual dreary agri-landscape, a little bit of land reclaimed from the miles of neat fields that make up West Lancashire, a tiny, defiant bit of business not quite as usual, which is why, I suspect, I'm so fond of it. It gives me a little bit of hope.
Amidst the gathering sense of gloom about man's influence on the weather, rising global temperatures and extreme events, and as floods across the north and midlands demonstrate the dramatic consequences of the changing climate (as well as the dramatic consequences of massive deforestation in the Pennine watershed, but we'll leave that one aside for the moment), it's easy to feel helpless. This can manifest itself in a few ways. Despair is one, wondering what the hell you can do is another, some prefer a sort of jaunty indifference, reasoning that there's nothing that they can do, so they might as well carry on as normal. None of which gets you anywhere, and certainly doesn't do anything to help.
What can get you somewhere is actively doing a little bit of nothing, letting nature take its course. Left to their own devices, some ecosystems can recover remarkably quickly. In his book, Feral George Monbiot writes compellingly of the sheep-blasted uplands of the Cambrian Mountains and yet how, in those areas which have been reclaimed for nature, the plants quickly advance, ecosystems re-establish, the whole landscape reboots. He also writes movingly of the need for us to restore some wildness to our own lives, trammelled as they so often are by the trappings of the day-to-day. Now, in George's case he wants to go out and kayak in the sea and get lost in wildernesses, which is not really for me, I'm more of a nice cup of tea and a sit down kind of a guy, but I do take his point that we could all use a spot more wilderness in our existence, and in doing so, we can be taking some positive steps for the planet as a whole.
I'm not here to make an argument for rewilding, though I think that certainly has its place, but for something more parochial and possibly, en masse, as useful. Most of us don't have space to recreate primeval forest, but a little bit of neglect in your garden can work wonders, we've watched in delight as our smallish suburban patch, carefully left to its own devices in a couple of spots, has suddenly started supporting far more species than it used to (and this isn't even much of the garden, a few square metres of grass left to grow and one corner where all the trimmings from bushes get piled has been enough to entice all manner of hitherto-unseen insects, and where they lead, birds and mammals follow: this was the year where we finally got hedgehogs).
There's a theory that tree planting can be a tool to help tackle climate change, as all those trees draw carbon down out of the atmosphere and sequester it, but this is, I would argue, a slightly too simplistic way of looking it, and also threatens us with the dreadful spectre of miles of conifer plantations, an horrifically unproductive ecosystem where little else thrives (there's also the problem of forested areas at high latitudes reflecting less heat than the systems they replace). Complex problems require complex solutions, and there are no more complex systems than the ones that nature itself produces. Rewilding projects found that in depleted soils their efforts were slower and less productive than those of nature itself, planted saplings need protection from deer and sheep, but an area that's left to its own devices will soon be covered in thick undergrowth, with species like bramble protecting young trees and giving them a chance to grow. It's not necessarily the case that top-down landscape management is the best way forward, maybe sometimes nature needs a helping hand, but quite often it's just fine on its own, thanks.
So it seems to me that rather and try and bio-engineer our way out of a situation that we have caused (in much the same way as the current Conservative party are insisting that only they can fix the problems that, uh, they caused) it may be wiser (and certainly more humble, and Lord knows humanity could use a spot of humility right about now) to sit back and let nature take its course. Leave a bit of your garden to grow, put a few pots out and see what pops up in them, leave some weeds be, be untidy, be lazy. It may not be much, but its something, and at the very least you'll get a few more butterflies than usual, so what's not to like?
This, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't count for much, it's hardly the rainforest, half an hour's work with a bulldozer and it would cease to exist. The point, I think, is that whilst it isn't much, it's a little bit of nature nearby where it isn't quite supposed to be, and we all, I think, need that in our lives. It's an unusual disruption to the usual dreary agri-landscape, a little bit of land reclaimed from the miles of neat fields that make up West Lancashire, a tiny, defiant bit of business not quite as usual, which is why, I suspect, I'm so fond of it. It gives me a little bit of hope.
Amidst the gathering sense of gloom about man's influence on the weather, rising global temperatures and extreme events, and as floods across the north and midlands demonstrate the dramatic consequences of the changing climate (as well as the dramatic consequences of massive deforestation in the Pennine watershed, but we'll leave that one aside for the moment), it's easy to feel helpless. This can manifest itself in a few ways. Despair is one, wondering what the hell you can do is another, some prefer a sort of jaunty indifference, reasoning that there's nothing that they can do, so they might as well carry on as normal. None of which gets you anywhere, and certainly doesn't do anything to help.
What can get you somewhere is actively doing a little bit of nothing, letting nature take its course. Left to their own devices, some ecosystems can recover remarkably quickly. In his book, Feral George Monbiot writes compellingly of the sheep-blasted uplands of the Cambrian Mountains and yet how, in those areas which have been reclaimed for nature, the plants quickly advance, ecosystems re-establish, the whole landscape reboots. He also writes movingly of the need for us to restore some wildness to our own lives, trammelled as they so often are by the trappings of the day-to-day. Now, in George's case he wants to go out and kayak in the sea and get lost in wildernesses, which is not really for me, I'm more of a nice cup of tea and a sit down kind of a guy, but I do take his point that we could all use a spot more wilderness in our existence, and in doing so, we can be taking some positive steps for the planet as a whole.
I'm not here to make an argument for rewilding, though I think that certainly has its place, but for something more parochial and possibly, en masse, as useful. Most of us don't have space to recreate primeval forest, but a little bit of neglect in your garden can work wonders, we've watched in delight as our smallish suburban patch, carefully left to its own devices in a couple of spots, has suddenly started supporting far more species than it used to (and this isn't even much of the garden, a few square metres of grass left to grow and one corner where all the trimmings from bushes get piled has been enough to entice all manner of hitherto-unseen insects, and where they lead, birds and mammals follow: this was the year where we finally got hedgehogs).
There's a theory that tree planting can be a tool to help tackle climate change, as all those trees draw carbon down out of the atmosphere and sequester it, but this is, I would argue, a slightly too simplistic way of looking it, and also threatens us with the dreadful spectre of miles of conifer plantations, an horrifically unproductive ecosystem where little else thrives (there's also the problem of forested areas at high latitudes reflecting less heat than the systems they replace). Complex problems require complex solutions, and there are no more complex systems than the ones that nature itself produces. Rewilding projects found that in depleted soils their efforts were slower and less productive than those of nature itself, planted saplings need protection from deer and sheep, but an area that's left to its own devices will soon be covered in thick undergrowth, with species like bramble protecting young trees and giving them a chance to grow. It's not necessarily the case that top-down landscape management is the best way forward, maybe sometimes nature needs a helping hand, but quite often it's just fine on its own, thanks.
So it seems to me that rather and try and bio-engineer our way out of a situation that we have caused (in much the same way as the current Conservative party are insisting that only they can fix the problems that, uh, they caused) it may be wiser (and certainly more humble, and Lord knows humanity could use a spot of humility right about now) to sit back and let nature take its course. Leave a bit of your garden to grow, put a few pots out and see what pops up in them, leave some weeds be, be untidy, be lazy. It may not be much, but its something, and at the very least you'll get a few more butterflies than usual, so what's not to like?
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