text:
Thinking Like a Forest
Why do conservation groups help to keep our wildlife in a state of extreme depletion?
I returned from the meetings filled with amazement, and the stirrings of a hope which has been all too rare in recent years. First, at the launch of Rewilding Europe's Wildlife Comeback report three weeks ago, I heard about the remarkably rapid spread of large wild animals back into places which lost them long ago(1).
Then, at the World Wilderness Congress ten days ago, I heard how people and nations with very few resources, under almost impossible circumstances, were protecting or reintroducing "difficult" wild animals, species which are most controversial and which require the largest habitats(2).
Amid the hope and wonder, what hit me hardest was this: while in Britain we applaud the courage of people in poorer nations and celebrate their successes, while we send money abroad to conserve large wild animals and, rightly, become upset if people start killing them, we seem determined not to participate. Protecting species towards the top of the food chain, with all the difficulties that can involve, is something other people should do: we would rather stand back and watch.
Please forgive me for the length of this article. What I am trying to do here is to pull together the strands of what has for me been a gradual and deeply troubling revelation. I have been trying to understand why we are so far behind the rest of the world, why we fetishise deforested and almost empty ecosystems, why the United Kingdom, in the words of the biologist David Hetherington, is "the largest country in Europe and almost the whole world" which no longer possesses any of its big (or even medium-sized) carnivores(3), and why, above all, our conservation groups seem so unconcerned about the depletion of nature in Britain and so disinclined to address it.
This article is intended as a challenge to the British conservation movement and an attempt to catalyse a major change in attitude. While at times my language may be a little spicy, I hope that the groups I challenge will see it as friendly and constructive criticism.
Let me first summarise what I heard at those meetings and have subsequently read.
Rewilding Europe points out that its findings do not invalidate concerns about the global loss of biodiversity. This is happening at rates unparalleled since the previous mass extinctions, caused by meteorite strikes or gigantic volcanic eruptions(4), and it is being driven by human action: the trashing and clearing of habitats, pollution, acidification, global warming and the direct killing of vulnerable species.
Europe is not immune to these extinctions, and some species, both on land and particularly at sea, are being pushed to the brink with astonishing speed.
But at the same time something remarkable and unexpected has been happening. In many parts there has been a great restoration of habitats: partly accidental, as farmers have vacated marginal lands; partly deliberate, as ambitious European conservation groups have secured the protection of large areas. There has also been a sharp reduction in the persecution of many species which people previously either hunted for sport and food or sought to exterminate as vermin. Animals which were once hated are now protected and cherished. Even the species which seemed least likely to return – those which require large territories and were reviled by people – have started to bounce back.
For example, by the First World War, the wolf's range in Europe had contracted to just 7% of what it had been at the time of the French Revolution. It was extinct almost everywhere. Well into the second half of the last century it was still persecuted in its last redoubts.
But since 1970 its population in Europe has quadrupled: there are now around 12,000 wolves on the continent(5). Relict populations in eastern Europe, Italy and Spain have expanded into much of Germany, the French Alps and as far as central France, Catalonia in Spain, Denmark, Belgium and even, on two occasions, the Netherlands. While its populations are not everywhere secure, it is now as likely to be welcomed as feared, as a new generation of nature lovers delights in its reappearance, and as wolf-watching businesses have sprung up, generating income and employment in places where both were in short supply.
Lynx populations have also quadrupled over roughly the same period (to around 10,000 animals), and have spread – largely through deliberate reintroduction by conservationists – from their holdouts in the Carpathians, the Balkans and Scandanavia into places in which they had previously been erased. They are once more living in France, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Italy.
A similar story can be told about golden jackals, returning to much of their historical range in south-eastern Europe, and brown bears, whose population on the Continent has doubled in the past 45 years. Even the wolverine, deeply unpopular with sheep farmers and reindeer herders, still persecuted in some places and requiring vast territories for successful reproduction, is believed to have doubled in number in the 1990s alone(6).
The return of certain herbivore species has been even more dramatic. European Bison have risen from 54 captive animals a century ago to 2,700 free-living beasts today. Alpine ibex have expanded from the 100 animals remaining in Italy's Gran Paradiso massif in the 1820s to 37,000, spread across the mountains of Italy, Switzerland, Austria, France, Germany and Slovenia. Southern chamois numbers have risen from 40 in the 1950s to 69,000 today.
The range of the elk (known as moose in North America) has increased threefold over the past two centuries, and they are still moving rapidly westwards across Europe, now expanding into parts of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Baltic states, Poland, Austria and Germany from which they had been missing for many years. A century ago only 1,200 beavers remained in Europe; now there are more than 300,000 of them, occupying most of their former range(7).
It should be emphasised that, remarkable as these recoveries are, most of these populations are still far below their original size, and occupy far less land than they did before human persecution and the destruction of their habitats began. What we have seen so far is a partial recovery from a great reduction. The state of nature is a state of great abundance, and the recoveries offer us just a hint of how it might have been, and, in some places, could be again.
But missing from most of this story is the United Kingdom. Many of the species I've mentioned once lived here. Bison in Britain died out during the peak of glaciation, between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago(8). They might have been prevented from returning at the end of the ice age (when this landmass was still attached to the Continent) by human hunting pressure. Wolverine survived here until about 8,000 years ago(9). Elk were exterminated later: the last remains found in Britain are 3,900 years old(10).
Bears died out about 2,000 years ago(11). The most recent lynx bones date from the 6th Century AD, but cultural records might extend to the 9th Century: when a stone cross on the isle of Eigg that carries what appears to be a carving of a lynx was erected(12). The last clear record of the wolf in Britain is an animal killed in Sutherland in 1621(13). Beavers might have persisted into the mid-18th Century(14).
There have been a couple of introductions of these missing species: the beavers officially released in Knapdale in western Scotland and unofficially released into the catchment of the River Tay, the bison and moose now living in enclosures on the Alladale estate in northern Scotland, a few escaped wild boar. But otherwise this wildlife revolution has more or less passed us by.
Only three of the mammal species listed in the Rewilding Europe report are thriving in Britain: the grey seal, the roe deer and the red deer. The red deer's enhanced population here (it has more than doubled in the Scottish Highlands since 1965(15)) is, paradoxically, a result of the abuse and neglect of the natural world. The deer no longer have any natural predators here. Stalking estates boost their numbers by feeding them in the winter. They also use funnel fencing and salt licks to provide what is in essence canned hunting to the City boys who come to shoot them. There are now so many and they are so easily found that you might as well shoot sheep. (Hmmm … ).
When you think of the fuss we make about the 500 or so wild boar living in Britain, then discover that there are now 600,000 in Spain and 600,000 in Italy, a million in France and a million in Germany, you can, I hope, understand why I see Britain as the most zoophobic nation in Europe.
At the World Wilderness Congress, I heard the brave and remarkable Li Quan explain her project to reintroduce the tiger into south China(16). The obstacles – political, financial, ecological, humanitarian – she has had to overcome are mind-boggling. But, having established and begun to rewild a viable captive population, and having sold the idea to local people, her project is almost ready to release the first animals. Think of this, when you hear farmers and fishery owners insist that we can't afford to have beavers in Britain.
Joaquim Chissano, the former president of Mozambique, discussed the creation of the vast peace parks straddling the borders of Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe that he helped to oversee(17). Extremely poor and emerging from a devastating civil war, Mozambique nevertheless managed to support one of the world's biggest and most ambitious conservation programmes. It has helped to secure the survival of species that even the bravest European wildlife groups are not yet ready for: the lions, hyaenas, elephants and rhinos which once lived throughout Europe, but which are not even contemplated as potential reintroductions here, though we expect much poorer nations to look after them.
So why does Britain lag so far behind the rest of the world? Why do our conservation groups appear to be so lacking in ambition and aspiration? Before I try to tackle this question, here are two observations. The first will be more or less familiar to people who follow this blog.
1. The places in which you would expect to find most wildlife, and in which you would expect a significant ecological recovery, are those:
a. where the human population is lowest
b. which are furthest from the cities and
c. which are the least favourable for farming.
In Britain this means the uplands. This is why I have become obsessed with the way they are managed. But wildlife in the uplands, amazingly, is faring worse than it is in the crowded, intensively farmed lowlands. The State of Nature report, published in May, revealed that while 60% of wildlife species in Britain as a whole are in decline, in the uplands the rate is 65%(18).
The primary reason is that almost all the trees and scrub – on which the majority of species depend – have been removed, mostly by sheep farming. On the Continent, the uplands are now largely forested, while the lowlands are largely bare. That is what you would expect. Upland soils tend to be much poorer than lowland soils, so farming is less productive there: generally many times less productive. But in Britain, while the lowlands are largely bare, the uplands are even barer. The places that should be our wildlife reservoirs are wildlife deserts.
This state of depletion has been maintained by three means, in escalating order of importance:
a. Stalking estates artificially boosting the population of deer.
b. Grouse moor owners cutting and burning the land (and killing hen harriers and other predators) to maximise the population of the upland chickens people pay to shoot.
c. Governments spending public money to sustain farming – almost entirely sheep grazing – in the hills.
There would be no hill farming in Britain or anywhere in Europe were it not for subsidies.
Keeping the uplands bald, whether or not it makes social, ecological or financial sense, is now government policy. Last week the Secretary of State for the Environment, Owen Paterson, told parliament:
"I am absolutely clear that we have a real role to play in helping hill farmers to keep the hills looking as they do"(19).
This, remember, is the government that refuses on principle to intervene in the market unless it is deemed unavoidable. Yet the environment secretary pledges to use public money to maintain a wasteland. Why?
2. The policies you would expect conservation groups to prioritise would be those that optimised the protection of wildlife. Instead, they have more or less optimised its destruction.
A study by the biologists Philip Shaw and Des Thompson found that:
…wooded habitats in the Cairngorms [in the Scotish Highlands] are about 13 times richer than heather moorland and 11 times richer than grassland, in terms of nationally important species. These disparities are even more pronounced when the extent of each habitat is considered. Despite being the main habitat for some 39% of important species, woodlands cover only about 17% of the land area of the Cairngorms. In contrast, moorland appears to support only 3% of the Cairngorms' important species, but covers some 42% of its area. (20)
The figures are even starker when you consider species found nowhere else in Britain:
Of 223 such species, 100 (45%) are associated mainly with woodlands or trees. … Conversely, moorlands hold proportionately fewer restricted-range species, being the main habitat of just one such species: the fungus Northern Bilberry Redleaf.
I cannot emphasise this strongly enough: the entire basis of upland conservation, as pursued on most of the upland reserves owned or managed by the Wildlife Trusts, the RSPB, the National Trust, Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, Scottish Natural Heritage and other bodies is based on a misconception: that in keeping them open and largely devoid of trees, they are best protecting wildlife. This belief, which is largely unexamined by the groups that propound it, is diametrically wrong. It explains why many upland reserves are about as biodiverse and ecologically inspiring as the average car park.
(For more on British conservationists' obsession with keeping habitats open, see the devastating set of slides compiled by Mark Fisher(21). Some of the policies he has unearthed are so strange that you hardly know whether to laugh or cry).
Our conservation groups are obsessed with the vegetation that results from repeated deforestation: primarily heather moorland. Heather thrives on burnt ground and depleted soils. Wildlife Trusts(22), the RSPB and the National Trust(23) and Natural England(24) all advocate "cutting and burning" to maintain these ecological disaster zones and prevent the restoration of the cleared forests. Need I point out that a conservation movement which believes that cutting and burning is the best means of protecting the natural world is one that finds itself in a very strange place?
Little illustrates the dire and perverse state of conservation policy in this country better than the report published by the National Trust a few days before the inspiring meetings I've mentioned(25).
I'm not singling this out because it is the worst document I have read by a British conservation group. Sadly it isn't, by quite a long way. I mention it because it's considered by the authors to be visionary, novel and forward-thinking. Perhaps by this they mean that it's only 40 years behind the rest of Europe, rather than 60.
The report is the National Trust's plan for managing an upland property which is large by English standards – 10,000 hectares – over the next 50 years. The property is the High Peak Moors, a treeless near-desert in the heart of England lacking most of the strands in the web of life.
The National Trust is often a force for good: see for example its Natural Childhood campaign and leading role in the Wild Network. But here it emerges at its worst: complacent, anodyne, misrepresenting our choices, mistaking a timid, retentive sally into the mid-20th Century for a radical and visionary plan.
This is not to deny that its report is a small step in the right direction, and a recognition of the growing public interest in ecological restoration. But it also reflects the lack of ambition of the conservation movement, and the myths it uses to justify this stance.
Without any explanation or attempt to defend this decision, it has decided that for the next 50 years and perhaps indefinitely this property will remain what it calls an "open landscape".
It will let some trees repopulate the valleys and the ravines but insists that
The open landscapes and vistas of the moors should be retained, so there
shouldn't generally be trees on the open moor tops (26).
Why? Scour its 52 pages and you'll be none the wiser. It's an assertion, repeated in various forms throughout the report, which is neither elucidated nor supported.
Usually, when British conservation groups seek a justification for their war on three-dimensional habitats, they fall back on tradition: this is how the land was, so this is how it should remain. They ignore the fact that almost the whole of the British Isles, including the uplands, was densely forested, before it was cut and burnt and grazed by people and their animals(27,28).
But in an appendix to this report you can find the following:
Pollen records and tree stumps buried in the peat provide a fascinating record of past vegetation, and indicate that the High Peak Moors were once much more wooded that they are today. … in the 16th and 17th centuries … massive woodland and scrub clearance occurred to make way for grazing, including on the moorland tops.
The Trust has decided to preserve a 17th-Century cataclysm. Why? Answer comes there none.
I perked up, however, when I read that "the full range of native wildlife should be present". So imagine my disappointment when I could find no mention of lions – let alone wolves, lynx, wolverines, moose, bison, capercaillie, pine martens, wildcat, beavers, eagles or boar. The only species mentioned under "reintroductions" is the black grouse.
Now I'm not suggesting that lions or wolves or wolverines should be introduced to the High Peak Moors: apart from other considerations, the property isn't big enough. But I strongly object to the way in which the National Trust misrepresents our ecosystems and their history. When it says "the full range of native wildlife", what it is talking about is the barest remnants of what once lived here.
There's a parallel with the sanitised, tea-towel histories it presents to visitors to its historic buildings(29). It airbrushes the people who were cleared to make way for its grand estates and landscaped gardens. History begins for the Trust when the big houses were built. The communities they displaced, the eviction, imprisonment, transportation or execution of those who stood in the way, though well-documented by historians(30), don't feature.
When writing about the land it owns, the National Trust airbrushes the wildlife and ecosystems that lived there before the great clearances that created the open landscapes it preserves. There might be a potted history in Appendix 3, but the rest of the High Peak Moors report suggests that what you see now is what has always been and always will be, that there is no real choice about how the land should be treated, no option but to maintain it more or less in its current state, with some minor modifications.
This is what gets to me most: not just that the vision of our conservation groups is a mere half century behind the rest of Europe, but that they misrepresent the state of nature in this country. They pretend that the current management system is more or less the best that could be envisaged. They glorify our shattered and depleted ecosystems.
For example, in response to the column I wrote about the state of the Lake District(31), John Darlington, the National Trust's regional director, maintained:
Increasingly we recognise the value of places such as this for clean water, for storing carbon in precious peat-rich soils, for food and for nature, and of course for recreation, tranquility and inspiration. Farmers are critical for the delivery of many of these things. (32)
In reality, the best protection for clean water supplies, soil carbon, nature and tranquility is the reduction or cessation of farming in crucial places. For example, if you want to prevent floods and ensure a steady supply of water downstream, the best means of doing so are to get the sheep off (which compact the soil and prevent trees and scrub from returning), to stop the dredging of tributaries by farmers and to de-canalise the rivers. So why do conservation groups feel obliged to recycle such myths? Is the fear of the farming lobby so great that the groups supposed to protect the countryside must repeat National Farmers' Union propaganda?
This is not to suggest that the conflict between hill farming, wildlife and watersheds is easy to resolve; though I've put forward some proposals that I hope might help(33).
Nor is it to propose that there should be no farming in the hills: I recognise the value of the culture and traditions associated with it, just as I recognise the value of the wildlife and water storage it displaces. But why can't we have some honesty about these issues? Some recognition that different aspects of what we might want to see in the uplands – traditional grazing and wildlife restoration for example – might be in conflict? What harm would it do to acknowledge this?
You get some idea of the extent to which the conservation groups have collaborated in both the destruction of the natural world and the cover-up of that destruction when you realise that not one of our national parks is rated higher than Category V in the International Union for Conservation of Nature's directory of protected areas(34). Most of the world's national parks are Category II: "large natural or near natural areas set aside to protect large-scale ecological processes". Some are Category I: "strictly protected areas set aside to protect biodiversity", or "wilderness".
Category V areas are not protected in any meaningful sense: they are, broadly speaking, ranchlands and similarly altered ecosystems. And that is all we have. That there should be designated areas in which farming traditions are recognised and respected is not something I have a problem with. That there should be nothing else is something that concerns me very much.
What it means is that there is no significant area of land in the United Kingdom in which either humans or wildlife can escape intense human impacts. I believe such escapes are essential for developing a sense of ourselves and our place in the world, for allowing the mind to run free, for shedding the stress and confinement of our crowded lives. You want to get away from it all? Then you'll have to go abroad.
Does this stark fact not give our wildlife groups occasion to stop and think and wonder what they're up to? Wouldn't an ambitious, proactive conservation movement be challenging the fact that we have nothing better than Category V protected areas? What do these groups exist for after all? To reassure us that everything is just fine, even as the natural world is locked in a state of extreme depletion?
Why are our conservationists content with so little? Why do they, despite their vast memberships and influence, allow the farmers, deer estates and grouse moor owners – a very small proportion even of the rural population – to define the countryside and our relationship to it? Is there no vision other than a slight modification of what the private landowners want? Where is the leadership? Where is the inspiration?
In this open, blasted, impoverished land, there is little foothold for either wildlife or new thinking. We need to start a debate, a debate which asks a number of obvious questions. What are we doing and why? What is the basis of the decisions we have made? Is it sound? What do we want and how could we get it? These are the questions our conservation groups have failed to ask. Until they do so, they will continue their long and lonely trek into fatuity.
At the moment their vision seems as empty and simplified as the moors they fetishise. It is time they started thinking like a forest.
- http://www.rewildingeurope.com/programme/background-and-goals/wildlife-comeback/
- http://www.wild10.org/
- http://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo/whats-on/re-wilding-europe-return-of-predators,364,EV.html
- http://www.monbiot.com/2003/07/01/shadow-of-extinction/
- http://static.zsl.org/files/wildlife-comeback-in-europe-the-recovery-of-selected-mammal-and-bird-species-2576.pdf
- http://static.zsl.org/files/wildlife-comeback-in-europe-the-recovery-of-selected-mammal-and-bird-species-2576.pdf
- http://static.zsl.org/files/wildlife-comeback-in-europe-the-recovery-of-selected-mammal-and-bird-species-2576.pdf
- Derek Yalden, 1999. The History of British Mammals. T and AD Poyser, London.
- The Mammal Society, 2011. http://www.mammal.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=250&Itemid=283
- Derek Yalden, 1999. The History of British Mammals. T and AD Poyser, London.
- Oliver Rackham, 1986. The History of the Countryside. JM Dent and Sons, London.
- David Hetherington, 2010. The Lynx. In Terry O'Connor and Naomi Sykes, eds. Extinctions and Invasions: a social history of British fauna. Windgather Press, Oxford.
- Oliver Rackham, 1986. The History of the Countryside. JM Dent and Sons, London.
- Bryony Coles, 2006. Beavers in Britain's Past. Oxbow Books and WARP, Oxford.
- http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/forest/humanimpacts/overgrazing.html
- http://english.savechinastigers.org/node/222
- http://www.peaceparks.org/
- http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/stateofnature_tcm9-345839.pdf
- http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2013-10-10b.289.1&m=40459
- P.Shaw and DBA Thompson, 2006. The nature of the Cairngorms: diversity in a changing environment. TSO: Edinburgh. 444 pp. ISBN: 9780114973261
- http://www.slideshare.net/panparks/mark-fisher-a-review-of-naturalistic-grazing-versus-natural-processes
- http://www.montwt.co.uk/Heathermoorlandandbogactionplan.html
- http://www.easternmoors.org.uk/files/downloads/EMP%20DMP%202011-16%20Initial%20Consultation%20Report.pdf
- http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/Images/FAQ%20West%20Penwith_tcm6-15742.pdf
- http://www.high-peak-moors.co.uk/files/FINAL%20HPMVP%20Main%20Plan%20%28v5%29.pdf
- http://www.high-peak-moors.co.uk/files/FINAL%20HPMVP%20Main%20Plan%20%28v5%29.pdf
- R Fyfe, 2007. The importance of local-scale openness within regions dominated by closed woodland. Journal of Quaternary Science, Vol.22, no. 6, pp571–578. doi: 10.1002/jqs.1078
- JHB Birks, 2005. Mind the gap: how open were European primeval forests? Trends in Ecology & Evolution Vol. 20, pp154-156.
- http://www.monbiot.com/2009/02/24/the-propaganda-of-the-victor/
- EP Thomson, 1975. Whigs and Hunters, p223. Penguin, London.
- http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/02/lake-district-wildlife-desert-blame-wordsworth
- http://ntpressoffice.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/the-lake-district-is-it-really-sheep-wrecked/
- http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2013/jun/06/challenge-agricultural-hegemony
- http://www.nationalparks.gov.uk/learningabout/whatisanationalpark/nationalparksareprotectedareas/iucncategories
- http://www.iucn.org/about/work/programmes/gpap_home/gpap_quality/gpap_pacategories/
4 thoughts on "Thinking Like a Forest"
Wow. This is tragic indeed. I'm from South Africa, and although our widest known wildlife areas are sometimes only catering for tourises because of the tariffs, they are there, and they are accessable. So glad we have them. So precious. Just a question, from someone obviously blissfully ignorant. What about good Brits like Sir David Attenborough..? Couldn't he and his kin help with some "lobbying" of its own kind? Good luck..
Debates achieve nothing. Just watch Parliament waffling to see what I mean. Simply ignoring the vested interests and getting on with it wherever possible is the way to go, in my humble.
Take a look at what is being achieved in Todmorden (TED talk) and then you will get my drift.
Thank you for this very interesting article, I often cringe at the ecological policies of this country. I live in Wales, a part of Britain much applauded for its natural landscape and heritage, but all I ever see is sheep grazing on never ending lawns. Last week a local farmer was sentenced to 10 months suspended sentence (meaning a slap on the wrist) for profiting from the illegal dumping of controlled substances (waste material that needs to be treated to become safe for disposal) in a disused water reservoir on his land. On this very site there was a recent article discussing local government across Britain planting exotic trees over native ones despite ample evidence that native species are far more beneficial for wildlife. I live on one of the fabled Welsh hills which is now up for grabs to frack for shale gas. This is terrifying for a number of reasons you all probably know about, but the one most people around here are not considering is that this lovely looking, sheep covered, grassy hill is not a natural formation. I live on an old slag heap (a mountain of bits of coal tossed by miners because they were too small for shipping). These hills are prone to landslides, this year is the centenary of the Sengenydd disaster when a school was buried under tonnes of coal and mud, killing all the village's children. Now our government wants to further distabilise the ground under our very feet! I know I went way off subject there, but it was just to illustrate there is nothing logical about british approach to the countryside. More to the point, I believe that the reason most people want to see the grass deserts preserved is a romantic one. It has to do with landscape description in classic novels and how people use those notions to identify 'britishness'.
Take fox hunting, it is an argument that polarises british society, with violentish protesting on both sides and consecutive governments apeasing first one side then the other. A very hot subject right now in the british media is the badger cull being undertaken to restrict the spread of TB to cattle. There are many debatable issues when government decides to kill half of the population of what is probably our top wild predator to safeguard cattle that could be treated or kept in lower numbers. But what I find extraordinary, is that because the population of badgers is lower than expected (it fluctuates wildly, but considering how much damage it is supposedly inflicting the estimate is less than 3000), the culling period is being extended. One would think lower wild population equals less being culled, but apparentely the opposite is what will be happening because farmers are accusing activists of stealing badgers from traps to influence the census. The activists, of course say farmers have been killing badgers illegally which is why the population is so low. Apart from political polarisation where environmentalists are accused of being urbanites and crazy farmers (there is the occasional sane kind) the true defenders of the countryside there is also a religious aspect against rewilding. I know it has been over a thousand years but christianity took these islands by burning down the forests where people worshipped ancient gods and 'good decent folk' aren't particularly attracted to trees. Consider for example St Patrick who was elevated to sainthood by banishing all the snakes from Ireland and also St George who slew dragons, they are both euphemisms for druids, but it doesn't bode well for the re-introduction of large predators or venomous species…this is a country obssessed with health and satefy, especially where children are concerned, if a proposal to reintroduce bears to the last remaining pockets of welsh forest was considered, groups of parents would join forces to protect all small critters from those savage beasts. Finally, I want to tell you about a recent request I made to the local council to stop mowing the lawn verge on my street because I wanted to plant a pear tree and a cherry tree, their response was that town planning does not permit trees in my area because they cause anti-social behaviour!!!! Apparently, trees have been cut down in the past because "youths congregated under them" and the residents complained! That for me describes the attitude that frames the British mindset towards anything unsanitised.
Interesting article but can't see its feasible in England where our National Parks are made up of private land, unlike other countries. Its not clear in your article whether you consider the whole of our uplands should be rewilded, or just a proportion. I'd be interested to know who you suppose would manage the rewilded woodland and what you suppose would bolster rural upland economies if their mainstay of tourism and farming nosedives? Most people visit the English Lake District because of its landscape and I can't see how re-wilding would sustain rural communities. Also, who would manage the woodland to ensure mixed structure; mixed age; rides and glades for sun-loving wildlife; paths and cycle tracks; fire breaks; invasive species management (or would you let rhodie takes over), etc. I believe there is room for more forestry parks, but not wholesale change.


text:
Daily Archives: July 25, 2017
Our Indianapolis Preschool Program: What Parents Say!
Being a parent is one of the greatest accomplishments a person will ever achieve in their life. With parenthood comes lots of decisions, some of which will pale in comparison to others. Some decisions, such as where you choose to send your child to preschool, will have an impact for years to come. The hope

subset: commoncrawl


text:
OurVinyl is a Nashville-based collective that brings in artists from all over to participate in their OurVinyl sessions, with the goal of spreading that feeling you get from watching a band perform live. They feature professional quality video and audio recording, and this time they've brought in one of Charleston's very own: Brave Baby. For their OurVinyl Sessions, Brave Baby performed four songs at Kidd Epps Art Shop in North Nashville. The setup is awesome, and Brave Baby killed it as per usual. Below you'll find Brave Baby's OurVinyl Sessions for their songs "Be Alright", "Larry On The Weekend", "Octopus J", and "Daisy Child", our their 2015 record Electric Friends. Brave Baby's OurVinyl Sessions are also available on Spotify. Enjoy.
Brave Baby - Be Alright (OurVinyl Sessions)
Brave Baby - Larry On The Weekend (OurVinyl Sessions)
Brave Baby - Octopus J (OurVinyl Sessions)
Brave Baby - Daisy Child (OurVinyl Sessions)
Up next: SUSTO - Waves (Single)


text:
Shasta College Athletic Hall of Fame 2018
Join us to celebrate the 2018 Shasta College Athletic Hall of Fame Inductees!
When: Friday September 7, 2018 5:30PM
Where: Win River Casino, Redding
Dinner Tickets: $35 Purchase tickets HERE
Congratulations to the 2017 Shasta College Athletic Hall of Fame inductees:
Cassidy Olson: Softball 2010-2011
Cassidy Horner: Softball 2011-12
Kevin Nicholson: Football 2005-2006
Austin Stack: Football 2004-2005
Garrett Schaad: Football 2005-2006
JT Minto: Wrestling 2008-2009
Ravien Lawson: Women's Basketball 2010-2012
Lauren Swetland: Volleyball 2008-2009
Sarah Scott: Volleyball 2008-2009
Gary Houser: Shasta College Athletic Director 1999-2014
Rodney "Rocket Rod" Sullivan: Announcer 1997-2017
View the complete list of Shasta College Hall of Fame Inductees.
Criteria for induction to Shasta College Hall of Fame.
Student Athlete must meet the following:
- Three year waiting period after completion of eligibility.
- Intercollegiate sports accomplishments at Shasta College have been significant enough to make the athletes athletic career at Shasta College worthy of this recognition.
- Sports accomplishments in subsequent non-collegiate, amateur, or professional competitions.
- Other outstanding achievements in business, service to country, community, or Shasta College after sports competition at Shasta College.
- Shasta College coaches who may not be Shasta College graduates, but who have contributed to Shasta College Sports to the extent that their influence has brought prominence to Shasta College.
Nominees who are not selected remain on the selection list for a period of five (5) years. If you would like to nominate someone for consideration, please complete the Nomination Form. The deadline for submission is May 31. Please review the above criteria prior to making a submission.


text:
The Pierce County Council voted unanimously Tuesday to release $3.5 million from the county's sewer fund for construction of a pair of parks adjacent to the Chambers Bay Golf Course.
The move, which comes with a few strings attached, will help open the 930-acre Chambers Creek Properties to the public, something critics of the upscale golf course have wanted. It also goes a long way toward opening the nearby beach to public access.
Funding for Central Meadow and North Meadow parks was part of the roughly $19 million that council members froze last year during a clash with County Executive John Ladenburg.
Since then, the council has received more information from Ladenburg about the projects and has agreed to release most of the frozen money.
In addition to the parks, council members voted 6-1 Tuesday to release $6.3 million in frozen funds to pay for construction of a reclaimed water facility for the sewer utility.
The facility will serve as a pilot project for new technology the county plans to use when it expands the sewer treatment plant.
Council Chairman Shawn Bunney, R-Lake Tapps, cast the no vote.
The parks funding gained support from council members after an amendment was added requiring the City of University Place to contribute at least 10 percent toward construction. The parks will be located within the city limits, council members noted, and the city stands to gain from them.
Ladenburg was given until May 1 to negotiate with the city. Work on the projects could be halted if negotiations fail.
The amendment also scaled back plans for the North Meadow in case the property needs to be sold.
That part of the Chambers Creek Properties has been identified for possible sale in case the golf course runs into financial trouble.
Central Meadow Park will consist of 22 acres with trails immediately south of the golf course. North Meadow Park is a 6-acre park on the north edge of the golf course.
Both are scheduled to open in May 2007, at the same time as the golf course.


text:
Andrea Seidt is a national leader in state securities regulation through her role with the North American Securities Administrators Association. Seidt has served as Commissioner of Securities since 2008. Prior to her appointment, she worked on investor and consumer protection litigation as Deputy Chief Counsel for the Ohio Attorney General's Office. She has also worked in private practice. Seidt received her undergraduate and law degrees from The Ohio State University.
For the latest regulatory updates, industry trends and hot topics, subscribe to the Ohio Securities Bulletin. The Bulletin is made up of submissions by both Ohio regulators and guest authors from the industry. Subscribe here today.
The Ohio Department of Commerce focuses on safeguarding Ohio's citizens, and through the Division of Securities we help protect older Ohioans from elder financial abuse by regulating securities professionals and products. Read these tips on how to avoid becoming a victim of financial fraud.
The Ohio Division of Securities provides Investor Alerts to keep you informed about investment frauds, scams and other issues to help protect you and your money. Be sure to read our latest Alerts.
Be sure to mark your calendars for our annual Ohio Securities Conference. Registration information with detailed topics and a complete speakers list will be available mid-August.
Division of Securities
77 South High Street
22nd Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Phone 614.644.7381
Contact the Webmaster for Questions
or Comments on the Website:


text:
From the Mouth of the River
Spring is around the corner... but which one?
Everywhere I go people are saying that spring is just around the corner. Apparently I have been looking around the wrong corner as I have not seen any sign of it showing up yet!
But while we're sitting here in our snug-as-a-bug cubicles watching one cold front followed by another cold front just a week apart, I am reminded of just how lucky we are that we don't live back east where snow comes in feet not inches and the temperature ranges way below brass monkey cold with high winds to boost it along.
While we, on the other hand, are sitting here drinking our West Coast lattes and whining about our latest blanket of snow with the temperatures down below freezing.
If you have been paying attention, all winter this cycle has been accruing every ten days to two weeks, with temperatures from down below freezing to the upper 40s. It's at this high point we start to think about spring being just around some corner. However, as our little cold front chugs up the Rocky Mountains like the Little Engine That Could, it picks up all the cold temperature it can carry and descends down the other side, picking up speed with nothing to hold it back but a barbwire fence somewhere in Montana. And by the time it hits the Great Plains it collides with the southern updraft of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, and dumps it on the eastern states with a vengeance.
In the meantime, we are sitting back and reading a good book (probably Boots 'n' Beans) with our cabinets and storerooms full of food and extra water, plus coal oil lamps, plus a winter's supply of firewood as well as propane heating stoves. Some of us even have the latest addition, a generator we can switch on to bring everything back up to normal activity: TV, well pump for water etc, etc. so we can watch the news from back east of six lanes of stalled traffic on eastern freeways with snow drifted up past their windshields and all stalled out for as far as the eye can see.
It's not like they didn't see it coming, it's been on TV for for days. These storms come in cycles and you can see them coming several days ahead of time; when they hit it takes them three days to pass through. Just work four days a week and stay off the roads allowing the snow removal people to clean the city and start over when it is clean; It takes less time to clean it and more production in the work place.
PS. I did get a lot of response from my story about the rat in the chili bowl; I wrote it just to see if anyone was reading my stories. Apparently they may not after that story aired. However, some people thought it was a disgustingly funny February issue of the River Journal.
I have noticed that my computer office has become more and more cluttered with garden catalogs and orders of seeds are filling up our drop box at the mail box, Apparently The Garden Queens are going to strike it rich this year. If, in fact, we have a good growing year, there are going to be some good munchies and crunches and vine ripe tomato sandwiches—my favorite!
I have been asked to give a talk at the community center this summer as part of their artist program. We will probably have Bar-B-Q just to entice you to come. Last time I spoke there it was standing room only and some were turned away. Also, we won't serve chili.
Stop in and you might find out just how funny cancer can be. I have beaten it twice at our local hospital cancer center. Colon twice and liver; so don't be afraid of it. Too many people are even afraid to take a test for it, afraid they will find something, and if they do they think their life is over. I'm here to say "Not so." You will get a kick out of my talk and a good dinner you won't have to cook;