Feral

Did you know that elephants, lions, rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses (phew, what a lot of vowels to get right) once thronged these lands, not to mention bears, wolves, wild boar and beavers? Our present natural environment is an infinitesimal fraction of what it once was – and what it could, perhaps, be again.

    Most conservation efforts (in this country at least) go into maintaining artificial habitats. For example our much-prized moorland is in fact man-made semi-desert. That land should – and could – be covered in trees. Preserving it in its current state is like preserving the ranchlands created out of the Amazon rainforest. We tend to think that nature should be returned to the state we remember from our childhood. But it could be so much more.

    So says George Monbiot in his book Feral which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

    And not just for the sake of the planet. For the sake of our purse (surprisingly) and, most importantly of all, for the sake of our souls.

    And I agree.

    Here are some extracts from the book.

   

I want to see wolves reintroduced because wolves are fascinating, and because they help to reintroduce the complexity and trophic diversity in which our ecosystems are lacking. I want to see wolves reintroduced because . . . they are necessary monsters of the mind, inhabitants of the more passionate world against which we have locked our doors.

Ecological restoration is a work of hope.

. . . the large-scale restoration of living systems and natural processes . . . will, I believe, enhance our civilization, enrich and rewild our own lives, introduce us to wonders which, in these bleak lands, now seem scarcely imaginable.

So much environmentalism is negative. We must stop driving cars, buying clothes, eating food from other countries. It’s another guilt-trip, another straitjacket. George Monbiot’s book, while devastating in its account of how much we have lost in just the last few decades, nevertheless to me offers a positive way forward. It’s a vision of the future, and one that fills me with excitement.

And that’s all a pretty poor summary of a complex powerful book. You’d do much better reading it for yourself.

By the way, he calls the book Feral because the word means ‘in a wild state, especially after escape from captivity or domestication’. That’s us – as we could be.

A rest for the soul

‘Christmas is a lovely rest, isn’t it,’ I say to Frog yesterday morning.

    I’ve only been back at work two days and already I feel frazzled.

    I hear Frog hesitating. We're conducting one of our usual long-distance conversations: he's upstairs in the bathroom and I'm downstairs in the kitchen. I know what he's thinking. Several days shopping. Three days walking, two of the walks several hours long. You call that a rest?

    Eventually, after a long silence, comes his answer. ‘A rest for the soul.’

    Yes! I think. That’s exactly what Christmas is.

Sunrise, January 2013

'Now o'er the one half-world . . .

. . . Nature seems dead’ wrote Shakespeare*. He was talking about night, but the words could equally well apply to winter, and they’ve been running through my brain for the last few weeks. (That’s an old-fashioned education for you, when we had to learn chunks of plays and poetry.) Nature only seems dead however, and if you look closely – as I was doing yesterday because I wanted to try out my new camera – there is all sorts of evidence that nature is far from dead, even on a bleak January day.

* Macbeth Act Two, scene I, lines 49-50

Pink and grey-green lichen on top of a gatepost

Holly in the hedge: glossy old leaves and bright-green new ones

The ubiquitous gorse

Lime-green moss on a shady bank

The Somerset Levels, past, present and future

As I say in my New Age Encyclopaedia, Glastonbury in the Somerset Levels has been a spiritual centre for thousands of years. It is said that the first Christian settlement in Britain was established there by Joseph of Arimathea, and in the town today is an impressive ruined abbey. The town is presided over by the ‘tor’, a striking cone-shaped hill. On the top of the tor is a ruined church built over a prehistoric stone circle. A few miles away is Burrow Mump, a similar but less well-known hill, and that was where we went on Tuesday.

 

Burrow Mump has a ruined church on the top, like Glastonbury Tor. I wonder if there was once a stone circle here too.

Both Glastonbury Tor and Burrow Mump are encircled with small ridges. It is said that these are the remains of paths taken by prehistoric people in their rituals but I think they’re more likely to be the result of soil slippage as the slopes are very steep. Nevertheless, in order to prolong our fun, these were the paths that Ellie and I took. Frog joined us at the beginning and then got bored and climbed straight up the slope to the top.

Getting closer. The slope is much steeper than it looks in the picture but you can clearly see the ridges

We’d spent a lovely day shopping and eating in Glastonbury – it really is one of my favourite places, with friendly people and a special atmosphere – so the sun was setting as we pursued our walk.

We were fascinated by the vapour trails. (Ellie, left.)

Tree skeletons and setting sun around the other side of the mump

The Somerset Levels, as you probably know, are below sea level and were marshland until the Middle Ages, so Burrow Mump and Glastonbury Tor were islands. The views from the top of both are 360-degree.

From the top of Burrow Mump this Tuesday, with the trees lit apricot by the low sun. (Ellie, right)

Last winter the Levels did their best to revert to their former state, and here is the same view in January.

More or less the same view last January, with the Levels resembling an inland sea.

Will last winter's weather repeat itself? Will the flood precautions do their job? Or is the area a candidate for rewilding (see previous post) or at least an extension of the current wildlife reserves? Already bitterns have returned to these reedy patches, cranes which (according to George Monbiot) were once as common as seagulls (hence place names with 'cran' in them) have been reintroduced, and the area is famous for its flocks of starlings. More, I say (although I probably shouldn't).

NB The first two pictures were taken with my new camera (which then ran out of memory because I didn't yet have a card installed) and the rest with my old one. As you can see, the colours of the new camera are much brighter than those of the old. I hope I'm going to like them.

Rewilding

Frog is not a keen walker but yesterday he agreed to come out with me. We drove to a nearby village and took a route I thought I hadn’t done before but realised that I had – once, in the other direction, with a group of friends, a few years ago. Although only a little further from Exeter than where we live, the land felt wilder and emptier. The fields were steep, the pasture unimproved. We didn’t meet another soul. We heard nothing but wind and birds. And we had a little adventure when I lost the path in a spooky wood. Perfect!

On the edge of the spooky wood. (Spot the dog.) I think I need a camera with a spirit level.

Rustic fence and oak trees.

Tree skeletons

Just us and the view

I’m reading a fabulous book at the moment. I chose it because of the title: FERAL: Searching for enchantment on the frontiers of rewilding. Because I’m still only halfway through and because it’s not an easy book to summarise, I won’t tell you in my own words what it’s about but instead quote from the blurb:

Feral is the lyrical and gripping story of George Monbiot’s efforts to re-engage with nature and discover a new way of living. He shows how, by restoring and rewilding our damaged ecosystems on land and at sea, we can bring wonder back into our lives.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been busy recently with a new job – editing our local magazine – and have not had time for my own creative writing. Having had a break from the editing over Christmas however, I realise how important creative writing is to me – whether or not what I write is published. It’s an expression of my own wild self. And this blog is a good place to restart – whether or not anyone reads it!

Off today to buy a new camera. Expect lots of amazing pictures.