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Littlestone wrote: We’re usually pretty good in this country when it comes to protecting our countryside. Not always though – small field systems, along with their hedgerows and ecosystems have been ripped up, while vast acres have been planted with coniferous, environmentally unfriendly, forests. The difficulty with this whole debate is that we live in surroundings that are almost entirely manmade. The small field systems that you mention were imposed by man on previously unenclosed open spaces. In some parts of the countryside, the action of enclosing countryside during the 1,000 years after the Norman invasion was seen by many as a terrible crime, either because it denied the commonry access to land (common grazing, woodland) that had previously been open for them to use, or because at its most extreme it led to people being cleared off the land entirely. And this destruction goes way back, to the periods that we are all most interested in. From the moment when agriculture led to settlement and the ability to domesticate stock led to enclosure, man has been destroying the "natural" state of the countryside. Dartmoor, stunningly rich with prehistoric sites, is the product of an environmental disaster after all. It wasn't always wild and open moorland. Ironically, the forests that you describe (although not planted with "native" species) reflect, in their tangled and impenetrable thickets, a much more accurate idea of what Britain looked like before man started to mess with the environment. I don't disagree that where possible things should be "put back", but let's be realistic about this. You can't put it all back, unless you want to live in a portable tent and follow the migrating herds around. Reply | with quote |  29th July 2011ce 19:46 In reply to: Re: Reclining goddess or Slag Alice? (Littlestone)2 replies: Re: Reclining goddess or Slag Alice? (Littlestone) Re: Reclining goddess or Slag Alice? (nigelswift) |
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