Where's my forest gone? To the Grouse...that's where....

2manyoranges

Old School Grand Master
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The Grom is not an eco warrior. He is a scientist. Studying forestry. He was involved in managing woodland since he was ten. He will go into land management policy as well as insist on being out and about amongst trees. I am not an eco warrior. I am a researcher. I have been out in the natural world since I was tiny, wandering the chalk valleys and hills of Wiltshire - and more recently managed a 10 acre woodland in my spare time. It's one reason I have always mountain biked - but with a 'leave no trace' philosophy rather than 'dig it up' mentality. Digging can be good - done well it can get young people out into nature in ways that might not otherwise have happened.

My other offspring seldom is outdoors. Bedroom to kitchen to car to work and back. Like many young people she is 'very concerned about the environment' and has virtually no contact with nature. Sigh. That just doesn't work at all - she is bombarded by 'buy this' 'buy that' and that erodes any real concern for nature. But that's pretty much the norm. We may be doomed.

But as counterpoint, for upcoming generations I am working hard to try get the Natural History GCSE approved - so slow.

And then this video - essential watching. I love being in forests. So full of flora and fauna. Badgers hacking up the paths for worms. Squirrels being effing annoying. Roe deer fawns silently tiptoeing about. Fungi erupting everywhere. And the spiders...

SO WHY SO LITTLE FOREST IN HIGHLAND SCOTLAND!!!!???!!

Here's why....

 
It's the same for the vast majority of the countryside in the UK, including national parks, which of course are for the most part just farmland. I'm lucky to live on the edge of a national park, but every time I ride through it I think about what it would look like without all the sheep, shooting and related burning (sheep farming, by the way, is totally economically unviable, and only exists now due to subsidisation, so we're all paying for that environmental destruction). Most of the land is of course owned by extremely rich people who have no interest in changing the status quo.

Just to take one example, Wales does not 'naturally' look like this. This is entirely a sheep-created landscape.

Desert_of_wales_from_Drygarn_Fawr.webp
 
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