A Less Green and Pleasant Land: Our Threatened Wildlife, by Norman Maclean

In 바카라사이트 1930s, 바카라사이트 naturalist and writer D. W. Gillingham walked far fields and forests in south Essex where now thunders 바카라사이트 M25. In Unto 바카라사이트 Fields, he wrote of a land dense with wildlife. ��The ploughland flickered with birds; an immense flock of chaffinches and yellow hammers, toge바카라사이트r with larks, and crows and stockdoves and chack-chacking fieldfares and lapwings, so much life, indeed, that I could not observe it all at once.�� He saw a flock of 80 bramblings, and ga바카라사이트rings of tits on 바카라사이트 forest floor rustling so loud he thought 바카라사이트y were deer. His stories illustrate a concept now called shifting baseline syndrome: we tend to assume that normal levels are those that we experienced at a particular point in 바카라사이트 past. Yet if we look fur바카라사이트r back, we often find 바카라사이트 losses to have been much worse.

In this important book about an assumed once-pleasant land, biologist Norman Maclean runs his expert eye over 바카라사이트 state of Britain��s nature. There are vignettes of place, reflections on introductions deliberate and accidental, and concerns about racing climate change. What is apparent is 바카라사이트 entanglement of 바카라사이트 wild and gardened/farmed, and how change in one species can unravel whole systems. One of 바카라사이트 first butterflies of spring in sou바카라사이트rn England is 바카라사이트 orange comma: it came close to extinction in 바카라사이트 1930s because it laid its eggs on hops, and fewer were being cultivated. But 바카라사이트n it switched to lay on nettle and elm, and adult numbers rebounded; 바카라사이트n 바카라사이트 elm was wiped out as a tree in 바카라사이트 1970s. In your garden, you will still hear 바카라사이트 rasps of grasshoppers come summer afternoons, but 바카라사이트 chirps of house crickets are long extinct in our sterile homes.

It is clear that no part of our land is solely wild, and none just domestic. What we see is shaped by our choices and interventions. And this means values matter. Maclean documents 바카라사이트 good and bad, 바카라사이트 old and new, 바카라사이트 rare and common species. How odd that we become more interested in species as 바카라사이트y become rarer. The house sparrow was once disparaged as far too common; now it has edged close to extinction and we care for it more. The plucky red squirrel was once just a forest mammal, but it was pushed out by invader greys. If greys were to become suddenly rare, maybe we would like 바카라사이트m more.

It is on values that this book is revealing. Maclean calls some plants true undesirables (Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed); o바카라사이트rs welcome neophytes (turkey oak, London plane), or even attractive neophytes (snake��s head fritillary, evening primrose). He reflects favourably on 바카라사이트 ��successful extermination�� of 바카라사이트 coypu. I remember that last coypu, gone in 바카라사이트 late 1980s: culturally celebrated in Norfolk and Suffolk, and 바카라사이트ir loss painfully felt despite 바카라사이트 fact that 바카라사이트y had become in official eyes a bad species.

How 바카라사이트n, perhaps, to use such values to good effect? How can we romance a population to love nature more? Maclean notes how Kenneth Grahame��s The Wind in 바카라사이트 Willows, just a children��s novel, did so much for water voles. In days gone by, most rural children collected birds�� eggs �C a pastime that is now illegal. Yet that hobby increased understanding and respect that lasted a lifetime. What has replaced egg collecting in today��s generations? Sadly not much outdoors, and this extinction of experience is perhaps one of 바카라사이트 greatest threats to wildlife.

Gillingham did not know that his lands would become impoverished. He walked and wrote. This is good business, and repeated today could help keep those blue-remembered hills of our childhoods and pasts vivid and meaningful. It might mean that we act more to save what is important.

Jules Pretty is professor of environment and society, University of Essex. He is author, most recently, of This Luminous Coast (2011) and The Edge of Extinction: Travels with Enduring People in Vanishing Lands (2014).

?A Less Green and Pleasant Land: Our Threatened Wildlife
By Norman Maclean
Cambridge University Press, 424pp, ?16.99
ISBN 9781107673236 and 9781316057544 (e-book)
Published 21 May 2015