Out Come the Wolves

One of the things many conservationists, especially those involved in rewilding, in Scotland (or Britain in general) seem to turn to is the links between ancient British history and language and the wilderness that has since been drastically extirpated from the Isles. A consideration for the Celtic history of Britain can be found in texts such as George Monbiot's writings including his book Feral, which brought rewilding into British popular consciousness, and other texts that often highlight the plight of the Scottish or Welsh when faced with clearance and industrialised agricultural change. Organsiations similarly discuss the Celtic nature to Britain's wilderness, whether they are management trusts such as the Woodland trust, or rewilding organisations such as the Cambrian Wildwood project in Wales, or Trees for Life operating in Scotland. Many organisations have settled on exploring a particular era of linguistic history in the British Isles, namely the Brythonic (asides...

All pictures are taken from the Sussex Roots facebook group (link at bottom) and so may not be my own. Sussex Roots is a society at the University of Sussex; we have always attempted to act as a co-operative as much as Student Union society limits will let us. Basically, it is an allotment for all to get involved in, learn about DIY gardening for the purpose of food, learn about interacting with the environment, experiment with sustainability and socialise outside of an academic space. The original allotment site- we grew almost everything in raised beds outside. I first heard of Roots from a group of my neighbours from East Slope, the now condemned student halls at Sussex, that were about to head out to the site. It suddenly dawned on me that this would be the first time I could make decisions and be more active in growing food. Before, when working on family member's plots, I was merely clueless labour; now, I was part of a team, all of us clueless, welcoming to more c...

Apocalyptic visions are getting harder and harder to ignore in the 21 st  century; they’re embedded densely in popular culture, the media frequently leans towards intense catastrophic fear-mongering, and many experts are espousing troubling theories about the nearing end-times, including the man who conceived of the ‘Gaia’ hypothesis, James Lovelock.             Instead of spurring a drive towards correction, this kind of embedded fear has all too often led to frantic action and bizarre offsetting of fear; Slavoj Žižek observes that in the face of impending sea level rises and the loss of both ice caps, people are instead attracted to (and fed by the media) stories about possible carbon-saving boat travel across the newly created Arctic sea, or the possiblility of Antarctica as an entirely new plain to colonise. This impedes the kind of radical environmental action massively; people are either happy to continue wit...

Originally posted on my other blog featuring a broader range of written work at  miragesofleavesinspring.blogspot.com   Near Horsham in West Sussex is a castle estate called ‘Knepp Estate,’ which, alongside farming, has let a great deal of the estate return to the wild. Medium-sized herbivores such as longhorn cattle, roe and fallow deer, Exmoor ponies and pigs roam freely on the estate. So far, these rewilding techniques have regenerated the soil’s nutrient quality, making farming once again viable near the site, whereas traditional intensive farming had rendered the soil unworkable without large quantities of chemical fertiliser; farming is finally profitable once again in the area.             The benefits of rewilding are numerous; vastly increased biodiversity and carbon sequestration, as well as social benefits such as those George Monbiot wrote about in  Feral;  the sense of adventure and wonde...

Originally posted on my other blog featuring a broader range of written work at  miragesofleavesinspring.blogspot.com   We cannot talk with animals. We cannot truly communicate; we can read body language and sounds, but we cannot converse, exchanging knowledge and stories. We believe we can, though.             Communication worldwide is poor. Humans do not know what other humans are really trying to say or what they really mean; between mind and mouth the message struggles to be released. With animals, it is obviously a whole lot worse, but humans have built up a series of communicative myths to enable them to live consciously at peace with the world of nature. This can be seen in the ‘wild’ animal, whom we respect for having a language and endlessly attempt to communicate with or ensnare in some way; the ‘domestic’ animal, whom we talk to, chatter with, but are talking really to ourselves; and the ‘incomm...

Originally posted on my other blog featuring a broader range of written work at miragesofleavesinspring.blogspot.com (image via http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/files/2013/11/Julie-Larsen-Maher-5816-American-Bison-in-wild-YELL-05-05-06.jpg) Bison will wake up everyday from now on across the U.S., they will take the hard hits from sun, snow, wind, rain, they will duel with wolves and hunters, because finally, fine-al-lee, they’ve done that thing that they were born for, they were made for, their ancestors took knocks from tusks and spears and fangs for; they’re now the national mammal of the U.S. of A, my friends; they’re the proud hairy beasts of God’s own freedom country.             But they won’t. They’ll snuffle mounds of each other’s faeces, they’ll bray strangely at slight sounds among the woods. If they saw a flag, maybe they’d try and eat it, but more likely it’d be an annoyance, a brightly coloured occurren...