Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
California, it would take 2,000 years to regrow mature redwoods.
And it's easy here compared with other places. In Nepal the soil is
washing off the slopes of the Himalayas as a result of deforestation;
so much that it's forming an island in the Bay of Bengal. Here the soil
is acidified and low in nutrients, but we've still got it, which is why
rewilding will take only 250 years.'
Some of the major landowners in the region were hostile to his
ideas, seeing them, correctly, as a threat to the universal application of
the land use they favoured: intensive grazing by deer or sheep, sup-
ported by stalking fees or farm subsidies. But, he says, attitudes on
some estates are slowly changing. Attitudes among other Scottish
people are changing much faster.
'We've tolerated the absentee landlords with scarcely a murmur of
discontent. Scotland suffered a huge psychological blow as a result of
the loss of the Battle of Culloden. It is still a psychological wound
in the nation today. The Clearances happened partly as a consequence.
They brought the sheep in and cleared the people off. Scotland became
subservient and demoralized. We became a nation of sheep. Like all
indigenous people when they lose their connection to the land, we lost
our confidence.
'But over the past twenty or thirty years there has been a tremen-
dous reawakening of our engagement with the land. You can see it in
the number of people here who have joined woodland groups or who
go hillwalking. Now people know about the Caledonian Forest. It has
gone hand in hand with the increased political awareness which led to
the creation of the Scottish parliament. It's a small step to recognizing
that we need to care for the land. But how can we do so if it doesn't
belong to the people who live here?'
As the rain seeped through my coat, down my trouser legs and into my
boots, and I found myself wishing that he would show some sign of the
discomfort I was feeling and some inclination to walk down the hill and
get back in the sodding car, Alan voiced the thoughts that had, over the
past few months, been forming in my mind: 'The environmental move-
ment up till now has necessarily been reactive. We have been clear about
what we don't like. But we also need to say what we would like. We need
to show where hope lies. Ecological restoration is a work of hope.'
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