Tag: natural environment

31 Days Wild: 4th May 2025

Growing up, our home had a lovely scented honeysuckle that climbed over the front door. Its rampant growth required periodic heavy pruning. I too have planted a honeysuckle near our front door. Its growth is sedate and its scented qualities unproven as every year its blooms attract a mass of aphids.

Aphids are meat and drink to lady birds – or so I am told – so I am loath to use an insecticide. Thinking about the aphid as part of wild nature, I googled aphids and honeysuckle. Apparently aphids on honeysuckle point to poor soil which is preventing the honeysuckle from outgrowing the aphids. 

Wild honeysuckle grows in woodland environments, where the soil is rich in humus, and where the roots are shaded whilst the stems climb up to the light. So I guess I need to replant my honeysuckle in a more homely environment!

Counting on day … 151

19th August 2024

If we embrace the definition that humans are as much a part of nature as any other living thing, how does that prompt us to understand humans as contributors to the natural environment?

As hunter gatherers, were early humans any different from other creatures in their interaction with the natural environment?
Like other creatures they would have found ways of getting food – hunting and gathering – and water, finding shelter from the elements and protection from dangers, evolving ways of rearing their young, learning and passing on knowledge about what was safe and what was dangerous in their environment, developing forms of communication to share knowledge, to give warning of danger, and to build social cohesion. They would have developed patterns of living that optimised their survival – and on an ongoing basis adapted these as and when the environment changed around them. 

Counting on … day 150

16th August 2024

There is a movement called ‘We are Nature’ (1) which aims to redefine the word ‘nature’. Dictionary definitions of nature  define nature as being other than what is human. This setting apart appears assumes that  that which is human is superior,more important, than nature, and thus to undervalue nature. The definition this group is looking to introduce would be along the lines of “The living world comprised as the total set of organisms and relationships between them. These organisms include bacteria, fungi, plants and animals (including humans). Some definitions may also include non-living entities as part of nature – such as mountains, waterfalls and cloud formations – in recognition of their important role underpinning the web of life.” This one comes from The Conversation – https://theconversation.com/a-new-campaign-wants-to-redefine-the-word-nature-to-include-humans-heres-why-this-linguistic-argument-matters-229338

If we see humans as being integral to, and not separate from, nature then how will that affect our understanding of what is a natural environment? For surely by this new definition a natural,

 environment is not necessarily an environment free from a human presence or influence? Might a natural environment be better defined then as an environment in which there is a harmonious – long lived? – numerically rich biodiversity?

(1) https://wearenature.org/our-story/


Counting on … day 149

15th August 2024

Rewilding describes the process of recreating or restoring natural environments where nature is given a helping hand – for example by introducing a small number of pigs or cattle to replicate the activities of their wild forebears. In this way the hope is to allow the natural environment to recover the form it would have had before being reshaped by humans. Notable examples include the Knepp Estate but also less well known ones such as Ennerdale in the Lake District and the Sussex Kelp Recovery Project – ocean and sea beds are just as much in need of restoration as natural environments.

Counting on … day 146

12th August 2024

The so called ‘Glorious Twelfth’ marks the start of the shooting season for grouse. Over the next few months some 700,000 red grouse will be shot on moors across the UK. These birds, whilst they remain wild, are husbanded by the owners of the grouse moors using methods that involve burning heather and shooting predators and competitors such as foxes, crows and magpies, and birds of prey. The burning of the moorland heather is intended to maximise the new shoots which the grouse feed on, but at the same time it damages the underlying peat and reduces biodiversity, killing insects and small mammals, and by inhibiting the growth of a wider range of native plants. 

Grouse-moors are an artificial construct and do not equate with maintaining a ‘natural’ environment. 

“Grouse are charming, sensitive birds who can survive as far north as the Arctic circle and are devoted parents to their chicks. They deserve better than being killed in cold blood for someone’s twisted idea of entertainment.” https://www.peta.org.uk/blog/grouse-shooting/