More Mark Cocker and how to be in nature

More of Cocker's lore - it's not 'them' it's you, it's me, it's us. He's urging us not to blame faceless bureaucrats. 'We don't wish nature conservation to stand in the way of economic growth.' But we need to look at our own behaviour - still eating meat, still flying, still doing all the things we shouldn't. On a more positive note, he points out that if everyone's garden was planted with 50% native species, this would be an enormous boost to birds and insects: our gardens make up 1 million acres of British land. Native creatures need native plants.
I've known for a while that alien conifers are the temperate equivalent of a desert, what Iolo Williams (Springwatch presenter) calls war graves, their rows blocking out all other wildlife, with no sunlight or wild flowers managing to creep under their massive forms, but now I've read that heaths can be as sterile . I have lived in a wealthy person's playground, with pheasants diving in kamikaze fashion close to my wheels on my way to work. What sport there is in shooting something so apparently suicidal I'll never know. Yet even I was unaware that heather-rich environments are created merely for grouse to feed on new young heather shoots, which are created by burning the heather. This of course harms wildlife but also damages the environment, stripping the moor of carbon. Also the large quantities of lead shot used in this 'chasing game' are toxic.
Conservationists are suggesting we need more research into how wildlife aids our physical and mental wellbeing. The countryside is for most people a place of leisure, and sport is becoming increasingly adrenalin based, condensing a week's worth of physical activity into a small burst at the weekend. A binge in nature then back to work. Matthew Oates, a leading expert on how to manage land to conserve insect life, suggests we should be taking up activities that 'get us still and quiet in nature as opposed to charging through it.' More walking and foraging. More just being.
David Bond's new documentary, Project Wild Thing, grew out of his concerns that children playing outside has gone down by 50% in one generation, that this is the first generation to have a lower life expectation than their parents, due to obesity and inactivity. http://www.projectwildthing.com/


I'm the first to admit I don't know enough about wildlife, the lore of our forefathers seems to be slipping through our fingers like the sand that makes the concrete that gradually tidies our wilds. But at least I'm trying.

And there are small grains of hope - as Oates points out, the way butterflies bounced back from last year's disastrous summer was miraculous, shows us what he calls 'the power of nature when we stop interfering' ; the Forestry Commission are removing conifers from ancient woodlands; Mark Cocker has become a key player in New Networks for Nature, hoping to persuade all environmental charities to join in a festival of nature.  http://www.newnetworksfornature.org.uk/