This is the 3rd book in my ‘Reading The Seasons ‘not-really-a-challenge’.
“Across a Walking Land; A 1,000 mile walk through a British Spring” by Roger Morgan-Grenville. (It came up on the library website when I put in ‘Spring’ even though it’s not in the main title – I’m glad it did)
Fed up with bleak headlines of biodiversity loss, acclaimed nature writer Roger Morgan-Grenville sets out on a 1,000-mile walk through a British spring to see whether there are reasons to be hopeful about the natural world. His aim is to match the pace at which the oak leaves emerge, roughly 20 miles north each day.
This was a really good read. Roger Morgan-Grenville’s plan was to walk for eight weeks roughly up the middle of the country starting from his home area by the coast of the New Forest and taking in as many different types of countryside and farming areas as possible looking at how things have changed are are changing for better or worse. He had arranged to meet various people involved with conservation and farming.
I found it so interesting, especially his notes on the research done regarding the way that the countryside is managed – for good and bad.
One of his notes says………….
“Britain doesn’t need farmers, because the food sector isn’t critically important to the UK”‘ a senior treasury advisor said in 2021 . The man who stated this was a Dr Tim Leunig.
When I googled it I found in one account he said it not in 2021 but in 2020 before Covid , and it was in an email leaked to the Daily Mail. Either way it seems a crazy thing to say.
The author had quite a lot to say about dog owners who hang their bags of dog poo on hedges for the “Poo Fairy” to collect and did you know that feeding a large dog for a year produces the same level of emissions as 6,000 miles in a large car and 3.2 million more people became pet owners during covid lockdowns.
Worth reading for all the good information and ideas for things that can be done to help biodiversity.
