text:
dispatches from the undergrowth
nature in the quiet-nearby
In a Lowly Cattle Shed
The rain is hammering down on the metal roof and the wind rattles every loose corrugated sheet but still the glorious voices of the singers rise up, soaring above the racket. A sense of community and common purpose is palpable – it feels like a triumph of spirit over adversity.
We are standing in an enormous open-sided shed in the middle of Machynlleth's livestock market; the floor is gridded out with sturdy metal pens, which 3 days ago were crowded with jostling sheep. Each of us, in a group or singly, has our own pre-booked animal pen to ensure social distancing – the straw and dung has thankfully been swept aside. At the front, performers from Mid Wales Opera are giving it their all – delighted to be in front of a live audience for the first time in months. Pop-up opera in a sheep shed – where else but Wales could these two so readily share a bed.
Apple-of-Peru
As it happens this place was a haunt of mine during the first lockdown due to the interesting flora that grows here. In the scrubby margins, rough grass and disused animal pens all sorts of plants eke out an unlikely living. Some of them no doubt arrive here with the dung and straw, on the fleeces of the sheep or even the tyres of the vehicles that come from far and wide every market day. I found oddities like Apple of Peru, Fool's Parsley and even a discarded potato, whose flowers were as lovely as I saw all summer. Others like Red Bartsia, Common Mallow and Dovesfoot Cranesbill inhabit the tussocky grass – scuffed patchily into seedbeds by wheels and hooves. Other species thrive in the undisturbed scrub that runs along one side of the mart: this was the only place in the district where I found our native Goldenrod and Broad-leaved Helleborine. The latter is an orchid, several of which were unusually vigorous and packed with flowers, despite having emerged from ground sprayed lifeless with weed killer.
Broad-leaved Helleborine
Remembering these tenacious plants as I listened to the final rousing carol filled me with a sense that life and spirit can overcome even the most difficult times and daunting odds.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized on December 22, 2020 by dispatchesfromtheundergrowth.
This entry was posted in Promoted Post on October 30, 2020 by Selena Jackson.
I hadn't been to Craig y Tan for months: a combination of a hip replacement operation and Covid 19 lock-down had made it impossible. But by late June and I couldn't stand it any longer, so I set out early and pulled up at the farm by 7.30, on what is promising to be the hottest day of the year so far. Parking someway short of the yard I can see Hywel walking across the field below the house. He is carrying one grandchild and leading the other by the hand; in front of them seven sheep dogs spin and leap, let out for their early morning exercise. He stands for a while looking down the valley and I imagine he is talking to the children about Craig y Tan; I know how important it is to him that they are steeped in this place. It is a tender scene, evoking the care for family and place bound together, generation upon generation. A bit later I catch up with them under the sycamore tree by the house. Anest is pushing herself on the swing and Eurig, a sturdy little lad just past his first birthday, stands regarding me solemnly. Hywel and I talk a bit of nature and a lot about family and grandchildren; the affection and pride for these two shines out of him, transcending anything else we might have spoken about.
Setting off across the meadows and rough grazing, the grass is wet with dew but the streams are low after the dry weather. It is very quiet; other than a wren belting it out and the intimate calls of house martins swooping around me there is a deep silence. It is already getting hot; a gentle breeze barely stirs the leaves. As I walk my boots scuff against heath bedstraw, bright yellow hawkweeds and the green bladders of seeding bluebells. Facing up the valley towards Moel Llyfnant there is little evidence of 'human time', just the unhurried rhythm of natural processes. The rocks, squat hawthorns and sheep cradled in this valley feel like a scene outside of time – as if nothing has ever changed and never will.
Heading uphill I scramble over the fence into the woodland (a bit of a challenge for my new hip) and everything changes; or at least intensifies. Because it is so rare that anybody comes into these woods they have an untouched, fairy-tale atmosphere. A buzzard circling overhead starts mewing, a wild sad sound that only adds to the estrangement. Under the gnarly trees the grasses and ferns are tall: patches of stately marsh hawk's-beard and valerian decorate the wetter places, delicate beech ferns fringe a chaos of rocks. I feel uncomfortable about crushing the vegetation, as if by walking here I am spoiling the place. Painstakingly I clamber up the moss covered block scree, testing each step with my stick; this is not quite what the doctor ordered.
I make it up to the base of the cliff and settle down with my back against a rock. Looking down I can see through the twisted intricacy of woodland to the rough pastures both sides of the river half a mile away. From there the lower slopes of the mountain is gridded with elderly stone walls and above them a long bare ridge ascends to the summit of the Arenig at nearly 3000 feet. There probably isn't a single other human being between here and there. Around me the plant and insect life is prolific: small flies, a beetle and various spiders run over my clothing and notebook as I write. Two spotted flycatchers 'tsskk' their soft familiar call at me; I am surprised to find them here so far from habitation. Perhaps they have a nest in a rock crevice, the sort of place they must have used before houses and barns existed. The air smells clean and sappy – fresh and far from harm.
beech fern
I have been exploring and writing about Craig y Tan for four or five years now and I find myself wondering what it all amounts too. Is this farm some quaint and delightful anachronism or a beacon for a more ecologically sensitive world? At the heart of the question is a quest for the reconciliation of farming and nature conservation. Personally it has been a great learning. After 35 years of living here and working in the hills I thought I knew a bit about this kind of farming, but I know a lot more now. Similarly I brought some natural history and conservation knowledge and experience with me but nothing beats paying close attention to one 'patch'. When it comes down to it the world is essentially local, and all the better for being understood that way. I also had some appreciation of the farming way of life and its cultural context but thanks to Hywel that has deepened and become more nuanced. Although not a man to proselytise or thump the table he feels strongly none the less and he has been quietly and kindly educating me. Visitors passing through Craig y Tan might (at least on a dry day) call it Paradise and walk on; they could be forgiven for not appreciating the extent to which this wild place has been shaped by Hywel and his forbears, or the extent to which the public purse, through an agri-environment scheme, helps maintain its rich and varied character.
heath spotted orchid. photo:Gethin Elias
Despite the day warming up I am getting a bit stiff sitting at the top of the woods; it's time to move – which will no doubt be a relief to the spotted flycatchers. Going down is even more hazardous than coming up so it takes a while to get back to the boggy pasture outside the wood. Towards the river the butterflies are now on the move in the warmth of the day: meadow browns, ringlets, a small skipper and, to my delight, several small pearl-bordered fritillaries, the first I have seem at Craig y Tan. Heath spotted-orchids are just beginning to open their delicate pink spikes and the magenta bells of the cross-leaved heath attract nectaring butterflies. A very small frog, alarmed by my approach, struggles to get away though thick rushes beside a ditch. I am seeing all of this with fresh eyes after a few months away; it makes me realise just how abundant wildlife is on this farm.
At the riverbank I am grateful to pitch into the shade of a big hawthorn. The river is about half full and burbling along with a lack of drama that seems to suit the day. A small trout jumps and flops back with a mild splash. I wait in vain for a dipper to come barrelling past but the dragonflies keep me entertained. Two impressive golden-ringed hawkers are intermittently scrapping with rustling wings over territorial rights. Several splendid demoiselles flit elegantly above the water like Georgian dowagers with time on their hands; their electric blue seems to me a little too gaudy for North Wales. Looking back across the boggy pastures and up into the woods where I have been this morning the farm seems rested, harmonious, there is no intensity or stress on the land or stock. Could more farms be like this?
splendid demoiselle. photo: Tom Kistruck
So is Craig y Tan farm a throwback or a way forward? It is undoubtedly a beautiful place and still rich in wildlife, especially by current standards. It is also a viable, if subsidised, working farm in the hands of a local Welsh speaking family committed to their community and way of life. From the perspective of 'ecological services' such as carbon storage and sequestration, water quality, flood prevention, biodiversity and public health it scores pretty highly. Through the agri-environment scheme the current land-use system has been somewhat tailored to meet nature conservation needs and, with some important caveats, is doing pretty well. In Hywel we are unusually lucky to have a farmer who is interested in the natural history of his farm; I don't want to pretend he is typical.
Ambling back along the river my head is full of the complexities thrown up by seeing this farm as a microcosm of hill farming and wildlife conservation. It does seem to be working; there is harmony between the two, albeit at considerable public expense. Meeting Hywel and his grandchildren this morning has stayed in my mind all day. It was a reminder that although Craig y Tan can be seen to represent the struggle to retain a rich wildlife heritage in a farmed landscape it is just as much about community, family, hard work and commitment to place. Anest and Eurig will, I hope, enjoy and remember Craig y Tan all of their lives, as perhaps their descendants will. I am just passing through – and I call it Paradise.
This entry was posted in nature writing, Uncategorized on August 9, 2020 by dispatchesfromtheundergrowth.
Life in the Gutter
In late February I had a hip joint replaced, and then came lock-down: a combination that limited me, for a while, to tramping the streets of the town where I live. One of the joys of this has been getting to know the botanical life that lives in the gutter: clinging to walls, cracks in the pavement, rough ground and doorways. These are the backstreet habitats exploited by the nimble and exotic alike; places where newly arrived migrants rub shoulders with native lowlife, eking out a living just under the radar.
In March and early April there were the 'weeds' such as thale cress, whitlowgrass and cornsalad – none of them very photogenic but still smart enough to flower and set seed before anyone noticed how 'untidy' they were. Many of these annuals are native plants, originally inhabitants of open ground that was probably scarce in the 'wildwood'. Later they prospered and spread amongst crops in agricultural landscapes and yet more recently they have colonised the dry places and disturbed ground of our urban spaces.
Many new arrivals have simply scrambled over the garden gate – an ornamental quaking grass is well established in parts of Machynlleth. Similarly I have found pansies, snapdragons and two exotic bellflowers, as well as more culinary opportunists such as oregano, fennel and lemon balm, each decorating the gutters and walls of our streets. We can also thank gardeners for more notorious escapees such as rhododendron ponticum and Japanese knotweed. Rhododendron smothers whole hillsides not far from here and the knotweed is so prolific and tenacious that you can incur a hefty fine just for moving it from place to place.
Our flora has always been on the move. When the ice sheets and permafrost retreated northwards 12,000 years ago Britain was still joined to Europe and plants from the south and east were able to gradually colonise the warming ground. Later, humans started to move longer distances and plants went with them. Much of our arable flora, along with the wild ancestors of wheat, originated in the bone-dry grasslands of Turkey and the Middle East where their seeds mixed with the grains taken into cultivation. Until cleaning of cereal seeds became more efficient in the 19th century wild flowers were unintentionally harvested and re-sown for centuries, alongside wheat, oats and barley. Ecologically life in the bare, well drained soil of the cereal fields was like Turkey revisited, so consequently they thrived. The patriotic red poppies of our cornfields and waysides were part of this 'invasion' and so are not in fact native but early colonists of our farming landscape. For the last 150 years or so this arable flora has been in steady decline with cornflowers, hairy mallow, weasel's-snout and the rest almost extinguished by increasingly efficient farming methods.
A preferential class system extends into the classification of Britsh plants: 60 years ago it was simple and brutal – natives okay, the rest – beyond the pale. More recently this has been broadly stratified into natives, archaeophytes (established before 1500) and neophytes (arrivals since 1500), the last two together are defined as 'aliens'. This often seems like a declining order of worth amongst field botanists, with natives as the most highly regarded. Delightfully some plants have the temerity to ignore the rules. The Welsh poppy is an outstanding example of a plant becoming downwardly mobile. It is still found as a scarce native plant in mountainous areas (including not far from here on Cader Idris) where it is revered by botanists. Unsurprisingly such an attractive plant was taken into cultivation and from there it absconded back into the wild, to inhabit walls and waysides. This same lovely plant now belongs to a much lower caste than its mountain relatives.
There is a glorious 'anything goes/survival of the fittest' feel to this guttersnipe community. Under-loved natives such as cats-ears, dog daisies and ferns burst out of the cracks and scuffed-up soil, taking their chance alongside newcomers like periwinkle, red valerian and purple toadflax. It is a hazardous existence, at least in this town, where the council deems all this effervescent beauty to be unruly and unregulated. They send in a man with a strimmer who, like a modern incarnation of the grim reaper, cuts many off in their prime and later administers a dose of glyphosate for good measure.
But these botanical riffraff are a resourceful and tenacious bunch; many of them will outlive us all, bursting through the cracks of Armageddon Street long after we have gone. During lock-down the only things growing on the streets of this town were in the gutter.
This entry was posted in nature writing, Uncategorized on June 24, 2020 by dispatchesfromtheundergrowth.
New Patch in the Pandemic
I am sunning myself on a bench 150 feet above the town on a rocky and partly wooded ridge known as Penrallt. It is my new 'patch'. Elen and I moved to Machynlleth eight months ago after 35 years in Llanuwchllyn; despite only moving 30 miles away it was a huge wrench. Living now in the nearest thing to a leafy suburb that a small town like Machynlleth can muster we still see hills and woods from our windows, but after the wilds of Cefn Prys it was a shock. I kept mistaking a streetlight for the moon. But I am slowly adapting, and Penrallt is part of that: a fragment of almost natural land that I am free to walk to for my hour of exercise. It has become my lock-down lung.
photo: Tom Kistruck
A month ago I could not have sat here without 3-4 red kites sliding in and out of view and several ravens performing joyful acrobatics along the ridge. Now they have vanished. Every year it is the same, after an early spring of display and territorial bragging these big birds sink back into the trees and become invisible; busy now with nesting and feeding young there is no longer an advantage in advertising their presence. It is the turn of the willow warblers now, their sweet song sliding down the scale is in vivid contrast to their cousin the chiffchaff doggedly repeating its own name. Best of all are the blackcaps with their glorious bell-like notes ringing out as if in praise of a life-perfect. Miraculously these three warblers, weighing only a few ounces each, have just flown dizzying distances on migration to arrive here on Penrallt, stake out a territory and raise a brood.
This rocky ridge is a bit of a local anomaly: common land owned by the council it is like a wild but miniature park, with well maintained paths and simple benches. It has a modest share litter and there is graffiti on the rocks, some political others personal. A chalked message 'I love you Nain and Taid' (grandparents) seems particularly poignant in these socially isolated times. Penrallt is an interesting fragment of a lost landscape. It was clearly grazing land at one time; I say that because it is now being vigorously colonised by trees, so something was holding them back – sheep probably. Up until 30-40 years ago much of this ridge must have been dominated by dry, heathy vegetation, then for whatever reason the grazing animals were taken away and the trees got going. Some remnant patches of heather and open areas of bracken remain, as well as scree and rocky outcrops where it is harder for the trees to get a foothold. Apparently adders have been seen here in the past but I wonder if enough open ground remains for them now. There are few truly woodland plants, much of the ground is still more like shaded heathland with extensive trees. Prior to the twentieth century dry lowland heath may have been quite extensive in the district but now it is reduced to ghosts and whispers on hedge-banks and rocky knolls where the finer grasses and less competitive plants cling on.
Rambling along the ridge I notice how oaks are beginning to obstruct the view with their tender new leaves, as membranous as young lettuce. The warm air amplifies the heady scent of gorse flowers and has the peacock butterflies moving so fast I often only see their shadows, looking up just too late. Holly blues, like agitated fragments of sky, are also plentiful, as are the orange tips – or at least the males, the plainer females are not still long enough for me to pick them out. I am pleased to hear a newly arrived wood warbler jingling its loose change in the better established woodland at the eastern end. There don't seem to be any redstarts or pied flycatchers, but these are hole nesters and I suppose the trees are not yet gnarled enough. In an open area of old bracken and freshly minted bluebells the path sides have been ploughed by badgers searching for leatherjackets. Dozens of green longhorn moths with absurdly long antennae swarm erratically around a nearby oak, lurching like drunken tightrope walkers across the foliage. There is plenty of life here to absorb this locked-down naturalist.
I have never seen a place like this for oak regeneration; the seedlings, saplings and adolescents trees far outstrip any other species. Oaks are often thought of as a late arriving high forest tree, shrouded in the promise of longevity and public esteem, but here they are rampant pioneers. Recently, well meaning folk have planted some hazels and rowans, probably as a 'trees capture carbon' gesture; grumpily I think they would be better off tackling the rhododendrons which are beginning to flex their muscles. The trees are coming anyway.
It is not just the trees that are coming. Around the edges of Penrallt the botany has a distinctly urban flavour with all sorts of exotica scrambling over the garden fence at the prospect of virgin territory up for grabs. I encounter grape hyacinth, Italian lords and ladies, stags-horn sumac, Himalayan honeysuckle and plenty more. It will be fascinating to see which of these chancers manages to survive and prosper over the years. They certainly add a frisson to the usual botanical suspects.
Penrallt is very much on the move, a glorious free for all that is casually 're-wilding' itself whilst our attention is elsewhere. Most people probably barely notice, as on a human timescale this change is slow, but not ecologically – and it is the oaks that are epidemic.
This entry was posted in nature writing on May 18, 2020 by dispatchesfromtheundergrowth.
Born to be Wild?
We planned to leave early but at first light it was blowing a gale and lashing with rain – going back to bed seemed a better option. I phoned Tom who was quite unperturbed saying, "Lets go, it might be different down there." And it was.
Tom is my son-in-law and a warden at the RSPB's Ynys-hir nature reserve, which is about 15 minutes drive from here. Along with my eldest son Owen we had planned a trip to look for lesser spotted woodpeckers, one of Ynys-hir's star birds. On the drive there we encounter dramatic flooding where the high tide has met overnight rain pouring down the Dyfi from the hills above. A train teetered uncertainly towards Aberystwyth along an embankment through the flooded fields – it felt like Armageddon. But when we pull into the sheltered car park all is tranquil: the wind had dropped, the rain ceased and the birds are singing.
At Ynys-hir, above the bog-land and grazing marshes of the Dyfi estuary, are a series of wooded and rocky ridges where the oak trees are distinctively twisted, as if from the effort of clinging to the bedrock. Arthur Rackham could have drawn this rumpled and mysterious terrain. The woodland is extensive, which is just what lesser spotted woodpeckers like. I had always assumed these sparrow-sized birds were out there somewhere and doing fine, but recently conservationists have realised that their numbers are much diminished. There may only be about 2000 pairs remaining in the UK, although nobody is really sure. The difficulty is that these small birds are very elusive: occupying a territory of perhaps 500 hectares they cling to twigs and upper branches, picking through the moss and bark for small invertebrates. This makes cold searching for 'lesser spots' a needle in a haystack sort of business. Tom tells me of a man he knows who has been trying to see one for 14 years, so far without success. Apparently your best chance is to hear them calling or drumming in the early spring – which is why we are here.
More in hope than expectation we ramble around these beautiful woods for an hour or two, peering and listening intently, but we don't get a whisper. In truth, apart from ensuring a good supply of standing dead wood (don't tidy up), there is not much conservation managers can do for lesser spotted woodpeckers. This is a bird that is out there somewhere living as it always has, whether or not we understand the reasons for its decline.
To compensate for our lack of success with the woodpeckers Tom offers to take us out onto the grazing marshes in his pick-up; this is a part of the reserve the public don't usually get to, so we jump at the chance. The contrast after the muffled woods is dramatic: this land is three-quarters sky and straight-line flat. Gateposts are landscape features here. Tom (a proud Suffolk man) is clearly in his element in this bleak expanse and I tease him that he has somehow found a corner of East Anglia for himself amongst the Welsh hills. Flocks of golden plover, teal and lapwing swirl around us and we get a distant glimpse of the rare of Greenland white-fronted geese which overwinter here. A fine male merlin sits neat and lethal on a fencepost for us to drool over.
Apart from the wintering wildfowl and waders the main interest for the RSPB on these grasslands is the breeding lapwings. This was a common, and much loved, farmland bird until 40 years ago; it still shocks me to realise that in Wales they are now largely confined to about half a dozen nature reserves like this one. The causes of their demise are complex but revolve around changes in agriculture, both arable and pastoral, and an increase in predators, particularly crows and foxes. Lapwings like it damp to ensure a supply of invertebrate prey, so an intricate network of ditches, sluices and pipes have been installed here to redistribute the rainwater to where it is needed – the complexities of which Tom seems to carry in his head. Lapwings don't like clumps of rushes: rather than hide from predators they prefer a clear view of what's coming. So as well as getting the grazing levels right Tom treats the ubiquitous rushes with a herbicide, using a tractor powered weed-wipe. The biggest threat of all to lapwing breeding success is predation of eggs and chicks by foxes and crows. To deter the foxes a six-foot high fence, dug into the ground at the bottom and electrified at the top, surrounds this area of grazing land. A fence like this costs tens of thousands of pounds. Remote camera traps have shown foxes patrolling around the fence, searching for any weakness. Tom tells me he once saw a fox tossing lapwing chicks in the air like beanbags; he loses sleep over the thought of one getting in during the breeding season. Crows are perhaps an even bigger problem: there is no way to keep them out. Systematic culling of foxes and crows is often integral to managing breeding lapwing populations these days – although not currently at Ynys-hir.
Lapwings would be more or less extinct in Wales if it wasn't for the kind of dedicated, intensive management that is being done at Ynys-hir: expensive, time consuming work that raises dilemmas about the use of chemicals, killing predators, and enclosing wild birds with fencing. In truth there isn't much different between this fence and those at safari parks or Whipsnade zoo. But if we want to keep the beautiful and evocative 'peewit' sound of breeding lapwings tumbling through the sky then these are the lengths we have to go to, at least for now.
The contrast between these two declining birds could not be greater: the lesser spotted woodpeckers are in a more or less natural environment and largely beyond our reach, whilst the lapwings are close to being farmed. In our drastically modified countryside it is sometimes hard to know what 'wild' means anymore.
This entry was posted in nature writing, Uncategorized on April 14, 2020 by dispatchesfromtheundergrowth.
Forty Years On
Recently Elen and I went back to the Gower peninsula near Swansea to celebrate the forty years since we met there (when I gate-crashed her birthday party, but that is a different story…)
I had forgotten how lovely Gower was and, praise be, still is. The combination of dramatic bays and cliffs on the southern coast; a bristling central spine of common land and the ever-receding mystery of the northern salt-marshes, seem to fold a whole world into its modest land mass. I think I had gone with a 'things ain't what they used to be' script tucked into my back pocket, imagining it would be overrun or hopelessly gentrified by now. But apart from some tasteless new-build here and there it was wonderfully unspoilt and rural with overgrown hedges, winding single-track roads and a surprisingly dark night sky. If anything it looked a touch run down – in a 'potholes and peeling paint' sort of way – which was unexpected, so close to the South Wales conurbation.
On our first day we walked, in warm sunshine, down from Parkmill following the path through the woods along Pennard pill (the local name for stream). The detail was lovely: twisted wind pruned trees, gorse stems warmed by the winter sun, overhanging banks deep enough for a child to hide and hanks of bladder-wrack stranded by the tide. This steep-sided valley, watched over by a frowning castle ruin, is a perfect 'Swallows and Amazons' entrance to the heady space of Three Cliffs Bay. Crooked in a sheltering arm from Pennard cliffs the bay is like a child's drawing of how the seaside should be: a stream with steppingstones, tangled woodland, rocky headlands, sand dunes and a flat sandy beach meeting the restless sea. Thousands of people are drawn to this intoxicating mixture every year but at this season it was not crowded: a few families and dog walkers, a man riding his horse along the sand with three medieval looking greyhounds at foot, and a rather solemn party of druids wearing laurel wreaths in their hair.
Where I did notice some changes was on the common land that runs west to east along the middle of the peninsula. Much of it, particularly on Fairwood Common, has grown up with brakes of birch saplings punctuating the hazy deserts of Molinia (Purple Moor-grass). Although there were a few sheep poking about along the road verges, this was a landscape that spoke loudly of a decline in grazing. Molinia has become dominant in many areas of rough grazing and moorland around Wales, where cattle and ponies no longer graze; unfortunately sheep don't like to eat it so it can gradually swamps less competitive plants. Molinia may also be encouraged to spread by nitrogen pollution – which effectively is an invisible fertilizer that comes down in the rain. Shaggier and wilder now, perhaps these commons are what our post agriculture, rewilded, carbon guzzling landscapes will look like 20 years from now. If, as some people predict, we end up eating plant-based or cultured 'meat' then there will be little call for sheep or cows, ushering in an era of 'wild neglect'. I knew a man, all those years ago, who swore that he had seen sheep rolling over the cattle grid to get on to Fairwood common; these days they would be more likely be rolling to get off.
On our final morning we had a stroll around Oxwich National Nature Reserve, a place close to my heart, as I was warden there for 5 years or more in the late 70s. I expected to be disappointed, especially as Natural Resources Wales – the latest incarnation of the government conservation organisation that manages it, has been getting a very bad press recently. But I left relieved – even impressed.
Around the sweep of the bay the sand dunes were accreting rather than eroding: both natural processes, but the former is less anxiety promoting for people like me. Since my time a large area of the fixed dunes has been fenced off and is being grazed by ponies, at what appeared to be just the right intensity. Inside the fence there was a mosaic of tiny dune plants, which thrive when the competition from coarser, more vigorous species is reduced by grazing. Also the small patches of sandy ground opened up by the ponies hooves provide seedbeds in which new plants can establish. It was too early for flowers, save the tiny white stars of Common Whitlow Grass, but in June this will be alive with colourful plants and their attendant insects.
Also new to me was a series of winding boardwalks through the flooded carr woodland which gave us an inside view of a habitat previously inaccessible to visitors. A bird hide on one of the lakes was another innovation: although it gave the usual view of nothing much at all. The waterside vegetation had recently been cut back (another plus) and some wag had written on the chalkboard in the hide that they "didn't seen much except some men in high-vis jackets working with brush cutters, and two mallard – presumably deaf ".
All of this is probably a rather superficial response from somebody as much taken up with a nostalgic weekend as conservation assessment. On the other hand long absence allows for a freshness of view from what I hope is an educated eye, unclouded by the familiar. I was a restless young man back then, but looking again at the beauty and richness of Gower had me wondering if, 40 years ago, I should have stayed put and dug in.
This entry was posted in nature writing on February 18, 2020 by dispatchesfromtheundergrowth.
On a dull October morning with a waft of drizzle in the air I have come to pay homage to some fine old trees. Scattered across the steeply sloping pasture in front of me are about a dozen venerable oaks and ash, plus a few gnarly alders. I can only imagine these trees escaped the plough in the 20th century because this is estate land with a tenanted grazier. Whatever your views about the landed gentry they have left us a fine legacy of old trees. It is the ash trees, in particular, that I have come to honour today.
The day is brightening a little and the increased light illuminates the canopy of the nearest big ash. It seems to have a more buoyant, airy profile than the doughty oaks, but perhaps I am kidding myself as I am inclined to view ash as the fairer, more feminine of the two. Ash have always seemed a bit fey to me, slightly aloof and less down to earth than the dependable oak. These trees have grown up in open wood pasture so their canopies are full and round like domed parasols, branches drooping elegantly to the browse (or should it be hem) line: that is the limit to which stock can reach.
The leaves on this one are still mostly a dark glossy green but a few are shading to lime. In a week or two they will be lemon yellow and littering the ground like casually discarded gloves. Ash are like that – they really don't care. The twigs are smooth and flick up at the ends, terminating in triangular black buds reminiscent of the cloves my mother used to flavour stewed apples. Characteristically the bark is light grey and patterned with deep fissures, like the hide of an elephant. The trunk is parallel-sided up to about 20 feet where the multiple limbs spread out; this tree was undoubtedly pollarded in times past. At the base rounded buttresses covered in white lichen are almost indistinguishable from rocks. Judging by the thick compost of droppings amongst the grass this tree gives both shade and shelter to the sheep that graze this pasture.
In most of the areas of Wales I am familiar with, ash trees only aggregate along stream sides and in valley bottoms where the leached nutrients accumulate, washed down from the thin soils above. En masse their pale grey bark lends a ghostly pallor to the winter landscape that you can pick out half a mile away. More often I associate big ash trees with hedgerows and farmsteads. There was a fine specimen in my neighbour's yard with a hollow big enough for a child to stand in. The story goes that a 100 years or so ago the maid (!) cleaned out the morning grate and threw hot ashes against this tree, which duly burned a hole that started the rot.
The biggest ash on this hillside has lost a massive limb, but far from disabling it the tree looks good for centuries yet. Sprouting out of the rot hole are several seedling rowans and a hazel that have germinated in the composting wood, no doubt from seeds dropped by birds or squirrels. On the opposite side a huge horizontal limb supports many smaller branches, yet miraculously the tree bears its weight without breaking. It reminds me painfully of a school punishment that required holding up a wellie in each extended arm; three minutes was bad enough let alone 300 years.
What drove me here today was the fear that trees like these might not be with us much longer; that I might outlive them, rather than the other way round. The advance of ash dieback disease has now become conspicuous in many parts of Wales; the browning twigs and leafless branches stand out almost everywhere I go. Ash dieback is caused by a fungus (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus) that originated in Asia, but was almost certainly imported into Britain with trees grown commercially in mainland Europe. The fungus produces millions of dust like spores, which spread on the wind, making it impossible to contain. We are helpless in the face of it. There is an outside chance that it blew here naturally but the mass importation of trees and perhaps changing conditions have triggered an epidemic. Ash trees regenerate very freely in Britain, so importing young trees was clearly more about free market economics that conservation. Despite having ample opportunity to take practical precautions to prevent this disease entering the UK, nothing was done until it was too late. If ash dieback proves as lethal as it has in some parts of Europe the British landscape will be devastated. Ash is our third commonest tree. Equally catastrophic will be the effects on the 1000 or so plants and animals that depend upon it in some way. These fine old trees may last a while yet but I can no longer draw comfort from the notion that they will outlive my children's children. Will anyone care much? In these times when we are punch drunk with bad news stories the danger is we will shrug disconsolately – seeing it as the new normal rather than a national disaster.
Walking around old trees has always given me a feeling of security and long perspective; after all they took root before motor cars, electricity and telephones changed all our lives. They connect me, no matter how tenuously, to the pre -industrial era when human impact upon the land was unavoidably slow and gradual. There is nothing better than a really big tree to convey the sense that the affairs of humans are insignificant. Sadly this can be as deluded as it is comforting. All I can do is to honour them, stand with them and quietly rebel against their extinction.
This entry was posted in nature writing on November 10, 2019 by dispatchesfromtheundergrowth.
Given Half a Chance
Cefn Prys with 'the field' in foreground. Drawing by Peter Hanauer July 2019
After 35 years we are leaving Cefn Prys, our beautiful home in the hills of North Wales. There is too much of a lump in my throat to write much about that right now, but suffice to say that it has been a fine love affair between people and place, I don't think either could have asked more of the other.
One of the advantages of staying put for so long is that you notice the slow and subtle changes. The five-acre field outside our kitchen window was much like any other 30 years ago. I suppose it was agriculturally improved at some time – although there is not much rye grass to be found in it now. Most of the pastures on surrounding farms have been drained and reseeded, then receive regular doses of fertilizer, or at least a slathering of slurry from the cattle housed indoors over winter. Consequently the fields are bright green with highly nutritious grasses and nothing much else; they are wildlife deserts.
About 25 years ago our neighbour discovered that he had Type 1 diabetes, which limited him to the extent that he came close to selling up. But he decided to stay and adopt a "low input low output" approach, which demanded less of him physically. Since then his fields have not been reseeded, fertilised or treated with slurry and, due to his low stocking rates, only lightly grazed. He mostly runs an 'open gate' style of stock management so the sheep can graze where they choose; but for some reason they don't favour the field below our house in the spring and summer. Consequently by early July the grass ripples in the breeze like a hay crop – but it doesn't get cut, so the flowers and grasses freely set seed. Then through the autumn and winter the sheep and a few cattle graze it short once again. Under this regime the field has gradually, almost imperceptibly, changed.
Last evening, when the day had cooled down a little, I strolled through the field, squinting into the low sun, to see what I could find. The tawny grasses twitch and ripple like the flank of an animal as I brush by. A yellow spread of greater birdsfoot-trefoil and autumn hawkbit underscores them and is everywhere underfoot. Butterflies: meadow browns, ringlets and this year scores of small skippers dance and dart, sipping nectar from the birdsfoot–trefoil and stately marsh thistles. I kick up a small blizzard of pale translucent moths from between the grass stems. A whole childhood of grasshoppers flick and clamber away from my boots, then settle back to their lazy stridulations, sounding like a host of old fashioned bicycles free wheeling into the sunset.
Dotted amongst the grasses are common mouse-ear, lesser stitchwort, selfheal and the gone-to-seed heads of pignut; this latter a recent colonist, probably from the wild bank in our garden, itself a fragment of old meadow. Where the field slopes down to the stream are clumps of soft rush interspersed with scrambling marsh bedstraw and more nectar-rich marsh thistles. Flying between these are the svelte sparks of six-spot burnet moths, dressed for the opera in their dark-grey and crimson velvet. This is the first time I have seen this lovely day flying moth here. All around me swallows are weaving a cat's-cradle of flight above the grasses, picking off the abundant insects.
I am not suggesting that this meadow is some undiscovered gem that would have conservationists salivating and snapping into 'protect and manage' mode. It is an ordinary field that has, by chance, been given a bit of elbow-room. Neither do I want to misrepresent my neighbour, who, although a thoroughly decent man, would be amused to be described as a conservationist. When I complimented him on the growing richness of his fields he candidly told me that if it hadn't been for his diabetes they would not be looking like this now.
Standing here in the low evening light is heart warming and nostalgic: I remember (just) when most ordinary countryside was brimming with wild flowers and insects; it was our unquestioned normality. Not anymore: but this field shows that, given half a chance, nature will breathe life back into the grass again. Sometimes it pays to do nothing – although my neighbour would probably not agree.
This entry was posted in nature writing on August 15, 2019 by dispatchesfromtheundergrowth.
Time to Panic?
I have come back to the hills around Glaslyn that I wrote about last time (Rebellious Nature, April 2019). I was soured by the foul weather that day and taken aback by my conclusion that these hills might be better under trees. So I thought I had better take another look and I have picked a fine day this time.
Strolling along the track in the spring sunshine there is little sound except my boots on the gravel. An occasional outpouring of song from an ascending skylark gladdens my heart. Scattered across the hills some of last years lambs totter under heavy fleeces and there are a few ewes with new lambs at foot, but not many as yet. Two green hairstreak butterflies suddenly appear in front of me, flashing emerald and bronze as they whirled around each other like frenzied sword fighters. Later I see some more: it must be a good year for this diminutive butterfly. A wheatear flips across the track but little else stirs, other than a red kite drifting overhead.
photo: Wikimedia commons-sharpphotography
After about a mile I settle back against my rucksack on a grassy hillside to take a good look. I half expected to be writing 'what a difference a day makes' – but not really. On these bald hillsides there is no more than an inch or so of soil above the underlying shale, although some gullies and basins have a depth of peat. Amongst the dominant mat grass I can find vestigial bilberry and heather plants, reduced to almost nothing by years of sheep grazing. On a steeper slope the dark stain of some stunted heather shows faintly, like an x-ray image of an earlier moorland masterpiece; or more likely red wine on the carpet and about as welcome. Farmers would rather have grass because it supports more sheep. In the peaty areas hummocks of bleached sphagnum moss are pale imitations of the vibrant sponges found on healthy blanket bog. The mat grass is as faded as an old dog, colour bleached out by the weather – it will green up in a month or two. This is somebody's living but it is poor stuff agriculturally; you need an awful lot of it to sustain not many sheep.
The area near the lake is a nature reserve and has extensive heather. Unlike the contour hugging grassland it is more three-dimensional hosting Cladonia lichens, flowering sedges and some bright yellow stars of tormentil. Day flying eggar moths dash about with blind intensity. From here it is easy to understand why conservationists value heather more highly than grass moorland. The nearby escarpment edge is fenced out and dozens of rowan saplings have seeded themselves amongst the heather: an expression of the supressed potential in this land. A thrush sized bird slips quietly out of a gulley and over the edge: a ring ouzel perhaps, it is just the place for one.
Over the years there has been a long and sometimes difficult dialogue between conservation and agriculture; yet it is always potentially fruitful as they are often mutually dependant. Traditionally British conservation values long established habitats shaped by human activity and the species that have adapted to them. From that perspective some level of grazing in the hills is considered essential, usually depending on the 'condition' of the vegetation. So farming and conservation can accommodate each other in places like this, if sometimes with difficulty.
Rewilding is something altogether different. It favours 'self-willed nature' with humans withdrawing to the margins, passive onlookers as natural processes take over. Those who promote this vision often consider the uplands to be 'marginal land' which is ripe for rewilding. And I am sitting in just such a scheme right here: Summit to Sea is a flagship project for the organisation Rewilding Britain and its partners, which covers thousands of acres of land (their own and other people's) running from the top of the Cambrian Mountains right down to the sea. In many ways this is an exciting and forward-looking vision, which has much to commend it but it is really a landscape scale conservation scheme, which has unfortunately been rebranded as rewilding. I say unfortunately because 'rewilding' is a toxic word amongst the farming community here. George Monbiot's book 'Feral' took this area as a 'case study' and it has left a bitter legacy – "people don't live in case studies".
Agricultural communities are the backbone of the Welsh language and culture and when you take into account the dependent vets, contractors, feed merchants and so on, they are the glue for a rich and indigenous linguistic culture, which demands every bit as much of our care and attention as green hairstreaks and the like. Rewilding sets out to change the relationship between people and the land, so unsurprisingly it is seen as a direct threat to the Welsh speaking way of life. To be effective it needs large areas of land that are currently farmed.
If farmers gave up much of their hill land for rewilding what would they do then? A recent report by Rewilding Britian suggests rather vaguely they could be rewarded financially "for delivering carbon reductions as part of a mosaic of land uses that sustains thriving rural communities." George Monbiot seemed to envision (ex) farmers in a sort of park ranger role. The trouble is, as a neighbour of mind is fond of saying, "every farmer wants to farm". Listening to the arguments between these two positions often sounds like a dialogue between a life lived and one imagined.
We could go on having a slow evolving dialogue about all of this: it is a civilised, if often frustrating, way to proceed. But things have changed. A recent UN report (undoubtedly conservative) estimates we have 12 years remaining in which to prevent 1.5 degrees of warming. If we don't achieve this, melting polar ice and methane from warming permafrost will likely trigger unstoppable climate change that could threaten our very existence. It is clear that we have an emergency and we need to treat it like one. As Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish activist said recently "I want you to panic". In such a situation the long slow dialogue is no longer an option; rather we need to be on a 'war footing' at every level, from personal to global. There is no other sane option – not any more. We need to move very quickly; yet to abandon thoughtful decision-making would surely repeat the same old pattern that got us into this mess. 'Discerning panic' on the other hand, is a demanding requirement.
Apparently, cutting down on emissions will not be enough to save us; we must also reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that is already in the atmosphere. And trees are very good at doing that. So should we divert the public money that underpins agriculture, as Rewilding Britain suggests, compensate farmers and afforest the uplands? The upland farming community and its indigenous language and culture would then be at risk of going the way of coal mining; another culturally rich, subsidised industry who's product we no longer deemed essential.
Trudging back to my (fossil fuel driven) car in the afternoon sunshine my head is spinning with the tensions and contradictions inherent in all of this. Right at this moment the only thing I am sure of is my gratitude for everyday miracles: amongst them an ancient tongue spoken and the skylark in its tower of song.
Rebellious Nature
A brutal east wind is cutting across this hill country – there is nothing to obstruct it. It is a dry day, so we call it fine, but otherwise it feels like a survival exercise. It is still winter up here, no matter what the calendar says.
I am walking with my friend David Cooke in the Cambrian Mountains: the bulging massif that fills the centre of Wales. As always the wide-open spaces bring a sense of freedom but in truth it is a dismal scene: a kind of infertile emptiness surrounds us – and it stretches for miles. The interlocking ridges are clothed in tufted grass and rushes that are so bleached they look irradiated; growing on degraded soils this vegetation is neither nutritious nor diverse. I know the weather doesn't encourage optimism but it seems to me that apart from a lot of grass, some distant conifers, and a scatter of sheep there is nothing here. These are George Monbiot's original 'sheepwrecks' and, much as I baulk at his incendiary style, it is difficult not to have sympathy with his point of view right now. These hills have been nibbled down to a thin skin that barely covers the bones of the earth. The crumbling walls of a 19thcentury mine only add to the sense of desolation. Struggling past the beaten pewter dish of Glaslyn the wind is so strong it feels personal, as though it wants to rip me from the face of the earth. At each step my walking pole flaps uselessly like a dislocated limb.
Now for the tricky bit: we have reached the edge of the great crumbling escarpment, which reveals an enormous but hazy view to the west. To get to our destination, which is 1000 feet below us, we need to descend on a path that is both steep and loose. My knees would find that a bit of a challenge at any time but today the wind pursues us over the edge, hurtling into our backs and threatening to blow us over. It is impossible to walk upright and I proceed in a half crouching stagger, sliding across the loose shale; only my stick prevents me from falling flat on my face. I'm grateful there is nobody around to capture this for YouTube. As I struggle forward my phone keeps bleeping for attention, so when we stop for a break I check the messages. This highlights a very modern incongruity: in this wild and desolate place, where we see only one other person all day, I am receiving live feeds from friends on a raucous and crowded Extinction Rebellion protest in central London. I send a photograph of 'here' and receive a reply "it's all connected" – and she is so right. I have written before how much I value the culture of the farming community which has shaped these hills for centuries but today it is hard not to agree with those who refer to this as an 'ecological desert'. We have made it thus.
The path is easier now and David and I are glad to have got this far without mishap. And what a difference 1000 feet make. Down here the trees are coming into leaf, blackthorn foaming with blossom and primroses are posing along the path side. Most interesting of all is a half-mile long woodland on the downside of the path, which has been planted in the last ten years. Conservationists can be a bit sniffy about tree planting mainly because native trees, which will grow up spontaneously if you fence out the sheep, are very well adapted to local conditions; unlike many planted trees which often start life in a Dutch nursery. But that seems a bit picky in this instance. These trees are appropriate species (birch, rowan, hazel and oak), well spaced and not planted in regimented rows. With bracken and bramble developing underneath this nascent wood is so three-dimensional compared to the blasted heath above, which did little more than prevent sky meeting rock. It will take hundreds of years for this to become a fully functioning woodland but in the meantime it will soak up carbon dioxide from our polluted air, inhibit flooding, recondition the soil, provide increasingly good wildlife habitat and be a delight on the eye. It must have been grazing land until recently; perhaps a farmer has given it up as part of an agri-environment scheme. Would that be a better future for the more degraded areas of our hill country, where sheep farming is only kept alive with government subsidies? I find that a hard question to ask but it is becoming even harder to dodge.
Looking at this elegant young wood and hearing Extinction Rebellion's desperate alarm calls points up this existential dilemma for the hills. How much longer can I go on saying 'on the one had and yet on the other'? Time is very short now.
This entry was posted in nature writing on April 27, 2019 by dispatchesfromtheundergrowth.
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Thelonious Monk.
Thelonious Monk (1917-1982) was an American jazz composer and pianist, often regarded as a founder of bebop, even though his style eventually moved away from this style. His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, consistent with Monk's unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations.
Monk's most well known compositions were "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser" and "Well, You Needn't".
Zappa and Thelonious Monk
"I think the jazz that succeeds – and for my taste there's not much of it – is not based on the guy's erudition; it's based on balls. Balls operating in that kind of a format. (...) I like Charlie Mingus, and I like Thelonious Monk, Eric Dolphy – I used to really like Harold Land, but I haven't heard anything from him in a long time. But that's about it." (Frank Zappa in Zappa, 79/8)
Zappa quoted "Blue Monk" in The Purple Lagoon on Zappa In New York and "Straight, No Chaser" in Be-Bop Tango on Roxy & Elsewhere and in the guitar solo of Easy Meat on You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 5.
Wikipedia article about Thelonious Monk
List with references to "Blue Monk" in Zappa's work
List with references to "Straight, No Chaser" in Zappa's work
Retrieved from "http://wiki.killuglyradio.com/index.php?title=Thelonious_Monk&oldid=43030"
Jazz Composers

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Egg donation: Some 'progressives' say women shouldn't control own bodies
Should women's reproductive rights be subject to legislative oversight? Those who argue for strict legal controls often raise the specter of dire, unknown health consequences that could result from abortions.
"There are no evidence-based long-term studies of the consequences, risks and side effects" of these procedures on women's psyches, they claim. They frame their approach as 'protection', not control.
Most women's rights groups are appalled by such comments. They find them patronizing. They say legislators, who are mostly male, have no right telling women what they can or cannot do with their bodies, and that such laws are intrusive. And they rail against those who they say show no respect for women and their 'natural rights'.
When stem cell research and egg donation are the issue, however, some of the same diehard advocates of women's rights invoke the same pro-life arguments that they mock when dealing with abortion rights.
Consider this disturbing article in the Sacramento Bee on July 16, written by Diane Tober, associate executive director at the Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley and Nancy Scheper-Hughes, chancellor's professor of medical anthropology at University of California, Berkeley, and director of Organs Watch. The women argued that Governor Jerry Brown should veto AB 926, which lifts a ban on payment for research eggs, called oocytes. Under current law, it is legal to pay a woman who provides her oocytes to a couple going through in vitro fertilization. But there is a ban on paying the same woman for the same eggs if they are to be used in medical research.
The bill passed with bipartisan support from the California legislature on July 1.
Supporters of AB 926, led by Democratic Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, expressed concern that California was in danger of becoming a backwater in fertility research without this reversal. "This is the only research procedure that does not compensate," she said. "As a result of that, a lot of very important research, particularly around women's fertility, just has not taken place here in California."
The legislation, if signed by the governor, would permit women who become research donors to be paid up to $5,000. For comparison, a woman donating her eggs to an infertile couple for IVF in California is allowed to be paid an unlimited amount.
So who could be against it? Not Planned Parenthood, the National Organization for Women and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine—they maintain their progressive vision and support the measure. The opposition is an odd marriage of Catholic, über-religious and rightwing groups with fringe leftwing anti-genetics "environmental justice" organizations that ostensibly stand for liberal values—Center for Genetics and Society, Council for Responsible Genetics, SynnBioWatch and Friends of the Earth are key members of this bizarre coalition.
"Eggs are a foundational element for life," said Lori Arnold of the California Family Council. "We support legislation that honors that. In this case, we believe it dishonors life and is subject to abuse."
Related article: Health Canada sticks with phase out of neonicotinoid insecticides although its study finds impact on bees is limited
Wesley J. Smith, an ideologue with the conservative Center for Bioethics and Culture, who writes for the Weekly Standard and National Review, called the bill part of a "war on poor women," and vows to protect 'unborn babies'.
Substitute "embryos" for "unborn babies" (meaning fetuses) and the analogy to pro-life arguments holds throughout. Recall the quote cited above: "There are no evidence-based long-term studies of the consequences, risks and side effects…." It was not written by the Family Research Council, but by Tober and Scheper-Hughes in their condemnation of for-pay egg donations.
Echoing pro-life talking points, Tober and Scheper-Hughes wrote in the Bee that human life is being commoditized—bill opponents often use the phrase 'human trafficking'. The risks from this egg-harvesting procedure—which is performed every day, safely and for compensation as part of in vitro fertilization treatments—are unacceptable, they claimed. It is part of a larger pattern of exploitation, they wrote. Exploitation is a theme of the opposition: the extremist left blames the 'money grubbing' medical establishment while pro-lifers target ideologues with an agenda.
As I've noted in a previous article on the GLP, the venerable New England Journal of Medicine addressed this controversy in a thoughtful essay earlier this year co-written by I. Glenn Cohen, a lawyer and Co-Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard University and Eli Y. Adashi, physician-scientist and Immediate Past Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences at Brown University. As they noted:
[T]here is really only one critical difference between the current, expensive model that excludes the majority of people who need this service and the for-profit model: a legal framework. The sale of gametes—human eggs and sperm—is already legal and widespread around the world. The crucial issue, it would seem, is 'the lack of clear legal guidance as to the parentage of the embryos in question'. …
[I]t may be difficult to claim that respect for personhood requires that the sale of embryos be prohibited at a time when parentally sanctioned embryonic destruction (with or without the generation of a human embryonic stem-cell line) is being practiced. Even if one believes that embryos deserve special respect not granted to gametes, it is far from clear why the sale of embryos to facilitate family building is any more contrary to that respect than the destruction thereof.
Should activist groups, working through legislators, exercise their control over women's reproduction? Do we really "own" our own bodies? Or does that tenet only hold when nanny groups say it's okay?
Jon Entine, executive director of the Genetic Literacy Project, is a senior fellow at the Center for Health & Risk Communication and STATS (Statistical Assessment Service) at George Mason University.
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L'écofascisme ou écototalitarisme est un régime autoritaire d'inspiration fasciste mis en place pour préserver l'environnement ou dans lequel la protection de l'environnement justifie l'emploi de méthodes autoritaires.

Cette désignation relève pour lors du domaine d'une conjecture théorique, puisqu'un tel régime n'a encore jamais vu le jour, et n'a jamais constitué un programme politique officiel. Si certains activistes d'extrême droite ont pu s'approprier des discours écologistes, le terme demeure essentiellement utilisé comme insulte, aucun parti politique significatif ne se réclamant de cette idéologie.

Dans l'Allemagne du début du

Des théories écofascistes, d'après l'historien Peter Staudenmaier, ont vu le jour durant la première moitié du  en Allemagne, dans la foulée de la lebensreform hygiéniste et du mouvement völkisch, réactionnaire et ruraliste. Dans la foulée de l'interprétation sociopolitique du darwinisme issue d'Ernst Haeckel, de nombreuses théories pseudo-biologiques tentent ainsi de  le nationalisme allemand et de le justifier par la science. Plusieurs intellectuels influents de l'époque, sans être militants nazis, ont ainsi tenté de faire des ponts entre une idéologie raciste et une mystique du sol, tel Rudolf Steiner, fondateur de l'anthroposophie. Ces théories furent particulièrement développées par deux intellectuels de l'époque : Ernst Moritz Arndt et Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, qui ont eu une influence importante sur les débuts du nazisme (« l'aile verte » du parti nazi, composée principalement de Walther Darré, Fritz Todt, Alwin Seifert et Rudolf Hess).

Un important mouvement culturel associant écologie et racisme sera le  (« le sang et le sol »), théorisé en 1922 dans Le Déclin de l'Occident d'Oswald Spengler, puis très largement repris et favorisé par le nazisme, avec le livre La Race - Nouvelle noblesse du sang et du sol de Walther Darré (futur pilote du Reichsnährstand, mais aussi chef du bureau de la race et du peuplement de 1931 à 1938 puis ministre de l'Alimentation et de l'Agriculture du Troisième Reich de 1933 à 1942).

L'Allemagne hitlérienne a cependant rapidement délaissé sa doctrine écologiste à la fin des années 1930 pour se tourner vers le productivisme et l'industrie lourde.

Après-guerre, certains anciens nazis ont pu se reconvertir comme militants ruralistes jusque dans les années 1970, comme Werner Georg Haverbeck, Renate Riemeck, ou, en France, Savitri Devi et Robert Dun (de son vrai nom Maurice Martin), ou encore Henry Coston.

D'après l'historien Stéphane François (dans son livre Les Vert-bruns), certains ex-cadres nazis ont participé à la création des Grünen en Allemagne. En France, on retrouve quelques personnes proches des courants écofascistes dans le Mouvement écologiste indépendant (MEI) d'Antoine Waechter.

L'idéologie ruraliste du régime de Vichy, incarnée par des théoriciens comme Gustave Thibon, a également pu avoir une influence sur certains écologistes décroissants comme Pierre Rabhi, mais sans aucune trace d'un quelconque projet politique autoritaire.

Peur ou apologie de l'autoritarisme par manque de choix
L'écofascisme a également été défini de manière plus abstraite et , sur le mode de la dystopie, par plusieurs penseurs de l'écologie face à l'évidence de l'inaptitude des gouvernements à mettre en place une politique écologique à la hauteur des enjeux, et des risques d'une radicalisation de certains militants, voire d'une nécessité de prise en mains autoritaire du problème. Il s'agit donc généralement d'une alternative à l'effondrement chez des penseurs de la collapsologie, pensée comme pendant autoritaire d'une .

 Ce danger de l'écofascisme ou de la dictature écologique a été mis en évidence par le philosophe allemand Hans Jonas.

Selon Bernard Charbonneau, autre penseur de l'écologie, dans son livre Le Feu vert (1980),

Il ajoute :

L'écofascisme ainsi considéré n'est aucunement lié au fascisme historique et n'en partage pas non plus les ambitions. Sont considérées bien plus ici comme « fascistes » les théories qui ne respectent ni la vie humaine ni les formes démocratiques, une sorte d'autoritarisme écologique.

Des militants « écofascistes » souhaiteraient ainsi atteindre leurs buts au moyen d'une dictature qui permettrait de réduire la population terrestre par la coercition, tandis que ses habitants restant assureraient la continuité de l'humanité avec des moyens techniques archaïques (agriculture simple, chasse, artisanat). Seraient prévus également des modes malthusiens de contrôle des naissances afin de ne pas menacer l'environnement par une surpopulation. Les plus extrêmes se positionnent en faveur d'une amélioration génétique de la population humaine que servirait l'eugénisme. En France, le philosophe se rapprochant le plus de cette idéologie est Alain de Benoist.

Écologie et anti-humanisme

La Deep ecology

Dans certains textes, le philosophe norvégien Arne Næss chef de file du mouvement de la , oppose écologisme et humanisme, proclamant même, à l'imitation d'une formule célèbre du Marquis de Sade, . La phrase est provocatrice et a beaucoup été utilisée contre Næss et son mouvement, toutefois Næss s'inscrit ici dans une filiation philosophique heideggerienne qui ne prône pas une quelconque haine de l'humain mais plutôt une critique de l'anthropocentrisme court-termiste, appelant à un élargissement de la communauté morale et pas au dénigrement des humains. Il s'en est d'ailleurs défendu dans le même texte et ailleurs, affirmant qu'il était en opposition avec toute forme de  : .

Luc Ferry, dans son livre anti-écologiste Le Nouvel Ordre écologique paru en 1992, a particulièrement incriminé la deep ecology comme étant un anti-humanisme confinant au nazisme. Toutefois, cette lecture apparaît superficielle au philosophe de l'écologie Fabrice Flipo, qui, en 2014, pose la question suivante :  Il montre que Luc Ferry s'est exprimé sur l'écologie profonde par a priori et préjugé, sans en connaître la teneur. Sa conclusion est que les risques d'intégrisme écologique pointés par Ferry peuvent exister mais qu'ils ne sont portés ni par Naess, ni par la deep ecology.

Chez les militants de la libération animale

Quelques militants particulièrement radicaux du droit animal ont pu tenir des propos confinant à l'anti-humanisme, sans que ce type de ligne politique soit réellement assumé par aucune association majeure.

En 1991, un certain  publie aux Etats-Unis un texte d'une rare violence intitulé , procédant à des appels au meurtre et recommandant notamment d'éventrer les bouchers ou d'expérimenter sur des scientifiques, dans un retournement total jusqu'à l'absurde des pratiques animales. Toutefois selon la philosophe Anne Dalsuet, , l'auteur étant totalement inconnu et lié à aucune organisation identifiée.

Dans les mouvements néo-nazis contemporains
On entend aussi par écofascisme (notamment selon le politologue finlandais Jeja-Pekka Roos) l'idéologie de quelques militants radicaux qui prônent l'abandon complet des technologies dans nos sociétés ainsi qu'une réduction de la population humaine afin de sauver la planète des dangers qui la menacent : surpeuplement et pollution. Il s'agirait donc d'une variante radicale de l'« écologie profonde » avec des aspects primitivistes et survivalistes — ce qui les éloigne du fascisme historique, futuriste et productiviste.

En France, sous l'influence d'Alain de Benoist, certains militants d'extrême droite radicale mobilisent parfois des thèmes écologistes, essentiellement pour naturaliser leurs théories politiques : c'est le cas de Guillaume Faye, Renaud Camus, Hervé Juvin, ou encore du Groupement de recherche et d'études pour la civilisation européenne (Grece). Il s'agit en général d'une écologie essentiellement ruraliste, raciste (, liant intrinsèquement le sang à la terre, «  »), souvent survivaliste ou collapsologiste et parfois anticapitaliste. Un bon exemple en est le groupe d'extrême-droite , groupe identitaire et ruraliste ouvertement xénophobe mais adoptant certaines pratiques et valeurs issues des mouvances alternatives et du zadisme.

Ainsi, certains militants néo-nazis survivalistes s'identifient comme , comme Piero San Giorgio (proche d'Alain Soral) et un certain nombre d'auteurs écrivant dans les revues Éléments, Terre et peuple ou Réfléchir et agir ou soutenus par la maison d'édition  et le think-tank , et certains proposent sur le modèle des ZAD de créer des  : . La revue néo-conservatrice Limite,  proche de la Manif pour tous, peut aussi en être rapprochée même si elle ne développe pas de programme autoritaire.

Certains terroristes néonazis ont également réclamé ce genre d'appartenance, comme Brenton Tarrant, Patrick Crusius ou Anders Behring Breivik. En France, plusieurs groupuscules néonazis à coloration écofasciste armés et préparant des attentats ont été démantelés, comme  ou l' de Logan Alexandre Nisin.

Comme insulte politique
L'accusation d' est aussi une insulte souvent renvoyée aux politiciens écologistes en France et ailleurs, notamment par les militants conservateurs ou d'extrême droite comme Donald Trump : la mode en a sans doute été lancée en France par le livre à charge de Luc Ferry Le Nouvel Ordre écologique publié en 1992, qui s'employait à ramener systématiquement tout discours écologiste au nazisme.

Depuis, les concurrents politiques des partis écologistes accueillent souvent leurs avancées par des alertes à « l'écologie punitive », à « l'autoritarisme vert », fustigeant des « Khmers verts » aux portes du pouvoir, « ayatollahs de la décroissance », « idéologues », « marchands de peurs », « obscurantistes », « partisans du retour à la bougie » et bien sûr « éco-nazis ».

Il est à noter que d'autres concurrents politiques accusent au contraire les mêmes écologistes d'être des communistes déguisés : en 1989, Jean-Marie Le Pen s'était présenté à la télévision muni d'une pastèque représentant selon lui le parti écologiste, car  ; l'expression a fait florès et était encore reprise en 2022 par le ministre Olivier Véran.

D'autres comme Éric Zemmour accusent les écologistes d', affirmant que « le vert des Verts correspond, comme par hasard, au vert de l'islam ».

Notes et références

Voir aussi

Bibliographie

  José Ardillo, El salario del gigante, Pepitas de calabaza, 2011

 Antoine Dubiau, Écofascismes, Grevis, 13 mai 2022, 224 p.

Liens externes

 Paul Kingsnorth, , Les Amis de Bartleby, août 2022

Courant de l'écologie politique
Fascisme

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Look up ATF in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
ATF may refer to:
1 Organizations
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6 Other uses
Organizations[edit]
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As Trustee For, a legal term for an entity acting as a trustee; see Trust law
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ATF, the United States Navy hull classification symbol for a fleet ocean tug
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Disambiguation page providing links to topics that could be referred to by the same search term
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