Wild Archives - Mark Goldthorpe

December 10, 2018

msb ~094 On the wild edge of what we know

On the wild edge of what we know

Kathleen Jamie – renowned poet and also a great essayist, as her book Sightlines shows – joined forester Peter Wohlleben and others on today’s BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week. Together, they covered trees, air pollution, rewilding, language and other arenas of nature-culture.

It’s de-centring to confront Wohlleben’s evidence for the sensations and social liveliness of trees within their ‘wood wide web’; in host Andrew Marr’s words, this is “on the wild edge of what most of us know.” How are ‘culture’ and ‘nature’ so separated that these are such odd thoughts, immediately triggering fears of mysticism and anthropomorphism (both real enough risks)? Continue reading “msb ~094 On the wild edge of what we know”

December 3, 2018

msb ~089 Wasteland to wild land

Wasteland to wild land

wild land, self-willed land, waste land — rewilding at work

As the pre-plastics past becomes more remote, is it harder to imagine post-plastics futures? That’s the thought that struck me while catching up on some rewilding reading. The appropriately named Isabella Tree calls out our modern distaste for ‘wasteland’ in her concise critique of ‘managed reforestation’ plans for England’s new Northern Forest. In particular, our “demonisation of thorny scrub” means that we can only imagine forest regeneration as a task for humans armed with spades and plastic tree defenders. Continue reading “msb ~089 Wasteland to wild land”

November 20, 2018November 21, 2018

msb ~080 Nature shock

Nature shock

Journeying further into Dark Mountain’s new anthology, TERRA, I reach Sara Hudston’s wonderful, powerful parable, Wild Apples. “Francis hated animals.” It’s not just animals. Francis — named ironically for that Assisi guy, of course — hates all evidence of the non-human, natural world. An ex-countryside refugee — “He’d escaped as soon as he could to the city where women liked to be looked at and men could talk intelligently of important matters” — he’s forced back into rural exile, singled out for unidentified duties by an unnamed bureaucracy with no apparent purpose. Continue reading “msb ~080 Nature shock”

October 29, 2018

msb ~064 Beyond the background wild #3

Beyond the background wild #3

Cat and bird, by Paul Klee — *Cat and bird*

Thinking about times I’ve really encountered wild animals, I realise there are very few true moments beyond the ‘background wild’…

My landlord’s cat, years ago: a frequent hunter, whose humans shrugged and waited until her prey was ready to go under the flower beds. She sauntered in and dumped a large thrush on the kitchen floor. The bird flapped about until I threw a towel over it, waited a moment for its movements (and my heart) to quieten, and scooped towel and bird back into the garden. It sat dazed on the grass and, minutes later, was gone. Continue reading “msb ~064 Beyond the background wild #3”

October 22, 2018October 22, 2018

msb ~059 Only connect

Only connect

Louisa Thomsen Brits’ Path narrates place and personhood through poems that make ‘a short story about reciprocity’. This small book treads lightly through wide scapes of spirit and land; beginning with a quote from Robert Macfarlane: “paths connect. This is their first duty and their chief reason for being.” Perhaps all beings (human/non-human) are also paths: expressions of particularity and process; routes and roots to our essential connections.

I am footfall and track,
trail and trace,
thread of passage and possibility.

Trodden-through with a region-specific ‘word hoard’, Path is both intensely local to those paths Brit walks and universally translatable to our own natural geographies, histories, biographies.

I offer to make sense of the world,
to unravel tangle to intelligible thread,
I am your next natural step,
a silent, sinuous course stretching ahead of you... Continue reading “msb ~059 Only connect”

October 2, 2018October 11, 2018

msb ~045 Future forest, plastic tide

Future forest, plastic tide

So far, I’ve only managed to watch 30 minutes of the BBC’s excellent Drowning in Plastic: impossible to stomach the full hour-and-a-half at once. Footage of shearwaters dying from the plastics their parents unwittingly fed them is, appropriately, gut-wrenching: the animals as oblivious to their plight as we are to our hour-by-hour petrochemical churn that creates it. So – like the other recent BBC 90 minutes on landfill – I’ll be taking this in chunks. But the first viewing leaves me wondering how to respond to another plastics piece today, on a colourful ‘future forest’ made entirely from three tons of recycled plastic waste… Continue reading “msb ~045 Future forest, plastic tide”

October 1, 2018October 11, 2018

msb ~044 The haunting

The haunting

There are no natural sources of polychlorinated biphenyls only natural sinks, such as Killer Whales and other predators. As such, PCBs are part of the pattern of whorls and loops that make up the human fingerprints we’re learning to understand as the Anthropocene: spooky fingerprints that circulate around us within other living beings. Continue reading “msb ~044 The haunting”

September 28, 2018October 11, 2018

msb ~043 Palliative curation

Palliative curation

I value my memory of the blistering critique I received when speaking to environmental experts about sometimes having to ‘let go’ of loved sites of natural or cultural heritage as the contradictions of trying to ‘hold back’ historic climate change become starker: “Wooly-minded fudge!” Particular scorn came when I mentioned ‘palliative curation’. Many of the ideas we’re going to have to explore are contentious, even provocative, so my only complaint is that I’d done a poor job explaining the possibilities. Continue reading “msb ~043 Palliative curation”

September 26, 2018October 11, 2018

msb ~041 Beyond the background wild #2

Beyond the background wild #2

Thinking about times I’ve really encountered wild animals, I realise there are very few true moments beyond the ‘background wild’…

Southampton in the 90s: heading to the station for the last train home from work, the main road silent, empty of traffic and people – and a fox sauntered up the path. We both stopped, inspecting each other. Then she moved closer, slow but not especially cautious. I’m unsure how cautious urban foxes should be… More than this. I stood. She kept coming, reached out her snout, sniffed. Continue reading “msb ~041 Beyond the background wild #2”

September 20, 2018October 11, 2018

msb ~037 Mass annihilation

Mass annihilation

Looking for a headline that says it all? Humanity Has Killed 83% of All Wild Mammals and Half of All Plants: Study. That study being The biomass distribution on Earth. Confronting these annihilation estimates summons Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous: “And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.” Continue reading “msb ~037 Mass annihilation”