Return to North Glen or Reading List or Credo
Living
in Place
an essay by Ed Iglehart
(prepared for Reforesting Scotland Journal, Autumn 2000)
Globalisation
seems to be an attempt to override the traditional wisdom that the
most important determinants of property value are location, location,
and location. With profligate use of fossil fuels, goods and people
can be moved anywhere. Living a long time in one place is a privilege
granted to far too few of us these days. When one's work is also
largely 'at home,' the deeper relationship to place is intensified.
That this is nowadays such an uncommon boon is a mark of our times -
mobility seems more highly prized than stability. I'm 28 years in
place - how boring!
The front door overlooks a tidal valley
with a settlement of six thousand folk a few miles upriver and a
disused ford and fishing port (now yachts & dinghies) a mile
downstream (both thankfully on the other side of the river!) Half a
mile downhill (but upriver) is Palnackie, which owes its existence to
good anchorage and functioned as the principal port for the
catchment. From the hills out back, the landscape is coastal
peninsula and bay grading through arable, pasturage, and forested
hills which rise steeply above treeline to 1250 feet.
It would
be difficult not to become deeply attached to such a place. Sadly,
many of our young are unable to remain. The dominant economic
assumptions and the imperative of mobility draw them off and we
maintain our low but stable population largely by importing
silvertips who can afford to live here without paid work.
The
Stewartry of Kirkcudbright is over one-third forest (if the term is
used loosely enough to include conifer plantations) and over the
years, I have developed a deep interest in the trees which are the
nearest and most numerous of my neighbours above the scale of birds
and mice. For so large a clan, however, the tree folk have few really
old members hereabouts. Despite this, timber harvesting is expected
to double in the next fifteen years, as the optimum lifespan for a
Sitka Spruce is reckoned to be forty five years.
In my time
here, there have been no less than seven successive District Forest
Officers (DFOs) responsible for the 150,000 acres of Forestry
Commission woods in the Stewartry. (They're now styled Forest
District Manager, (FDM))
Adjoining North Glen and opposite
Kippford lies Tornat Wood,6
where many of these lines were written. For at least ten years I have
tried to encourage the Forestry Commission to designate it as a
community wood for Palnackie, badgering a succession of DFOs. At
first, when the opportunity arose, I dragged a kilted one through
bracken & briar and got verbal acceptance that amenity should be
the dominant value for the wood. Later, when it was in preparation
for sale, our community woodland group were in position to buy it,
but Scottish Natural Heritage wouldn't make the necessary binding
recommendation (SCWT was a new group with no "track record"),
and the best we could get was its removal from the disposals list. We
then got verbal agreement from the new DFO that it should be managed
in partnership with the community council, but progress towards
formal partnership is slow (no bad thing?). Local young folk (with
some encouragement) have begun to use their own initiative, have
cleared and signposted paths and talk of building a bird hide which
may do duty as a bothy at times.
At the top of Tornat on a
sunny afternoon in a light northeasterly breeze, seagulls and
buzzards cry and circle below high jets singlefiling southwards.
Across the Solway, the hazy mountains of Cumbria taper down to St
Bees Head. Just around the headland, out of sight and long ago, the
Queen opened Calder Hall. Britain's nuclear electricity was going to
be so cheap it wouldn't need to be metered. The adjoining plutonium
recovery facility has been re-named frequently, reflecting its habit
of thinking (and lying) globally while acting locally (and shamefully
carelessly) - Seascale, Windscale, Sellafield, what next? Never mind,
for the moment, it's downwind...and as I muse, company arrives. He
retired from North London to Gelston (4 miles away) eight years ago,
and we swap favourite walks, talk mountains, lochs and waterfalls and
the need to get young folk outdoors. As he is setting off, a father
and daughter arrive. He's from East Kilbride, now Dalbeattie, a
retired aircraft engineer (Merlin engines), widowed last September.
Daughter is cabin crew with BA out of Brighton; grandkids in Dumfries
and Arisaig (spoiled by streetlights). He often used to walk in the
dark several miles through the forest from Dalbeattie for a pint at
the Clonyard. When folk asked "Aren't you afraid?" he
replied, "of what?" They have left the car at the port in
Palnackie ("It makes us walk!"), and like my earlier
visitor, it's the first time they've come this way, thanks to the
kids' pathwork and signs - wonderful!
The sun is warm and
from the opposite quarter to the wind. I settle down in the lee of a
tussocky outcrop and enjoy the vista of bracken, down and brown, with
green emerging on the gametrails (just). A young larch in the middle
of the bracken has made a complete corkscrew turn, but has now sorted
out vertical with its leader; on the east, white birches and green
pines edge the meadow, and over the steeper western edge the tops of
oak, beech and sycamore are still bare of leaves. In dead centre sits
Rough Island, its causeway and the flats clear, but the river's
channel is nearly full and will overflow as the tide rises. Further
down the estuary the channel swings in close to Gibbs Hole and its
wood, mixed and full of bluebells. The Granite outcrops still have
iron anchor rings for seagoing sailing ships. A path, formerly a cart
track, can be followed from the anchorage through mature broadleaf
woods along the base of the peninsula to South Glen, and Palnackie
passing Tornat and North Glen. This served ships unable to wait for
larger tides, or with small amounts of cargo to discharge.
Above
the broadleaves, Castle Hill has been clear felled (and, sadly,
replanted in spruce) providing a magnificent 360 degree viewpoint
until the new trees get away. I could walk to Almorness House,
beating the tide across the mudflats, and thence to the hilltop and
home the long way, but it's too nice here in the sunshine and out of
the breeze. A falcon flies from right to left, low grey and smallish
and down through the pines. I think he saw me lying here, still but
not camouflaged. Cock pheasants crow and fly across; the hens will be
hidden in cover, sitting on eggs.
The settlements and
windmills are visible in the distance on the English side. Across the
river at Kippford, there are boats on the mud and larches just
greening among the evergreen slopes above the village. The Muckle
Lands are a high bluff of bracken and stone crossed by the new power
line, which marches from Dalbeattie straight through the National
Scenic Area, where planners won't easily allow a doghouse. The power
grid apparently has eminent domain, and Kippford now has
streetlights, over the objections of most residents. Scenery
apparently only matters in the daytime.
The sun is trying to
go down, so I set off down the meadow and swing around the west face
through beech, sycamore larch & oak. The ground is covered with
long green bluebell leaves and moss - very little grass. The
buzzard's nest is quiet for the present, as is the rookery, and the
dogs explore rabbit holes and chase squirrel scents. As I follow the
contour (musn't lose height), a bright flash of light is reflected
from one of Angus' ditches as I pass through alignment with the
slanting sunlight. It cuts the alluvium parallel to the shoreline
some 300m away, efficiently flowing between twin, straight fencelines
enclosing bare banks. A horse is grazing and lambs are calling to
their mothers. The farmhouse is quiet.
Further along, dropping
out of the wood and onto the track, I stop to lean on the Glen Gate,
where Palnackie folk would come to look out to Gibbs Hole to see what
ships were tied up. When Annabel was young, we used to pause here,
and she would go up into the wood to a pretend kitchen in a tumble of
boulders, and prepare an imaginary cup of tea for us to sip while we
leaned on the gate and looked out to sea. The pond and channel here
supplied water power for a horse-drawn itinerant threshing mill, and
perhaps at other times, but was insufficient for continuous use.
I
have trees on other folks' land, and not all of them know. It's
natural regeneration, phantom treeplanting. The ash people have
learned that survival is aided by sprouting right next to a young
hawthorn, and this successful pairing is common around here. Noting
this, I have evolved a mixed relationship with the bramble people and
others of their ilk. In places on behalf of the bluebell folk and
others, I've made war on them, and in others I've planted native
trees among them (protected by their hostile nature from cattle and
sheep, and from rabbits by plastic) which will eventually form
woodland canopy from Tornat halfway to Palnackie, and this may be
extended to the village and beyond towards Kirkennan and Munches.
Both of these relatively small estates are rehabilitating and
extending native woodland bordering the river. Their larger woods,
actively managed for two centuries or more, contain many fine trees,
native and exotic.
Over the rise and approaching home I visit
one of my favourite trees. Part of the hedge along the roadside, its
roots are under the road, but one branch escaped the hedge-mangling
flail by extending itself horizontally until out of reach and has
since grown to a goodsized trunk, while still keeping up the
hedge-disguise on its flank. I've sometimes pointed it out to
children as "the tree that got away," and speculated that
someday it will be blown over and lift a great hole in the road. I
imagine them with their own children: "Do you remember old Ed?
He used to say this would happen."
Tom Niven, whose
father (also Tom) owns the fields next to the village, proposed
reinstating the towpath from the port at Palnackie downriver to
Tornat as a "millennium trail." Angus, who owns the rest of
the riverside, was in full agreement, but after much enthusiasm and
support from officials and residents, the project had to be abandoned
(postponed?) because the owner of the first fifty meters denies the
right of way. There is little doubt that recourse to law would
confirm a right, but patient counsel prevailed. In the meantime, Tom
& Angus have contributed a wee bit of steep land where their
fields adjoin as a millennium viewpoint beside the Glen Road. It has
been levelled and dyked; bulbs and a couple of trees planted (The
hedge already has two good oaks emerging, thanks to ribbons tied to
confuse the hedge-mangler).
Sam Thornely has gotten a
millennium award to make furniture for the viewpoint, for which he's
set up a greenwood workspace in a tipi at North Glen. He's involving
the Palnackie schoolchildren (and me), helping them establish a tree
nursery at the school, using seedlings they collected from the wood
next to the school. The wood for the furniture is mostly windblown
oak from Kirkennan wood, and a couple of weeks ago, the 'big room'
kids. teacher and a couple of parents went up into the wood to see
Sam free a butt from its rootplate and cleave it in half. Boggy, (a
traveller) and Pinky (his horse) then pulled the halves down to the
road.
As we walked up to the location, two wee girls updated
me on their progress in reading the Lord of the Rings in class. I saw
the first swallow today, and a few flower spikes on the bluebells.
After the holidays (but before the bracken is up) we'll lead an
expedition to Tornat to see the bluebells and other things. It's a
wonderful place for dens.
"To put the bounty and the health of our land, our only commonwealth, into the hands of people who do not live on it and share its fate will always be an error. For whatever determines the fortune of the land determines also the fortune of the people. If...history... teaches anything, it teaches that."
-- Wendell Berry, Another Turn of the Crank, 1995
There is considerable discussion and debate on the strategies appropriate for forested land, whether more land should be forested, and appropriate objectives for such afforestation. From the trees which currently cover one sixth of Scotland, only one Scot in five hundred is employed. Best estimates are that fewer than one in fifty jobs in our area is provided by the trees who occupy one third of the land. There would seem a strong argument that any public money in the sector should be targeted towards developing forests with more direct benefits to people, particularly those who live (or wish to live) in close proximity to forests.
"Thus, at the heart of the Strategy there must be a strategic direction: - to ensure that forestry in Scotland makes a positive contribution to the environment. ...This must recognise the need to ensure that Scotland's trees, woods and forests are located and managed for long term sustainability and biodiversity in order to make the maximum contribution to the environment consistent with agreed economic objectives." (1)
But it is apparent that the Forestry Commission, who manage the public estate, and their private sector colleagues are constrained by such "agreed economic objectives" which require maximum mechanisation and upgrading public roads to carry the heaviest lorries and machinery. "If vehicles are overloaded this process [road damage and deterioration] is accelerated. Studies over many years have shown that the damage caused is proportional to the fourth power of the weight. [emphasis added]" (2) Thus, putting twenty tonne load limits on rural roads would remove almost 94% of the damage . It would also involve twice as many jobs for lorry drivers and increase the cost of timber haulage, as opposed to externalising the social and economic cost of roads onto local authorities (communities). This is utterly rejected by the industry as harmful to competitiveness.
"Rather than presenting quick answers, as technocratic culture tends to do, we need to reflect on whether or not we are asking the right questions...[or whether] ...people ‘participate’ in a project without having to decide on the critical issues related to that project."
-- Pablo Leal (3)
It
would seem that everything is up for discussion in consultation with
the notable exception of "agreed economic objectives" which
are obviously agreed elsewhere. That the perceived need to become
competitive in the global market militates the minimisation of
employment and maximisation of fossil-powered mechanisation with
attendant emissions only emphasises the folly of continuing to build
a global culture based on moving things and people around by burning
carbon. Such thinking is not restricted to forestry or agriculture,
but is visible everywhere in our heavy addiction to mobility.
Transport is the sole sector expected to increase emissions of
greenhouse gasses in the coming decade(s). This seems so accepted
that it passes without notice in government papers. (4,5)
In short, in consultations concerned with rural development,
land reform, land-use, including forestry, and probably many another,
a common thread emerges, embodying the persistent fallacy that the
economy contains the ecology. Sustainable development, the mantra
repeatedly invoked, must in every case be subservient to "agreed
economic objectives." Clearly the right questions are not yet
being asked of the right folk.
Notes:
(1)
Draft
Scottish Forestry Strategy:
(http://www.forestry.gov.uk/fcscotland/dsfs/scostrat.htm)
(2)
Roundwood
Haulage Working Party. (1998). Road Haulage of Round Timber Code of
Practice. Published by Forestry Contracting Association Ltd.,
Dalfling, Blairduff, Inverurie, Aberdeenshire AB51 5LA on behalf of
Roundwood Haulage Working Party FC/AL/7K/Sept 98 (2nd Edition)
(3)
Pablo Leal, Participation, Communication and Technology in the Age of
the Global Market, in Forests, Trees and People Newsletter No. 40/41:
http://www-trees.slu.se/newsl/40/40leal.pdf
(4)
CLIMATE
CHANGE: SCOTTISH IMPLICATIONS SCOPING STUDY (1999)
(http://www.scotland.gov.uk/cru/kd01/ccsi-01.htm)
(5)
Ed Iglehart, 2000; A summary critique of the above: crit2.html
and:
A response to the Draft Forestry Strategy: strategy.html
and: Is Consultation Worth the Candle? consultation.html
(6)
tornat.html
Return to North Glen or Reading List or Credo