inspired to think about wildlife corridors and how local networks could be created between land already under conservation management, perhaps along already established rights of way. On the Who Owns EnglandMap (link below) we can see, in Gloucestershire and into Wiltshire, promising pockets managed by the Forestry Commission and National Trust where, with co-operation from landowners willing to take up set aside arrangements, corridors could be established- for example: links between Westonbirt, Tetbury, Wootton Bassett and the South Cerney lake complex, a line from Crickley Hill through Ebworth, Haresfield Beacon, the Stroud Commons, Woodchester and Newark and down to Horton Court and Dyrham Park. Add the Thames Path, Cotswold Way, Ridgway and Fosseway National Trail sections plus local rights of way and it seems highly promising. https://map.whoownsengland.org
Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust has suggestions for individual action here:
Including a petition to Michael Gove for a strong Environment Act
and a trailer for an inspirational short film with Sir David Attenborough, Stephen Fry, Catherine Tate, Alison Steadman and Asim Chaudhry who are backing the Wild Trusts and have provided voiceovers for a heartfelt reimagining of The Wind in the Willows.
Groups like Stroud Landscape Project are already working on this, details here:
If anyone would like to explore the possibilities for Tetbury and District please contact me: annecox@cooptel.net
OTHER INSPIRATIONAL WRITERS
Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert review – the path to catastrophe. A damning survey, drawing on skilful and subtle reporting, that tracks the spiralling absurdity of human attempts to control nature with technology
Interview with Richard Mabey: “Viruses and man-eating tigers and predatory hornets are all part of nature” How does this pioneer of British nature writing think the pandemic will change our relationship to the natural world?
Dare to believe’: young writers on their dreams of the sea
To mark the UN’s ocean decade, contestants were asked to write imaginatively on ‘10 years in the ocean’. Two of the entries here (one from Arran the site of the
Anne Cox mailto:annecox@cooptel.net
You've provided some great links there, Anne, thank you.
Fergus