Much has happened on the land since I last wrote for our newsletter.
Our settlement keeps expanding – a new, exciting stage of building more homes, the Duneridge project – has just begun.
Most of the more dramatic changes have been written about by those more directly involved, for example the dunes restoration project.
This project, and the radical intervention with big machinery, gave me pause… It made me reflect on how we manage the land. We now have a stretch of bare sand dunes reaching all the way to our Wilkie’s Wood. It is a well thought through management intervention to reduce the disproportionate amount of gorse on the land, and to expand the disappearing habitat of some rare ‘star species’, but it is still an experiment. And we are now in the process of planning to extend that sandy stretch northward, toward the open dunes.
While I understand and have come to support the rationale behind these radical interventions, something in me is wondering…
I am looking at our wee woods and it strikes me that you can hardly go anywhere without seeing the human imprint. Some are our beautiful, useful structures like the Conservation Hub, the shelter area, Green Burial, the Shepherd’s Hut and the wee building in the woodland garden next to the memorial wood. There are rustic benches here and there in prominent places. We have made management decisions to help turn the neglected tree-plantation/monoculture we inherited into a healthy bio-diverse woodland, which has included planting around 4000 trees, each with its own green plastic tube protecting it from being eaten by the deer. (Fencing the young trees in wouldn’t work in our situation)
It all makes sense, and yet…
I can’t help wondering – might we be ‘overmanaging’ the land?
Are we really co-creating with the intelligence in Nature rather than imposing our ideas of what is best on our precious environment? Do we need to do the opposite of leaving things ‘wild’ out there to eventually achieve some form of ‘rewilding’?
I know questioning is healthy and I keep asking the land. I try to take the time to listen. But I don’t have the answers yet.
Meanwhile I show up every day for the hundred little unglamorous things that need to be done if we truly care for the land. Creating healthier ‘edges to our woodland’, by cutting up some fallen lodgepole pines and replacing them with more suitable trees – and yes, putting them into yet more plastic tubes.
Endless hours with the brushcutter keeping the regrowth of gorse down, in heathland, grassland, among young trees and on our firebreaks. We’ve not had a drop of rain for more than two weeks – so today I watered the young trees on the Green Burial Ground. And so on and on… My days are full.
It’s still a joy to be tasked with looking after this multifaceted land in our care.
And I trust that the collective decisions we make in our land management team, as well as my day to day ‘love in action’, are for the highest good, and what we do today will leave it healthier for our children – for future generations.
By the time our children will be young adults, all the tree-tubes should have been removed, and the gorse will not be such a dominant feature out there anymore. They can pop out of their homes here and enjoy being surrounded by the magic and beauty of a bit of ‘wilder’ Nature.
May all we do to our environment be for the highest and best of all creatures who share this land.
Blessed be…
Kajedo, March ‘25
News from the Land
Much has happened on the land since I last wrote for our newsletter.
Most of the more dramatic changes have been written about by those more directly involved, for example the dunes restoration project.
This project, and the radical intervention with big machinery, gave me pause… It made me reflect on how we manage the land. We now have a stretch of bare sand dunes reaching all the way to our Wilkie’s Wood. It is a well thought through management intervention to reduce the disproportionate amount of gorse on the land, and to expand the disappearing habitat of some rare ‘star species’, but it is still an experiment. And we are now in the process of planning to extend that sandy stretch northward, toward the open dunes.
While I understand and have come to support the rationale behind these radical interventions, something in me is wondering…
It all makes sense, and yet…
I can’t help wondering – might we be ‘overmanaging’ the land?
I know questioning is healthy and I keep asking the land. I try to take the time to listen. But I don’t have the answers yet.
Meanwhile I show up every day for the hundred little unglamorous things that need to be done if we truly care for the land. Creating healthier ‘edges to our woodland’, by cutting up some fallen lodgepole pines and replacing them with more suitable trees – and yes, putting them into yet more plastic tubes.
Endless hours with the brushcutter keeping the regrowth of gorse down, in heathland, grassland, among young trees and on our firebreaks. We’ve not had a drop of rain for more than two weeks – so today I watered the young trees on the Green Burial Ground. And so on and on… My days are full.
It’s still a joy to be tasked with looking after this multifaceted land in our care.
By the time our children will be young adults, all the tree-tubes should have been removed, and the gorse will not be such a dominant feature out there anymore. They can pop out of their homes here and enjoy being surrounded by the magic and beauty of a bit of ‘wilder’ Nature.
May all we do to our environment be for the highest and best of all creatures who share this land.
Blessed be…
Kajedo, March ‘25