De silva

The Wood for the Trees by Richard Fortey

Renowned natural historian Richard Fortey bought four acres of beech and bluebell wood and began a deep investigation into its fauna and flora. His enthusiasm for his new wonderland is infectious

From a detailed review in the Guardian: "It is hard to think of a more treasured aspect of the British landscape than woodland, which is surprising when you consider how far we seem to have wandered from the trees. We have lower levels of woodland cover (13%) than our EU neighbours yet the forest continues to thrive in the national psyche, as demonstrated by the outcry in 2011 that halted government plans to privatise England’s state-owned woods and forests.  We love the off-the-lead freedom to wander these ever-changing yet timeless spaces, to briefly decentralise ourselves from the world and experience nature’s otherness in counterpoint to day-to-day life. Public outrage at the proposed sell-off wasn’t just about the effect it would have on a favourite view or psychological retreat, however – the very character of the country seemed under threat. In its defence, protestors evoked everyone from Robin Hood to Winnie the Pooh.  

                          

So our connection to woodland is deep-rooted. It is historical, cultural and personal, ingrained from millennia of habitation, dependency and usage. The Wood for the Trees, follows Fortey as he focuses on our woodland connections and affections, using one small wood to capture a wider story of the British landscape.

 

In 2011, after retiring from his role as a senior palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum, and following a windfall from presenting a TV series, Fortey purchased four acres of prime beech and bluebell wood. Located in the Chiltern Hills, a mile from his hometown of Henley-on-Thames, Grim’s Dyke Wood is the very patch that had John Stuart Mill so enraptured two centuries ago. Though it has changed in the intervening years, it is still a glorious spot – Fortey’s initial intention was to use the wood as a way to “escape into the open air”, to record a rich ecology of living wildlife following a career locked away in dusty museums studying dead things. His particular sphere of expertise whilst at the NHM was the extinct marine arthropod class of Trilobites.  He soon realised, however, that any portrait of the place would be incomplete without its human histories, too.

“I needed to explore the development of the English countryside,” he writes. “I was moved by a compulsion to understand half-forgotten crafts …plans were made to fell timber, to follow the journey from tree to furniture … in short, the wood became a project.”

What follows then is, in one sense, an expanded diary of this project over the arc of a year, except Fortey is not just any retiree keeping notes on a new hobby. His remarkable scientific knowledge, intense curiosity and love of nature mean entries erupt with the same richness and variety as the woods they describe.

Because of his scientific background he is able to draw on the full range of expertise from within the biological and archaeological disciplines.  From recipes for ground elder soup to musings on bumblebee varieties or gruesome tales of murder, Fortey’s enthusiasm for his new wonderland is infectious and illuminating. His style echoes the Selborne naturalist Gilbert White and his approach is proudly old school. He makes clear his distaste for “fuzzy” romanticism and the intruding emotions of the observer, but he too is romantic at times, not least in his resolve to collect things found in, or created from, his patch of wood. Mouse-gnawed cherry stones, glass made from flint, fallen birds’ eggs are among the things he preserves in a cabinet made from his own timber. 

Of course, collections are the trade of scientists and curators too, and it’s clear old habits die hard. With some help from colleagues at the Natural History Museum Fortey begins a deep analysis of the wood and its inhabitants – trees, insects, animals, plants and minerals. He starts with the substrate, slicing buried flint and putting it under a microscope to identify its origins, and ends up on a cherry picker in the canopy, all in the name of cataloguing the wood’s many mice, moths, bats, beetles, butterflies, crane flies, spiders, parasitic wasps, orchids, centipedes, millipedes and weird and wonderful fungi. On a personal note,  I found the section on truffles astonishingly enlightening.  He made truffle-hunting seem so straightforward and far less hitty-missy than I had come to believe.  Fortey has a talent for imagery:  Flat-backed millipedes “look as if they were assembled from some kind of kit that clicks together to make miniature armoured trains”; the Lithobius variegatus centipede’s striped legs stick out “like oars from a Viking ship, bent on pillage”.


Interwoven with these records are peripatetic investigations into human stories, from this patch’s iron age incarnation through Henley’s boom as a thriving river town supplying timber to the capital, up to the recent snapping up and fencing off of surrounding land by oligarchs and bankers. Along the way, Fortey unearths his wood’s changing fortunes and its significant ties to local estates, country houses and notable families. Taking a broader view of British history, he reveals how its survival and ecological richness have been due to its usefulness in providing the things we need – food, fuel, coppice, charcoal, chair legs, tent pegs and brushes.

And therein lies the conundrum. The future of British woodlands and their wildlife is precariously balanced, threatened by everything from climate change to the consumer preference for cheap imported woods. In this deep and interesting book, Fortey warns that without a return to hands-on management, a renewed sense of value and increased human engagement, our native woods are doomed to become empty “rural decoration” left “to age to a kind of senility that would benefit only wood-eating beetles”. Young trees need to replace the old, he writes; “new light needs to flood in”. Not only do we still need the trees, but they need us, too.