Making more space for nature

I was very pleased to be invited to take part in a webinar for Rewilding Britain recently, about smaller scale Rewilding alongside Laura Fairs (Rewilding Lead at Embercombe) as well as discussing the wider wilder landscape initiative- Devon Wildland.

As with all these opportunities, on self reflection after the event there were a million more things that I could have mentioned. We seemed to pack a lot into an hour, however a couple of things I wanted to cover were abundance and a mantra for mosaics.

What do I mean by abundance? A great discussion of this can be found in Benedict Macdonald's excellent book Rebirding, where he talks about how we have got used to seeing fewer of a species in the landscape. He talks extensively about 'stochastic extinction', where so few breeding individuals exist, as Benedict says; "once you are left with a tiny population, everything has to work perfectly in order for the species to survive- yet by default, nature does not cater to the perfect survival of any one species."

Rarities become special and more treasured than more commonly observed species, but as Laura said in the webinar, "It doesn't have to be rare, to be special." One thing that we can say with some certainty is that we should stop taking common species for granted especially in the face of diseases. As seen with ash dieback, suddenly we are realising the importance of individual species to a whole host of other organisms.

We are rightly focussed on the biodiversity crisis but we also need to be mindful of how few of the remaining species are left, and how we have come to normalise this via shifting baseline syndrome. Shifting baseline syndrome is the process where we come to normalise populations and landscapes with reference to our own subjective perceptions of how things were in our childhood. As George Monbiot puts it in his book Feral, "Our memories have been wiped as clean as the land."

In many years time what we may see here at Hill Crest (as a relatively small site) is a loss of biodiversity when species associated with species-rich grassland migrate out in favour of more woodland specific species as the tree canopy starts to close over. This is where landscape-scale restoration is key, so that these species can 'roll with' the changes and migrate across the landscape, where ideally the land is no longer held in stasis but ebbs and flows as natural processes become re-established. What we may eventually lose in biodiversity, we will hopefully gain in abundance.

What this also means is that as changes happen across the landscape, a bigger mosaic of different wilder habitats are created; where areas of scrub, woodland and more open areas intermingle to support an abundance of different species- a mantra for mosaics!

This is my dream for Devon Wildland, a connected landscape which supports a mosaic of habitats, where more space is made for nature, through a collective mindset change where humans initially lead the way for nature to lead itself.

Thank you to Sara King at Rewilding Britain for giving me the space to share the changes that are happening here, and also how the social pressures on the land greatly influence the wider picture.

To watch the Rewilding Britain webinar in full, here is the link:

The necrobiome

This year the autumn colours seem a little late here, it’s almost as though the trees are having a final hurrah after the astonishing drought we’ve seen.

One thing this autumn seems to have brought to the land is an increase in death. Death is a constant here but as the vegetation hunkers down for the winter, the passing of life becomes all the more apparent. In the last week I found this deer, dead on the path near the pond. It was a strange discovery as this time it hadn’t been hit by a car and from the camera trap footage seems to have been an older doe which was staggering around and from the near complete lack of teeth seems to have met it’s ‘natural end’.

But in terms of Rewilding is there such a thing as a ‘natural end’ or is it part of the new beginning or continuation of the spiral of life? What does death bring to the system? Death is so missing from our landscape with carcasses taken and tidied away. The necrobiome is the community of species that are associated with rotting carcasses; this can include microbes, insects, nematodes, fungi and scavengers. I’ve got in the habit of occasionally picking up roadkill animals and last year was amazed to see butterflies landing on a deer carcass. Supposedly this is a common occurrence and butterflies often feed on carcasses to obtain essential salts and amino acids which they cannot obtain from flowers. Carcasses also provide refuge, energy and water for other insect populations, as well as fur being used by birds during nesting season.

Unfortunately, this week we also found this juvenile polecat just down the road, as many people have said we should be heartened to see that we have regularly squashed hedgehogs, badgers and occasional polecats as it shows we have a ‘thriving population’ in order to see them dead on the road… however I always worry that this one could be the last… It's amazing to see these animals so close and to marvel at their form. We brought the polecat home, the thought of seeing its body mangled by each passing car seemed disrespectful.

A quiet spot of reflection today saw the discovery of this black bird beak and feathers seemingly a small feast for a Sparrowhawk. We occasionally get a glimpse of it flying along the bottom track and the periodic pile of feathers of its various meals give a good indication that they seem to be thriving here, and breeding Goshawks in the valley will probably keep them in check.

Perhaps it’s my Catholic comprehensive schooling or my gothic Heavy Metal infused adolescence but I’ve always had a morbid curiosity of death, but with age I see it as an intrinsic part of life. A reconnection to the natural processes of life, also means a reconnection with death and hopefully society can move away from its Victorian approach to endings and think in a more cyclical and holistic way.

These visual displays of death make it easier to explain to my six year old daughter, the recent death of the Queen, as well as our dearest friend, Bob, over the summer. Bob was my Gramps’ best friend and spent so many hours here at Hill Crest. Often in the ‘sheep-grazed’ days he’d be up here chainsawing away with shorts on and foregoing ear protection on the thought that those inner ear hair cells that hadn’t succumbed to the aircraft carrier guns of his naval days, could take a pounding from the noise of a mere chainsaw.

He was one of those souls who was ever present and a constant, and his death has left a huge hole in this place. He loved this place, this land and we loved him.

A number of years ago I came across this poem by Nicholas Evans in his novel, The Smoke Jumper, entitled Walk Within You:

"If I be the first of us to die,

Let grief not blacken long your sky.

Be bold yet modest in your grieving.

There is a change but not a leaving.

For just as death is part of life,

The dead live on forever in the living.

And all the gathered riches of our journey,

The moments shared, the mysteries explored,

The steady layering of intimacy stored,

The things that made us laugh or weep or sing,

The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,

The wordless language of look and touch,

The knowing,

Each giving and each taking,

These are not flowers that fade,

Nor trees that fall and crumble,

Nor are they stone,

For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand

And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand.

What we were, we are.

What we had, we have.

A conjoined past imperishably present.

So when you walk the woods where once we walked together

And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow,

Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land,

And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand,

And finding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you,

Be still.

Clear your eyes.

Breathe.

Listen for my footfall in your heart.

I am not gone but merely walk within you. "

RIP Bob Gillard 1931 - 2022

Further reading:

Rewilding death: The plan to restore the necrobiome. BBC Future Planet https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210817-rewilding-death-germanys-plan-to-restore-the-necrobiome

Rewilding- The radical new science of ecological recovery- illustrated edition. Paul Jepson & Cain Blythe (2021)

The Smoke Jumper by Nicholas Evans (1999)

Hearrings

Recently I have been asked quite a lot about Hearrings, an element of my 'former commercial' life which was a project originally conceived out of a discussion of attitudes towards hearing loss. So I thought it might be useful to write a blog post, and to explore whether things have changed in the intervening years.

In 2008 I was invited to explore how hearing aids are perceived within wider society at the national conference of the British Society of Hearing Aid Audiologists (BSHAA). The presentation covered what could be done to challenge misconceptions about hearing aids in the media and how the hearing aid industry could encourage uptake of hearing aids. How could we make hearing aids more ‘sexy’ to the media so that they were discussed more positively and how could the modern benefits of wearing hearing aids be better portrayed?

I covered the history of portrayal of hearing aids in the media such as outlets like the Daily Mail's article about Jodie Foster (a prominent Hollywood actress at the time) being ‘hearing aid shamed’:

The discussion of making hearing aids ‘funky’ started way back in the 1950s. As can be seen at the fabulous Becker Exhibit website there were some ingenious ways in which people have tried to conceal their hearing devices as well as incorporating them into jewellery such as brooches and hair clips. http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/did/index.htm

So as a gimmick for the presentation I designed a piece of jewellery that clipped onto my hearing aids. I was old enough to have started my career occasionally fitting NHS body worn hearing aids which utilized a coupling that connected the receiver. I used this coupling on a standard ear mould to clip on a carefully adapted piece of jewellery… the Hearring was born. There was huge interest from the delegates at the conference as to where they could buy them for their customers, so we embarked on the journey of making the Hearring commercially available.

So along with patenting the design and trademarking the name Hearrings, we worked with a designer, Victoria Glynn to create a range of Swarovski crystal encrusted hearts. The strap line was "Changing hearing aids from a necessity into a must have accessory". Designing packaging and promotion seemed to take up an inordinate amount of time and as well as attending the ill fated San Diego American Academy of Audiology congress (where we all got stranded by the erupting volcano in Iceland grounding all flights) interest really grew. We were lucky to be featured in many Fashion pages of magazines and newspapers including a whole page feature in the Independent Newspaper.

Hearrings set out to get people talking and it did... but with the advent of slim tube / receiver in the canal technology and concentrating on my main hearing aid audiology business the whole concept took a back seat and I always said that technology in society, away from hearing aids, was always likely to lead to change in hearing aid perception. So with the advance in bluetooth head phones and the advent of 'hearables' and self fitting hearing devices via iPhones and apps have things changed? Are people queuing up to get fitted with hearing instruments?

In 2019 the Hearing Industries Association (HIA) survey, the MarkeTrak10, measured trends in hearing aid adoption / or non use. For those individuals where hearing aids were recommended to help with a hearing loss but who chose not to wear hearing technology 12% cited “Too noticeable/visible” 12% thought hearing devices were “unattractive” and 11% felt “too young to have hearing aids”. ( https://hearingreview.com/uncategorized/marketrak-10-hearing-aids-in-an-era-of-disruption-and-dtc-otc-devices-2 )

I have to admit being surprised by this data, ten years since we discussed this at the conference it seems that little has changed, however the number of devices fitted continues to grow, so surely this shows that uptake of hearing device use is rising. With the recent move in the US towards over the counter devices or self fitting personal sound amplifiers (PSAPs) it's looking like the traditional hearing aid manufacturers dominating the market may be heading for a shake up, especially in the wake of the Covid19 pandemic where telehealth solutions were the only option for many individuals to access audiological advice. There seems to be a raft of studies looking at the impact of telehealth on Audiology. So has this major societal shift been reflected in the uptake of hearing devices or will people with untreated hearing loss stay in the shadows? I guess "time will tell" and the next few Marketrak studies may be quite revealing. Indeed with PSAPs and self fitting amplification strategies implemented through phone Apps it may be this data will be impossible to obtain as people move from just using earphones to adding in some amplification strategies as their hearing deteriorates... it will become the norm... no big deal...

Back in 2011 the Audira think tank published a blog article about "Why we must never use the ‘S’ word in hearing care" ( https://audira.info/index.php/articles/why-we-must-never-use-the-s-word-in-hearing-care ) whilst Audiologists are encouraged to stop talking about stigma it would be interesting to hear from readers of this blog as to whether or not users of hearing aids in 2022, experience discrimination or dare I say it 'stigma' relating to hearing aids. Often these real life stories are the most revealing of society as a whole. At some point in this blog I will explore whether the lived experience of those born with deafness (or Deafness) are different to those that acquire hearing loss later in life with conditions such as presbycusis.

Certainly " The times they are a-changin' " and as a kid when first fitted with hearing aids I would have loved to have owned a Barbie wearing a hearing aid, who knows maybe I would have also designed her a Hearring or two!

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Some examples of my Hearrings, quite a few nature inspired ones!