Many of the themes in this book regarding the natural world and the grim threats now facing it are ones which I have discussed at length over recent years with a small group of naturalist and writer friends: Mark Avery, Tim Birkhead, Andy Clements, Mark Cocker, Peter Marren and Jeremy Mynott; and which I have discussed further in the alliance of the arts for the natural world, New Networks for Nature, set up by Messrs Birkhead, Cocker and Mynott, with John Fanshawe, in 2009 (and indeed the immediate spark for this book was a presentation I gave at the second N3 meeting in 2010 which dealt with the vanishing of abundance, entitled ‘The Loss of Nature and The Nature of Loss’). I would like to thank them all, and many other members of N3 who share the same concerns, especially Katrina Porteous and Ruth Padel.
The list of other people who have helped me with The Moth Snowstorm and given generously of their time is, alas, too long for them to be thanked in detail so I can only name them. They are: Nick Askew, Phil Atkinson, Chris Baines, Helen Baker, Joanna Bromley, Mark Carwardine, Brian Clarke, Darryl Clifton-Dey, Franck Courchamp, Mike Crosby, Sarah Dawkins, Paul Donald, Richard Fox, Rob Fuller, Bob Gibbons, Lynne Greenstreet, Chris Hewson, Les Hill, Andrew Hoodless, Nigel Jarrett, Paul Knight, Georgina Mace, Graham Madge, Louise Marsh, Harriet Mead, Peter Melchett, Richard Moyse, Ian Newton, David Norman, John and Jane Paige, Debbie Pain, Mark Parsons, Fiona Reynolds, Fiona Roberts, Chris Smith, Richard Smith, Denis Summers-Smith, Paul Stancliffe, Mike Toms, Paul Toynton, Gill Turner, Kate Vincent, Kevin Walker, Martin Warren, Cass Wedd, Colin Wells, Ian Woiwod and others.
Separately, I would like thank Nial Moores in Korea, as well as Spike Millington and Charlie Moores, and in Seoul, David Butterworth and Kim Jinyoung, who were enormously helpful; and I would like to thank the many people who helped me to see all fifty-eight British butterfly species in a single summer: Mark and Rosemary Avery, Robin Curtis, Clive Farrell, Polly Freeman, Mandy Gluth, Liz Goodyear, Dan Hoare, Neil Hulme, David Lambert, Andrew Middleton, Matthew Oates, Steve Peach, Tom Prescott, Jeremy Thomas, Martin Wain, Dave Wainwright, Michael Walter, Martin Warren, Bernard Watts, Ken Willmot and others.
For help with research and editing, I would like to thank Rebecca Lawrence and Marigold Atkey, as well as Simon Blundell, Librarian of the Reform Club, and Lynda Brooks, Librarian of the Linnean Society of London; and I am especially grateful to Ian Newton and Jeremy Mynott, who read the book in typescript. Any errors which remain are of course mine rather than theirs.
I must also thank Andrew Gordon and Roland Philipps, both of whom immediately saw the point, and made this book possible; and finally, as for what concerns myself, my thanks to Andrea Sabbadini and to Radhe Bentley, who effected the repairs, and to Jo Revill, who gave me the new beginning thereafter, are everlasting.
The author and publisher would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce copyright material: ‘The Recovery’ by Edmund Blunden, from Selected Poems (ed. Robyn Marsack, 1982), reproduced by permission of Carcanet Press Limited; extract from ‘A New Song’ by Seamus Heaney from New Selected Poems 1966–1987 (2002), published by Faber and Faber Ltd; extract from ‘Coming’ by Philip Larkin from Collected Poems (2003), published by Faber and Faber Ltd; extracts from ‘The Hare’ and ‘All That’s Past’ by Walter de la Mare from The Complete Poems of Walter de la Mare (1971), reproduced by permission of The Literary Trustees of Walter de la Mare and The Society of Authors as their representative; extract from ‘Prologue’ by Dylan Thomas, from The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas: The New Centenary Edition (2014), published by Orion, reproduced by permission of David Higham Associates.