Nature has always been there. A lovely little addition to our lives when we want it. A sunset? Yes, please! A boat trip to see some whales? Count me in! A kingfisher flying past during a picnic? Hello! But nature is challenging us. Actually, planet Earth’s climate and biodiversity crisis removed the cushion from underneath us decades ago. Yet the strange thing is, we still don’t seem to have noticed.
As I write this in the summer of 2021, the past two weeks have been fraught with change. Germany, Belgium and Uganda are dealing with horrifying, deadly floods. North America is grappling with record-breaking temperatures for a second time this year. Siberia – reliably one of the coldest places on Earth – is battling unprecedented wildfires. Back here in the UK, the Met Office has issued its first-ever extreme heat warning, and the government is proposing a new oil field in the North Sea. All this while one in every seven UK species is facing extinction. And global ocean plastic is set to triple by 2040, with plastic items outnumbering fish by 2050. How far are we willing to push our planet before it’s too late to turn back?
We live in an era of contradiction. We’re being told where we can and cannot go, what we can and cannot do to the environment. Red tape and paperwork intended to save nature are, in fact, pushing us away from it – and away from each other. Doesn’t it sound exhausting? I don’t know about you, but I find it so hard to know what to think, who to trust or what to do about it that I switch off from it all. Humans are striving to have the last word, but we’re becoming lost in the process.
I have written this book because I’m worried that we’ll forget what we’re losing. I’m worried that we’re moving too fast within these lives we’ve built for ourselves, at the expense of what makes it worth living on this planet. The species that give life meaning. The species that got here first. The word ‘forget’ has origins in ancient Germanic prose and loosely translates as the act of ‘losing grip’ or, more commonly, ‘to lose care for’. This is what is happening around the world, around the UK, around where you live: nature is waving red flags at us, sounding alarms and blaring sirens to try and get us to listen. As I see it, we have two options: we can stand by, explore our bodyweight in wine and continue to enjoy a rather depressing show. Or we can sit up, trust in ourselves, work together, and (quickly) try and do something about it.
In 2019, María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, President of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly, opened her keynote with the announcement that humans had just 11 years left if we want to avert a climate catastrophe. But surely it will be alright? Don’t things always work out? Like, ‘If I have oat milk in my reusable coffee cup, then I’m saving the planet … aren’t I?’
The British government has ambitions that the UK will transform into a carbon-neutral economy by 2050, playing our part to ensure that global temperatures don’t rise more than 1.5ºC. Our signature on the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement legally requires us to meet these obligations. In 2021, the UK hosted the G7 Summit for global leaders and the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26). We might be making ourselves feel better, but I’m unconvinced that the impact of climate change is being taken seriously. We still prefer playing fast and loose.
As with all crises, we should be jarred by this. But instead, of course, we distract ourselves. The economy, politics, global health, food security, opinion polls, human rights, equality, social media, football … we’re intelligent mammals trying to evolve within our world of veneers. We know it isn’t sustainable. It never was. Yet we’re fantastically missing the point: nature is our economy. And that means nature is, also, unfortunately, political. The climate crisis is a human rights crisis, an equality crisis. Climate justice is social justice. Nature’s health ensures our health. We’re kidding ourselves that we are chairing this meeting when in reality, we are nothing more than participants (or senior board members, at a stretch).
It sounds scary because it is. I could reel off more dispiriting data, but I know that’s not why you’re here. I could ask you to panic, but that won’t help either. Good work is rarely accomplished in a panicked state of mind. Decisions are likely to be poor and hastily made. We won’t be economically brave. So, no, I don’t want you to panic. I just want you to know nature and to urgently prioritise that.
To help you with that, I would like to introduce you to a few species, habitats and landscapes that we take for granted, some that you might never have heard of. Because bothering to change the way we live will only work if we are invested in the outcome. I believe that real action, progress and hope begins with a celebration and a better understanding of our place in the game. If we want to continue to be residents, we need to take a step back and better understand our home. Call me naïve, fanciful, unrealistic – I honestly don’t care – but I believe it’s only when we work on restoring ourselves that nature will be able to do the same. It’s all or nothing.
I’ve always enjoyed exploring and having adventures – especially across the UK. I have my parents to thank for that, and I’m aware of what an enormous privilege it is for the outdoors to be a huge part of my life. But nature writing and travel books often frustrate me. I’m not a voracious reader and find it hard to concentrate on texts for long periods. Sometimes it’s easier to read about things that don’t exist. But I feel put out when I read some books which present a glorified – and dare I say, typically male – quest through the natural world. A world in which everything is wondrous, and male naturalist travelled to see 1 million plants/birds/butterflies/moths (and of course, succeeded).
Other times, I’ve felt I can only truly connect with nature if I’ve suffered a traumatic experience. That nature can only serve me if I hit rock bottom. Of course, science shows us that nature can shed light into our darkest hours. I can vouch for this. But what about experiencing nature for the sheer hell of it? The irreverent joy of trying to find wildlife – and failing? The simplicity of totally winging it and being more in the moment?
I am not a naturalist. I can’t tell you I have a deeply profound connection to nature; I just like it, and I enjoy learning and working alongside people who know a lot more about it than I do. No, I don’t know how to watch birds properly. And yes, at times, I would rather watch Love Island than a nature documentary. I would choose pub over wildlife hide. Social media has made me demanding, anxious and shortened my attention span to dangerously low levels. I am infamously terrible at knowing what plant or animal I’m looking at and would happily lump all gull species together and refer to them as ‘seagulls’. I have a degree in an envelope somewhere, and yet I still cannot sermonise the delicate nuances between chiffchaff and willow warbler. But that doesn’t bother me. I don’t think it’s important. For me, this ‘nature stuff’ is more about the journey. Nature doesn’t care where you come from or what you look like. The journey doesn’t have to mean anything at all. Having the audacity to engage with it in your own way is absolutely enough.
During my year of writing and travelling, a lot was going on in the environmental sector in the UK. It was stressful, if impossible at times, to keep up with and understand. Yet, the reality of it all only bolstered my hopes for this story. The UK is like nowhere else. For a start, the British public muddle through challenges with wry, disarming humour. We prescribe a cup of tea as a universal antidote. We trigger family rifts when debating whether jam or cream should go first on a scone. We are a nation of (mostly) good people who apologise a lot and consistently achieve more when we come together. We have a tapestry of landscapes and natural history of which we should be unbelievably proud, and to which we should offer more of our attention.
Let’s not forget that the UK is an archipelago. I still feel excited every time I realise that. You can be on a mountaintop in the morning and riding the Circle line around London by evening.
Capitalising on this geography, I wanted to experience first-hand how ready the UK is to transition into this ‘carbon-neutral economy’. Are the wildest corners of the British Isles feasibly accessible by greener modes of transport? Is low-carbon travel even realistic? Aside from hoping to maintain a cracking tan, I spent a year making these 10 trips via bike, boot, a ridiculous number of trains, ferries, a kayak and an electric car in a (somewhat haphazard) attempt to see how sustainable travel can be from the depths of Cornwall to the heights of Scotland. I discovered the challenges of remaining loyal to travelling sustainably, and wanted to know whether it was something we needed to start taking much more seriously. Besides, I couldn’t very well write a book about nature’s resilience to human-induced climate change from the driver’s seat of my car.
A story is more enjoyable with characters, so I’ve chosen 10 stars to lead the narrative. An impossible task, as there are many more than 10 animals and habitats in need of our serious attention! But I have chosen these for their modesty. They are not your average poster children, and I confess even I barely knew anything about them before I started probing. I also chose them because I knew they would allow me to highlight a decent portion of the complex environmental issues threatening the UK and the world. And, side note, I’ve fallen hopelessly in love with them.
Like the grey long-eared bat, some species hover on the brink of extinction and climate change may be their final push off the precipice. Others, like dung beetles, may fare better in a warming world than we thought. And the rest? Well, they’re just downright awkward, and solving sentences describing their predicaments has kept me awake at night. (Merlin and harbour porpoise, I am looking at you.)
But all 10 characters are messengers that we would be unwise to ignore. All 10 have more of a right to exist in the British Isles than we ever will. It’s a privilege to be alive at the same time as them. This book is my tribute to these species and their habitats. It’s also my tribute to science and the utterly brilliant, brave people fighting this essential fight. And it’s the honour of my life to have the opportunity to tell this story.
I wrote this book during the world’s most significant crisis for a generation. Yes, Covid-19 presented some, um, interesting hurdles to overcome, but I never planned on this being a ‘pandemic book’. And between you and me, I hope it goes beyond that. However, what the pandemic has done (more effectively than any campaign, film or petition) is reveal truths that, until then, had been massively economised, overlooked, and perhaps even forgotten. Being forced to fight for our survival has been an overdue awakening: that nature is part of us and its survival is our own.
It occurs to me that crises like climate change and biodiversity loss should bring out the best in humanity. We only have to look to our past and present to see that we can do this. The Blitz, terrorist attacks and the pandemic have triggered our innate instinct to do good and realise the immense capability of the human species. And that all has a better chance of happening if we are emotionally aware of the planet and what shares it with us. We grieve harder and longer for family members than we ever could for total strangers. It’s only human, right?
Some people exist in this world as mediators, desperate fixers, go-betweens. I reckon I am one of those people. But we live in an era that also requires those people to be disruptors, because it’s all hands on deck in this extraordinary world. And I don’t know about you, but I find this prospect quite exciting. I hope I can be all of these things to you over the 10 chapters that follow. Thank you for being here. Together, we’ll journey to find those not to be forgotten. We all need to be the verb. This book is my attempt.