My friend Martin is a woodsman. Last year he felled lots of western hemlock, unsuited to the wood in Devon where it was planted a few decades ago. Now, misshapen trunk by slightly rotten trunk, some of these failed trees are being laid carefully into peaty land on Dartmoor, damming drainage ditches dug by ‘improvers’, so that the land may once again hold its full quota of life-giving water. The sight of heaths and moorlands burning here in England last summer was an awful one, these landscapes famous for their wetness underfoot hosting multitudes of water-loving plant species, insects, amphibia and birds, had been drained, compacted and dried out. At last they were set ablaze, mostly by accident but sometimes by arson. The plan is that these transported, transplanted, now supine trees will make good guardians of soils and rainwater as they slowly return to earth.
First published here with full transcript, notes and more images, February 20th 2023.
Episode 15 - A Thousand Million Roots