#223: Forestry and Land Scotland

Forestry and Land Scotland is an organisation which has a broad remit, and manages land in Scotland. They have a LEARN section on their website, which contains some useful resources which may well be of value for those teaching the new specification.

These include the following:

- an ID guide to help identify Scotland's tree species

- the lifcycle of a piece of wood from seedling to finished product - exploring the various products from forestry may be relevant

- Scotland's heritage

- activity sheets

There's also a Future Forest podcast.

#207: Meadows

This is a concerning statistic.

The Plantlife website has a meadows page which goes into detail on the value of this type of habitat, which has been a victim of intensive farming. Plantlife is trying to protect meadows.

The headline is stark. Since the 1930s, over 97% of wildflower meadows have been lost. Where once thirty species of plants would bloom under your outstretched arms, in most of our fields there are now just six.

But, in the last few years, we have come to appreciate what we’ve lost. The tide is turning and the appetite for creating and restoring meadows - from the smallest garden to the largest fields - is greater than ever.

From storing carbon, to supporting biodiversity, to just enjoying their astonishing beauty, many of us want become meadow makers.

Whether you want to learn more about creating and planting meadows, help on how to keep meadows looking fabulous, or want some advice on starting a local meadows group by adopting a few basic principles, you are in the right place to find out how you can create flower-rich meadows on any scale - from a few square metres in your garden to fields of many hectares.

#30: Don't fence me in

I love this image by Harry Epworth Allen.

It shows the typical walls that are found in much of the Peak District - both the White and the Dark Peak. This looks like the area around Great and Little Hucklow, which I know well.

Derbyshire Walls, by Harry Epworth Allen (1894-1958), @SheffMuseums. pic.twitter.com/jLg8X2xFPy

— Brian Groom (@GroomB) December 20, 2022

These walls are made by skilful people, and were a massive achievement - the walls run to hundreds if not thousands of miles in length and enclosed land owned by landowners including monasteries / religious areas as well as individuals. 

This article in Great British Life explains how they are an integral part of the British countyside in this part of the country. 

Here's a little extract from the article.

The existence of dry stone walls can be dated as far back as over 3,500bc. 

It is believed that farmers of the Iron and Bronze Ages constructed their agricultural walls with the huge structures arranged by the ethnic chiefs and lords. In Derbyshire alone we have standing walls that go back to Roman times; ancient clearance walls built to mark boundaries and contain livestock; slavers walls built by people who were captured and brought here because they could build walls effectively; and famine walls built by Irish labourers in the 1800s, working either for homesteads or wealthy land owners.

At a glance, the ages and types of dry stone walls are identifiable by their shape, form and location. Enclosure by Act of Parliament was standard in the mid 1700s, although the first Enclosure Act was passed in 1604. 

Walls built in this period are the most common in the countryside, dividing land in straight strips of a rectangular shape and called the enclosures walls, as seen in the countryside near Monyash and Flagg.

The walls are also important for some plant and animal species by providing a sheltered habitat for them to grow.

The idea of borders is also important, and there are some possible contexts here for work around Natural History in terms of identifying just how enclosures in the past have influenced the natural history and biodiversity of today.