51
@RobGMacfarlane
The oldest story in world literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, tells of a ruler felling a sacred cedar wood.
Chaos follows.
4000 yrs on, @jjhorgan pursues the cutting of #FairyCreek's old-growth cedars.
Some of those trees are half as old as Gilgamesh.
Here: theguardian.com/environment/20…
52
@RobGMacfarlane
Up on the otherworld of Buachaille Etive Mor summit this afternoon.
Late-day light & roaming spindrift.
Big winds; drop & stop when the gusts came.
Up Curved Ridge, down through the main corrie.
Ravens & juniper with us up there, not much else.
53
@RobGMacfarlane
Have any of the candidates for PM yet made any reference in their stump-pitches to nature/the living world/the biodiversity & climate crises?
54
@RobGMacfarlane
This, at last!! 👇👇 👏👏
And a thumping majority in the vote, too. twitter.com/Keeptheban_/st…
55
@RobGMacfarlane
A few years ago I wrote a poem called “Heartwood” for the people of Sheffield, during the tree wars in that city.
Artist Tim Chalk has just beautifully lettered a couple of lines from the poem into this split trunk (heartwood is the darker central core, sapwood the paler outer).
56
@RobGMacfarlane
My friend the writer Roger Deakin (1943-2006)––author of Waterlog, Wildwood & Notes from Walnut Tree Farm––died 15 years ago today, far too young.
His work still branches & ripples on in the world.
Returned today to what I wrote not long after his death: theguardian.com/books/2006/sep…
57
@RobGMacfarlane
"England is one of the few countries where water is fully owned by private companies, [who] answer to investors based 1000s of miles away from their customers."
Huge piece.
Ownership structures & fiduciary duty are at the heart of England's river-death.
theguardian.com/environment/ng…
58
@RobGMacfarlane
“Rarer than coral reefs, about 85% of the world’s chalk streams are in southern England & we are killing each & every one them”
@Feargal_Sharkey, furious & fabulous, on the catastrophe of our rivers—& how to fix it.
@OfwatChiefExec theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
59
@RobGMacfarlane
Hello—it’s Midwinter Eve & the 1st episode of our @bbcworldservice audio-drama adaptation of The Dark Is Rising is out today!
A year’s work.
An episode a day for 12 days.
Pls listen along, tell us how you’re finding it, tell others!
#TheDarkIsRising
Here: bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/w… twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane…
60
@RobGMacfarlane
"Jay, Jay, plant me an acorn.
I will plant you a thousand acorns."
Jays have planted half the trees in two new English woodlands!
theguardian.com/environment/20…
Here's a spell from The Lost Spells by me & @jackiemorris celebrating the "bright-backed, blue-winged, forest-making Jay."
61
@RobGMacfarlane
This:
* Europe has 600m fewer breeding birds than 40 yrs ago. 600 million.
* Skylarks, Yellow Wagtails, Starlings, & House Sparrows suffering immense losses.
Common birds becoming less & less common; slipping from eye, mind & sky.
They need protection too.theguardian.com/environment/20…
62
@RobGMacfarlane
New research out today from @DaveGoulson is clear & shocking.
If you use glyphosate pesticides (Roundup/Gallup) or slug pellets, you reduce songbird numbers, esp. house sparrows.
Numbers down *25-40%*
"Stop spraying your garden with poisons."
pls share on
theguardian.com/environment/20…
63
@RobGMacfarlane
First Swifffttttt of the year! At last!
High above the garden, pulling an audacious handbrake turn into the billowing wind. Joy...
Thinking again of Edward Thomas's lines in 'Haymaking':
"The swift with wings & tail as sharp & narrow
As if the bow had flown off with the arrow."
64
@RobGMacfarlane
So: wealthy landowner takes case to High Court to exclude wild camping from his 4000-acre bloodsporty Dartmoor estate.
Wins case.
Now *sells* the right to camp back to the taxpayer, on a reduced area.
Sucks so much.
A massive step back—and a stitch-up.
theguardian.com/environment/20…
65
@RobGMacfarlane
Jaw-dropping discovery:
Iraqi & British archaeologists find 4500yo Sumerian palace in Girsu, one of the oldest known cities.
Palace thought to contain shrine to Gilgamesh & cuneiform tablets which cd fill gaps in the Epic itself.
Thrilling work.
Details: theguardian.com/science/2023/f…
66
@RobGMacfarlane
To young children, nature is full of doors — is nothing but doors, really — and they swing open at every step.
What we call landscape is to young children a wild compound of dream, spell & substance; place is somewhere they are in, not on.
67
@RobGMacfarlane
This Giant Sequoia, the largest tree by volume in the world, now threatened by wildfire, was prob. alive when the Giant Pyramid at Giza was completed.
I dislike referring to it as "General Sherman"; can people tell me if it has any other names?
theguardian.com/us-news/2021/s…
68
@RobGMacfarlane
Wind In The Willows, as re-written by @SouthernWater.
Via @PrivateEyeNews
69
@RobGMacfarlane
“When the Dark comes rising/Six shall turn it back…”
I wrote today about the Midwinter power of Susan Cooper’s great novel & the experience of adapting it over the last year with the great @SimonMcBurney & @Complicite.
Starts on @bbcworldservice 20/12
❄️
theguardian.com/books/2022/dec…
70
@RobGMacfarlane
Happy that our film River won Best Documentary at the Australian Academy Awards yesterday.
Such a joy to work on this with director Jen Peedom, Willem Dafoe, Jonny Greenwood, Joseph Nizeti & the astonishing @didgefusion.
Rivers are beings—and our fate flows with theirs.
71
@RobGMacfarlane
The Minister for Access to Nature, Richard Benyon, owns a 12,000-acre private estate, & oversaw the quashing of the Agnew Review into increased access to green space.🤔
So today @Right_2Roam campaigners led a peaceful mass trespass onto his land...
theguardian.com/environment/20…
👇👇
72
@RobGMacfarlane
...The Dark Is Rising begins on Midwinter Eve, 20 December, and then unfolds over the following days, at roughly a chapter a day.
The first episode of our adaptation will be broadcast on 20 December, and go out for 12 days, so you'll listen in the 'real time' of the novel...
73
@RobGMacfarlane
“We’ll use this one step back as two steps forward. This isn’t just going back to the status quo. We’ll ensure that we have better access to the countryside.”
👊👊👊
The protest against the Dartmoor decision will be peaceful & relentless.
Watch this space! theguardian.com/environment/20…
74
@RobGMacfarlane
Huge ambition & vision.
200,000 ha of Highlands joined up to create a “vast nature recovery area”:
Afforestation
River corridor/peat restoration
Habitat-connection
Wildlife return
I’ll be walking across this region, from Shiel to Affric, next month.
theguardian.com/environment/20…
75
@RobGMacfarlane
“I don’t think the average consumer knows that half the stuff they buy at the supermarket contains palm oil, & most palm oil is from illegally deforested land…”: on crucial new international efforts to curb the abuses of the palm oil industry.
e360.yale.edu/features/the-t…
@RobGMacfarlane
Books: Is A River Alive? (WIP) Underland, The Lost Words, The Old Ways, etc. | Films: River, Mountain, Upstream | Nature, climate, people | Prof @Cambridge_uni