On Wilderness

A flash of white, perhaps two hundred yards away. 

Something was out there.

I sank down in the auburn heather, my left knee coming to rest in a deep pool of viscous peat that resembled Marmite.  Well, I had come to re-connect with the land, hadn’t I? 

For me, a clear vision of nature depends on two people – the ecologist Aldo Leopold, and good old Charlie Zeiss. A moment of fumbling with lens caps, and I had upgraded my 1x7mm eyeballs to 8x42mm of Teutonic optical wizardry.

Through the binoculars, the white flash became the rump of a roe, with the distinct tuft of white hair the deer biologists charmingly call a ‘tush’.

Doe. A Deer. A Female Deer.

The sleet on my face indicated that I would not, however, be seeing Ray, A Drop of Golden Sun.

The doe was clearly spooked, but not by me. She was looking over to my left, with that frozen watchfulness that indicates fear, not curiosity.  Unlike people, deer do not worry over nothing and I scanned round to see what had pressed her panic button. Heather, more heather, rock, Scots pine, heather…..and  hill-walker. A hooded human figure in shapeless red Goretex had just breasted the horizon.  I realised with some humility that I could recognise the gender of the roe deer, but not of my own species.

The doe rapidly departed scene right, doing a convincing impression of a springbok. The lady – or, possibly, bloke – in red plodded onwards, oblivious. I lay down my rifle and stayed low, letting the walker pass on unaware. Walkers come to the hills for peace and solitude, and I did not want to ruin someones day. I sat in the heather, thinking.

Most people who come to wild country – walkers, campers, mountain bikers, stalkers, anglers, birders – are coming for the same thing. There are also many millions who want to go but can’t, won’t, or daren’t. You will find them buying wildlife books, or feeding birds in suburban gardens, or watching Ray Mears on the television, or tending allotments. Sometimes you find them just sitting overfed and unhappy in armchairs, conscious that something is missing but unsure what.

We have far too much comfort, too much civilisation, too much food, too much company, too much time indoors. The desire – I call it a need- to get away from the trappings and complexities of modern life is in everyone. Some just feel it more strongly.

We forget that our present way of life is incredibly recent. I am not talking about electric toasters and television, or even windmills and spinning wheels. I am talking about such basic things as agriculture, which people regard as being of immeasurable antiquity, but in fact only dates back to the dawn of the Neolithic, perhaps 8000 years ago. Before that, we were hunter gatherers, using stone tools, for over two million years. 

One hundred thousand generations of man being so intimately connected with nature leaves an imprint on us today, with old desires and behaviour patterns hard-wired into our brains. We are all descendants of successful hunter-gatherers. The unsuccessful ones, of course, did not live long enough to have children.

Many things we do are irrational when considered logically. We still climb mountains when we could get a more comfortable workout in the gym. We enjoy real log fires when electric heating is the push of a button away.  Some of us fish and hunt, when it is easier (and, curiously, more socially acceptable) to buy clingfilm-wrapped meat and fish at the supermarket. Others enjoy birdwatching or wildlife photography, both of which require and exercise the skill of the hunter, but with a different reward for success. In all cases we are trying to satisfy old desires.

We can never be entirely divorced from nature, but we are in need of some serious relationship counselling. Man is an abusive partner who has controlled, manipulated and modified the landscape so much that the wilderness and wild country we so desperately need is ever under threat.

If you strictly define wilderness as land that shows no imprint of man whatsoever, then we have blown it. Everywhere on the planet the effect of man can be detected with instruments, whether it be atmospheric pollution or climate change.

Here in the UK we have no wilderness and precious little wild country, none of it more than seven miles from a metalled road. Even our wild country is modified and managed. The ‘deer forests’ of the Highlands no longer have any trees. As a deer stalker, I am a locum predator, occupying a niche that rightly belongs  -mostly - to the wolf.

Time spent in our wild country restores and uplifts us.  We talk of preserving it. Should we not be more ambitious and restore it?