THINGS THAT DEVELOPED MY INTEREST IN NATURE
I was born and brought up in Rochdale, a northern industrial town towards the edge of Greater Manchester. For my first thirteen years, I lived on a Rochdale Council Estate, but, at eleven, I went to Manchester Grammar School, where I went up the Modern Languages side. Later I went on to do a BSc in Botany-with-Agricultural Botany at Bangor. I sprayed bracken for a year, before going back to Bangor to do a PhD in Plant Population Dynamics. Then came five years working on pesticides in Tanzania, before lecturing in Environmental Sciences for thirty-two years at Hatfield Polytechnic/University of Hertfordshire, latterly specialising in Nature Conservation Management. I am now retired, but still like to keep my interests alive.
What were the early influences that first fired my interest in Nature Conservation? From where we lived in Rochdale, one direction led to dark Satanic mills, but the other way led through industrial villages to mill lodges and the Pennines. My Brother and friends and I used to set off, on foot or cycles, with my Dad’s binoculars and the Observer’s Book of British Birds. I can still recall the call of the curlew on a bright, sunny Pennine afternoon (strangely enough, the sun was always shining in my memory!). I also recall the song of the skylark ascending and the calls of the lapwings. Where these birds there then because the North was a different country? Or was it a different age? Was the past a foreign country?
I was much influenced by people and books. My Junior School Headmaster at Lowerplace, Rochdale, (I cannot even remember his name now!) took us for Topical Geography, which awakened my interest in local politics, world affairs and human influences in general. Later, I was much influenced by reading W.H. Pearsall’s Mountains and Moorlands (he turned upstilllater as one of my External Examiners). This deepened and widened my interest in the Pennines and in the ecology and problems of grassland farming in general. Funnily enough, I was also influenced by H.L. Edlin’s Trees, Woods and Man. One of my form-masters at Manchester recommended that, if I went on to read botanlcal subjects, I should continue to read everything about bird migration. I am still doing this, as I am currently in the middle of Ian Newton’s latest book, which is superbly written!
At Bangor, Prof. Alun Roberts’ ideas on the historical effects of human activities on the Welsh mountains and moorlands, effects also clearly seen in the Pennines, convinced me that very little is true wilderness. I sprayed bracken for a year and then went back to Bangor to produce a thesis on The Population Dynamics of the Daisy and was introduced to the Harper/Sagar model of Experimental Ecology. During all of this time (as both an undergraduate and a postgraduate), I lived, and spasmodically worked, on an old-style sheep-farm in the Snowdonian foothills.
Whilst living in Tanzania, we went to the Seregeti and Ngorongoro and I thought that here at last was true “wilderness”. Later, I read Kjekshus and others and was sadly disabused. There is nothing natural in the strict sense! Perhaps we should define different types of “wilderness”, in the way that Rackham has defined different types of “naturalness”.
What turns me on to nature and nature conservation now? I love to see the year’s first crocuses in the garden! I love to see the year’s first bumble-bees and hirundines anywhere! I love to see the spring’s first pale greening of the hedgerow bases and the coming into leaf of trees and shrubs in sequence! I love veteran trees! They hold me in awe! It is quite amazing how I have been influenced differently by trees, woods and man since the days when H.L. Edlin was an influence on me. I have a great interest in literature (including African, Russian and Latin American writings), history and human influences. Poetry fires me up- especially poets like John Clare and the achingly emotional poets like Wilfred Owen and Pablo Neruda.
What are my current interests? I am interested in enhancing biodiversity. This I found easier with the local County Wildlife Trust than with the University, because they are less impeded by other interests. I have found the Lee Valley Conservation Group particularly interesting, because it gives scope to people brought up in industrial, densely-populated areas like I was. I have retained my interest in nature conservation for people as well as for nature itself. I am also interested in carbon capture and storage. I realise that the soil stores a lot and I am therefore interested in what is stored in the whole system of soil-plus-vegetation, leading on to the heretical thought that we may be exaggerating the importance of woodlands. With my agricultural background, I wonder what are the effects of different cultivation systems (and I do not just mean organic production systems).
I fear for the future! These areas would be so easy to cut, by any Party that comes to power, although, to be honest, I would see even a lot of local Conservative Councillors being unhappy about this!
John Foster, April 2010
Title: THINGS THAT DEVELOPED MY INTEREST IN NATURE
Author: John Foster
Date: 17 Apr 2010
