ARTICLES

Self-Willed Land

Farming and Food

Permaculture

(Full list of articles)

Your favourite articles

LEARN about Permaculture

DESIGNS, Reports and Presentations, & Research

WILDLAND

WILD Europe

Wildland Books

Wildland Filmography

What is Wildland?

KEEPERS OF TIME - a policy for England's Ancient Woodland

ssenredliW

Conservation Speak

Heathland Madness

Treeless Forests

Heroes and Villains

True wilderness IS A LAND THAT HAS SUPREME NATURALNESS AND IS FREE OF ANY HUMAN CONTROL

It is a self-willed land because plants and animals can thrive there, in their own unfettered communities

A wildwood once covered over 70% of Britain, but early farmers destroyed that woodland. We also lost wolves, lynx, bear, wild boar and beaver, and the range of wildcat, polecat and pine marten is severely reduced.  Nowhere has been left untouched by people in the humanization of our land, leaving behind a simplified ecology that has lost much of its wild heritage.

Wilderness and wildland should be important to us, just as it is in the South American rainforests,  the Rocky Mountains in North America, the wildernesses of Australasia and South Africa, or the mountainous regions of continental Europe. If you wish to learn more about this, then read some of the articles on this website. The articles look at:

  • the 5,000 years in which we have shaped our land through farming

  • the continuing threat to wildness from SSSI designation and the target driven approach to nature conservation

  • how giving land back to wild nature would make some of Britain's landscapes self-willed again (see the manifesto)

Self-willed land for its own sake will only exist in Britain if land is held inalienably in the public good and that legislation exists to define its natural character, and thus the limits to human intervention.

Mark Fisher - mark.fisher@self-willed-land.org.uk

Permaculture Design, wild nature, wildland, wildwood, rewilding, advocacy for wild land and nature, self-willed land, wilderness

The latest articles are:

Travelogue - ten weeks in North America

Contemplation of natural scenes, Jan 2012 NEW

Forests in Europe - learning the lessons for the UK, Dec 2011

Forests, Rocks, Torrents, Oct 2011 Addendum 14 Nov 2011

SELF-WILLED LAND
the Manifesto

  Threats to wild land in Šumava National Park, Aug 2011

 Nature improvement and restoration areas - are they a step towards rewilding? June 2011

Rare and precious – words devalued by the conservation industry, May 2011 Addendum 9 Jun 2011

Last updated 26 January 2012