Conservation

Personhood – Natural Assets

Examples of trees and rivers that can be afforded protection:   

PERSONHOOD – Briefing Note – Worldwide review, with some English examples.

 From   Dr John Feltwell, Dip EC Law of Wildlife Matters  07793 006832  john@wildlifematters.com

‘Personhood’ on your doorstep’    ‘Voiceless entities’

 Summary

  1. The concept of assigning ‘personhood’ on natural assets is growing apace worldwide, and in UK too. Nature Laws (which includes ‘personhoods’) have now been introduced in USA (California, Hawaii), Ecuador, Bangladesh, Canada, England, Wales and Scotland.

2.  In the UK at least TEN rivers have either been Declared as  Personhoods, or are in the process of been Declared. At the present time, UK law has not yet caught up.   ‘Personhood’ confers various rights.

3. ALL the rivers in Wealden were given personhood in mid- 2025, and all the rivers in Rother were given personhood on 15 September 2025. 

4.  The ‘1066 Yew Tree’, 1,300 year old tree in the churchyard at St Lawrence  Church, Crowhurst, East Sussex, was given personhood by Rother District Council on 15 September 2025. It is associated with the Battle of Hastings, and is believed the first tree in the UK to be given these rights of personhood.  Photograph below:

UK laws

Environmental Lawyers have been asking themselves how UK law can be used to protect natural habitats (assets).

In Crowhurst (E. Sussex) there are several natural assets that are being prepared for declaration of personhood.

Some of these are already afforded some limited ‘protection’ under UK law such as being in an SSSI, or in the AONL, or being TPO’d, or protected under NPPF 2025, or of Ancient, Amenity or Heritage value, or being in a international ‘Natura 2000’ site under EU law (seamlessly transposed into UK Law on Brexit). The UK appears to have a lot of wildlife protection, but in reality it is not enough, and it is not really ‘protected’ in the long term.

People in the UK are becoming concerned with the pollution of their streams and rivers. Regardless of how ‘protected’ rivers can be, for instance the valuable chalk-stream of the River Test which has parts officially designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSS) – the cream of the cream of the best natural history sites in the UK – are under serious threat from pollution. The UK law in its current state is not helpful, and no reliance can be had on it.

All rivers in Hampshire, Rother District and Wealden District were afforded protection in 2025.

Currently UK and EU wildlife and habitat law is not enough to protect natural assets – think twelve SSSIs removed for HS2. Widespread decline of species is now attributed to man-made actions – we are in the Anthropocene.

Now is time to consider ‘personhood’.  People and ships have attributed personhood and can assert their rights. So the next stage is for natural assets such as trees, woodlands, rivers and wetlands to assert their rights. Many habitats and species already have their own UK ‘protections’ on paper, but they cannot speak for themselves. We are their voices.

As Emma Montlake of Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) said ‘I believe that nature has its own intrinsic rights to exist and thrive and that you cannot put a financial value on that. I also believe that we have a moral responsibility to protect nature.’

Data Trawl

This author, with the assistance of the Librarian at The Linnean Society in Piccadilly has trawled the data bases and recorded no information on personhoods, as such, or what might have been otherwise called.

Also a note (see below) has been put onto the Linn Soc’s webfeed asking for any historical information regarding any Fellow’s particular interest in a particular habitat that needs protection.

John Feltwell FLS would like to know if any Fellows have any  examples on the concept of ‘Personhood’,  or indeed are working on the subject. This is an intriguing concept in the developing world of conservation whereby a ‘Personhood’ can be assigned to a natural asset such as a river or wood or a valley, just as it is assigned to a person or a ship. The law is not entirely firmed-up at this moment. There are already examples in Hawaii and New Zealand and it is now emerging in the UK. For example certain rivers in England are now being represented ‘in person’ on catchment boards (by people on their behalf), as designated entities (Personhoods) so that their interests can be supported (e.g. from damage and pollution) by others as they cannot speak for themselves. A trawl of Linn Soc annals has proved negative, but it may be that someone in the past may have sought to particularly protect a habitat in the manner of a Personhood, or precursor.    Contact: john@wildlifematters.com  07793 006832

There were no responses to this webfeed from Fellows.

Earlier texts that mention the subject may be found at

Stone, C. D. 1971.  Should Trees Have Standing?  And Other Essays on Law, Morals and the Environment. New York, Oceana Pubications. [1]

Cullinan, C. 2003. Wild Law, A manifesto for Earth Justice. Totnes, Green Books. In association with The Gaia Foundation, London.

 Woodlands and Forests

 Futureproofing for RSPB Fore Wood (Crowhurst) – up for sale (2024)   – perhaps personhood?

For a fixed natural habitat such a ‘RSPB Fore Wood’ it needs a voice to speak to those who have powers to protect it. Residents might be minded to assert Fore Wood’s personhood rights with Rother District Council simply to register its interests because it cannot.  After all the woodland helps to make the community people live in and the countryside enjoyed.   Fore Wood cannot speak for itself if it is sold. (there is a current possibility as RSPB are re-classifying their sites (in 2024), and Fore Wood is in class 4 = to be moth-balled or sold). The situation now (July 2025) is that RSPB are not actively seeking a sale.  Personhood of Fore Wood is not currently being pursued.

In New Zealand – The Te Urewera Forest in New Zealand now has rights. This is an extract from the EJLC Rights of |Trees and Woodlands toolkit

“Enacted in 2014, the Te Urewera Act (TUA) radically changed the management of Te Urewera by pioneering a ‘new model of RON… that differs greatly from the Nature’s rights model adopted in Ecuador and Bolivia’.4 The TUA granted the Te Urewera legal personhood, recognising a ‘particular ecosystem as a legal person’5 by appointing specific guardians to speak and represent the forest in legal and policy arenas. Essentially, Indigenous members of the community act as guardians (in a legal sense as well as a social one) within governance institutions to advocate on behalf of it as a living being”.

Trees

As far as is known there are no trees with rights in the UK.

Now we can report that the Crowhurst’s ‘1066 Yew Tree’ is now protected for personhood, as carried by Rother on 15 Sept. 2025.

A first.

 The 1066 Yew tree  (in Crowhurst Churchyard)

A good example for personhood attribution is the 1066 Yew Tree in the churchyard. It is over 1000 years old. It is female (as it has berries), so perhaps one should assert her personhood with Rother, and / or the Church who have been guardians of it whilst 30 generations of Crowhurst parishioners have appreciated it and been buried beneath it.

There are trees with personhood around the world:

In India – trees have been declared legal persons – although nothing much has come from this 2017 ruling.

In USA – There is one known from USA (Athens) – a white oak which was the subject of a Deed of rights. At the local level, local ordinances have been used to recognise that ecosystems have rights, these are binding.

In France, tree rights were proposed by the French National Assembly in 2019  with the following summary:

 Summary of French Tree Rights

In 2018, the group Déclaration Universelle des Droits de L’arbre began a global petition to draft a universal declaration of tree rights. In 2019, the French National Assembly adopted its own version of the declaration spearheaded by Delphine Batho, president of the French political environmentalist party Génération écologie. The declaration recognized that a tree “should be respected throughout its life and have the right to develop and to reproduce freely, from its birth to its natural death, whether it be a town tree or a country tree. A tree should be considered as a subject of law, including when laws regarding human property are involved.”

 11th February 2019 Declaration of tree Rights as it will be proclaimed at the National Assembly’s symposium on April 5, 2019.

Article 1 The tree is a fixed living being, which, in comparable proportions, occupies two distinct environments: the atmosphere and the soil. In the soil grow roots, which capture water and mineral. In the atmosphere grows the crown, which captures carbon dioxide and solar energy. By this situation, the tree plays a fundamental role in the ecological balance of the planet.

Article 2 The tree is a living being sensitive to changes in its environment. It must be respected as such. It should not be reduced to a simple object. It is entitled to the airspace and underground that is necessary for it to achieve its full growth and reach its adult dimensions. In these conditions the tree has rights for respect of its physical integrity: whereas it is aerial (branches, trunk, foliage) or underground (root network). The alteration of these organs severely weakens the tree, as does the use of pesticides and other toxic substances.

Article 3 The tree is a living organism whose average longevity far exceeds that of the human being. The tree must be respected throughout its life, with the right to develop and reproduce freely, from its birth to its natural death, whether it is a tree of cities or campaigns. The tree must be considered as a subject of law, including within the rules governing human property.

Article 4 Some trees, considered remarkable by men, for their age, appearance or history, deserve extra attention. By becoming a common bio-cultural heritage, they have access to a higher status, committing man to protect them as “natural monuments”. They can be enrolled in an area of preservation of the landscape heritage, thus benefiting from enhanced protection and development for aesthetic, historical or cultural reasons.

Article 5 To meet the needs of men, some trees are planted and then exploited, escaping the criteria mentioned above. However, the operating modalities of forest and rural trees must take into account the life cycle of trees, natural renewal capacities, ecological balances and biodiversity.

The aim of this text is to change the gaze and behaviour of men, to make them aware of the decisive role of trees in everyday life and for the future, by paving the way for a rapid change in legislation at national level

 Watercourses

We all hate to see our watercourses polluted with sewage and chemical pollutants. Crowhurst settlement was established around a stream and has been reliant upon that water (The Powdermill Stream), so the stream needs to have a voice as it is part of the fabric of the village. As a start, the stream should have a personhood, so that, through vigilance and control, its waters could be passed on downstream to other parishes. It is time to register the Powdermill Stream.

         There is some ‘protection’ offered via the NPPF (7.2.25), as per

The NPPF is useful in planning for its clear protection of natural capital, even on trees and landscapes, and threats to trees, under four NPPF paragraphs.

  Existing Legal Protection –  nationally  (UK)

There is already existing legal protection for rivers and natural assets, by way of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) [i] under the following paragraphs, which are within the important section 15. Conserving and enhancing the natural environment.

Paragraph Item
106, 107 protected under Local Green Spaces
187a ‘protecting and enhancing valued landscapes’ and ‘sites of biodiversity’
216 Protection of non-designated assets

 

Precedents – River protection in the UK to date.

(not exclusive list – more to come)

There have been several known projects in the United Kingdom:

LOCAL  Example 1.  River Ouse,  East Sussex.

In 2024 Lewes Town Council accepted a Declaration from the local group ‘Love Our Ouse’ (LOO) for ‘the right (the river) to an influential voice in decisions that effect it.’   Now the River Ouse has an official voice. [1]
LOCAL   Example 2.  Wealden rivers. 

Motion passed to protect Wealden’s rivers and coasts. July 2025.[ii] 
Example 3.  River Usk, Wales. The river now has its own place at the Committee table on the ‘Usk Catchment Partnership.[3]

Example 4.  River Frome, Somerset,. Residents in Frome (Somerset) tried to get the River Frome protected via a Bye-Law in 2018, but this was rejected by DEFRA in 2020. It was proposed by Frome Town Council on behalf of the Friends of the River Frome.
 Example 5.  River Cam, Cambs. Residents in Cambridge, the    Friends of theCam held a ceremony to establish the rights of their river based on the ‘earth Law Centre’s Universal Declaration of River Rights’ .that the river had a right to flower, to be free of abstraction and pollution, and to host native biodiversity’,[2]
Example 6. River Helford, Cornwall.  Petition to grant UK Rivers $ Rias Legal Personhood starting with Cornwall’s Helford River…to recognise the Helford River as a living entity to ‘her’ own voice by adopting the UnIversal Declaration of River Rights (UDRR), appoint a Lead Legal Guardinan… Created by the Voices of Water Foundation (WoW). [iii]
Example 7.  River Usk, Wales. The river now has its own place at the Committee table on the ‘Usk Catchment Partnership.[1]
Example 8. The River Wye, Wales. This border river between England and Wales is described as an environmental jewel for its biodiversity, but it is being water quality is under attack from pollutants; locals want to see personhood granted.  [iv]
Example 8.  River rights in Hampshire.   River Test.   Basingstoke and Deane BC passed a motion on river rights, especially chalk streams (particularly the River Test) in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight area, strongly supported by their local groups. They did not grant rights but decided to explore, like Lewes.

Example 9  River Loddon. Hampshire.  Granted Personhood by Basingstoke and Dean Borough Council in May 2025.
Example 10. Scotland, Glasgow. River Clyde   [1]  A submission was made by the Earth Law Centre [1], following the ‘Universal Declaration of River Rights’. The rights sought included the following:

1.     Rights to exist as a living entity

2.     Rights to have fundamental rights

3.     Rights to have a flow

4.     Rights to be free of pollution

5.     Rights to have native biodiversity

6.     Rights to regenerate and restoration

7.     Rights to be fed, and to sustain an aquifer

(cf. Louise Welsh and Jude Barber) Podcast on ‘Who owns the Clyde)

 

 River protection Overseas   (not exclusive list – more to come) 

Example 11.  France, River Seine, Paris. The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, announced that she called on Parliament to pass a law giving the River Seine rights, so that ‘an independent guardian authority’ can defend it in court. 
Example 12.  New Zealand. Legislation now protects the Whanganui River that the Maori people have always believed it is a living entity. 
Example 12.  Canada, Magpie River.   In 2021, th Innu Council of Ekuanitshit with others granted Magpie River the right of legal personhood, which bestowed nine rights: [v]

 

 Personhood has a worldwide perspective:

USA. Hawaii has personified nature.

My colleague (and fellow Trustee of a rainforest trust in Brazil), Professor Sir Ghillean Prance FRS, VMH (Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 1988-1999) writes that ‘The system in Hawaii of sacred valleys is called ahupua’a. The one I know of is the Limahuli valley in Kauai, but I think the one personified may be in Kona.’

As Emma from Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) stated: ‘We are on a rights journey, we recall the suffragettes and the civil rights movement in America. It is in our gift to grant rights to nature.’

UK law on personhood is very much in its infancy with currently no particular helpful laws.

USA. California

A series of habitats in Orange County tried to sue a developer and the state to try to stop a housing developer. This is the first time in the USA that habitats have tried to use ‘nature laws’ in the court.

In Canada

The Magpie River. In February 2021 Canada passed a nature law giving nine rights to the river including rights to be safe from pollution and the right to sue, and assign legal guardians to ensure those rights are respected.  The river is being ‘defended from death by damming in a river-rights campaign.’   (R. Macfarlane, 2025)[8]

 

In Bangladesh All rivers in the country were given explicit rights of protection in 2019.

 In Ecuador   Ecuador has an existing law that gives nature ‘a right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate’. This has been tested in court, but not successfully yet.

 In New Zealand two areas have now been recognised: A National Park and the Whanganui River.   They now own themselves.    Extract:

“In 2014, an Act of the Aotearoa New Zealand Parliament recognised the 2,127 square kilometre former Te Urewera National Park as being a ‘legal entity’ possessing ‘all the rights, powers, duties, and liabilities of a legal person’. 

In March of 2017, another enactment acknowledged the country’s 300-kilometre-long Whanganui River as ‘a legal person [with] all the rights, powers, duties, and liabilities of a legal person’. In late 2017, the Crown and Taranaki Māori signed a record of understanding that Parliament will in the future legislate to grant the 2,518-metre-tall Mount Taranaki/Mount Egmont legal personhood. 

By virtue of these legislative acts, the various geographic entities gain an independent existence in the eyes of the law. Rather than being mere Crown or public property, they own themselves. They are deemed to be holders of their own rights, which may be asserted in legal proceedings and other fora. In short, they are no longer ‘things’ over which human beings exercise dominion; they are ‘persons’ with which humans have a relationship..”

The final word to date is from O’Donnell and Kerslake, (2021)[9] who say there have been

  • ‘substantive shifts in theory and law on legal personhood’,
  • that there have been profound legal commitments to the full personhood of disabled people,
  • that there are dramatic new applications of personhood of animals
  • and that dramatic new applications of personhood to natural entities such as rivers’

Process of registration

 In the UK it seems that the usual way of seeking personhood registration is to approach the Council by way of a Petition, or a Declaration (both have been used). Also it can be done by creating a Bye-Law.

There are two types of bye-laws.

  1. a regulation made by a local authority or corporation.
  2. a rule made by a company or society to control the actions of its members.

Some guidance is to be found in the following 2024 Toolkit. ‘How to Protect Rivers in England and Wales. [10]

Further information from around the world:

The following countries are in the process of seeking personhoods of rivers, watersheds, lagoons, oceans, nature in general, trees and whales…..

Search any of these on-line to find plenty of further information.

The list is not exhaustive of countries seeking personhoods:

Brazil: Linhares 2024 Rights of the Waves
Canada: Labrador 2023 The rights and legal personhood of the St Lawrence River
Finland 2023 Animal Rights
France 2019 Universal Declaration of Tree Rights
France: Corsica 2021 Rights of Tayignanu river
India 2022 Legal Personhood of the Bharathapuzha River
Mexico 2023 Rights of the Ring of Cenotes
Netherlands 2023 Rights of the Maas/Meuse River
Netherlands: Ejjsden-Margraten 2023 Rights of Nature
Pacific Islanders  2024 Rights of the Oceans and Whales
Poland 2023 Legal Personality of the Oder river
Spain 2022 Legal Personality of the Mar Menor Lagoon
USA: Hawaii 2024 Rights of Watersheds

 

 Acknowledgements

Will Beharrell, Librarian, Linnean Society, Piccadilly

Emma Montlake, Co-director, Environmental Law Foundation (ELF)

Jo Smallwood,  Assistant Professor of Law, School of Law, University of Sussex.

Andrew Swan, FLS, Governance Manager, Linnean Society, Piccadilly.

 Further debate can be found at

Geddis, A. & Rutu, J. Places as Persons: Creating a New Framework for Maori-Crown Relations.  https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph-detail?docid=b-9781509930401&tocid=b-9781509930401-chapter11

Cf. also The Frontiers of Public Law, Ed by Jason NE Varuhas and Shona Wilson Stark. 2019.

Bibliography

A small article by John Feltwell on ‘Personhood on Your Doorstep’ appeared in Crowhurst News (Feb.25)

   

Dr. John Feltwell, Dip EC Law    UPDATED  18 Sept 2025

BSc (Hons Zoology), PhD (Botany), FLS, FRES, FRSB, FLLA, Dip EC Law.   Henley’s Down, Battle, TN33 9BN.  07793 006832            john@wildlifematters.com

[1]  Stone, C.D.,1971 Should Trees Have Standing?- Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects. https://iseethics.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/stone-christopher-d-should-trees-have-standing.pdf

[2] Kaminski, I., 2021 (17th July). Laws of nature: could UK rivers be given the same rights as people?   Guardian.org.

[3] Emma Montlake, ELF, pers.comm.  20 Jan 2024 & July 2025.

[4] Love Our Ouse, 2025. ‘First River in UK to have its Rights Recognised.  https://loveourouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Press-Release-Rights-of-River-Charter-for-the-River-Ouse-1.pdf

 [5] The Times, Dec 18th 2024. By Lizzie Roberts. ‘River Clyde should get the same rights as people’.

[6] The Earth Law Centre (founded in 2008, as a non-profit), has its main office in Colorado, USA, and its seeks to Align our laws with Nature’s laws, ‘Earth law is the idea that ecosystems have the right to exist, thrive, and evolve – and that Nature should be able to defend its rights, just like people can.’ Our aim is to mitigate the effects of climate change, biodiversity loss, and degradation of ecosystems and to restore a flourishing Earth community on behalf of present and future generations of all species.  It coined the expression ‘voiceless entities’.  Earth  Law Centre   https://www.earthlawcenter.org/.

[7]  Welsh L, & Barberm J, 2024. Podcast. ‘New podcast investigates who owns the river Clyde and why this matters to the people of Glasgow.

https://www.collectivearchitecture.co.uk/news/2024/new-podcast-investigates-who-owns-the-river-clyde-and-why-this-matters-to-the-people-of-glasgow

[8] Robert Macfarlane, 2025. Is a River Alive?’ Penguin Books

[9]  O’Donnell, E. and Arstein-Kerslake, A. (2021). Pages 339-347 | Published online: 20 March 2022  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10383441.2021.2044438

[10] Kings College London Legal Clinic, 2024. A Rights of Nature Toolkit: How to Protect Rivers in England and Wales. 130pp. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/legal-clinic/assets/rights-of-nature-toolkit.pdf

[i] NPPF, version 07.02.25

[ii]  Wadhurst PC/ July 27 2025. Motion passes to protect Wealden’s rivers and coasts. https://wadhurst-pc.gov.uk/notices/motion-passed-to-protect-wealdens-rivers-and-coasts/

[iii] Edwards, K., 13 June 2025. Voice of Water (VoW) Petition to Grant UK Rivers & Rias Legal Personhood. https://cornwallvsf.org/climate-and-environment/voice-of-water-vow-petition-to-grant-uk-rivers-rias-legal-personhood/

[iv] Dennis, C., 09-07-2024. Why the River Wye needs legal personhood https://bylines.cymru/environment/river-wye-personhood/ (accessed 26 July 2025).

[v]  This pristine Canadian river has legal personhood, a new approach to conserving nature. Feb 1 2024. https://www.indigenouswatchdog.org/update/this-pristine-canadian-river-has-legal-personhood-a-new-approach-to-conserving-nature/

ends

Conservation

Restoring the Wild …by Emorsgate, 2024

Restoring the Wild, A guide to the restoration, creation and management of meadow and other wild vegetation. By Donald MacIntyre. Marlborough, The Crowood Press.  2024.  ISBN 978-0-7198-4438-6  &  9-780719-844386   272pp. £24

The author is owner of the UK’s largest producer of native seed, and this book represents the fruits of his 44+ years of sieving and refining his wildflower seeds. Don would be too modest to state that he received the Prince of Wales’s feathers for his outstanding work and advice. Travellers along motorways and dual-carriageways are often oblivious of his seed mixes that blossom through spring and summer and increase the biodiversity of verges, and the countryside in general.  Emorsgate Seeds are the go-to place for meadow mixes help to boost biodiversity.

The book has 16 chapters of which the last on Restoration Species is a little less than half the book. There are 224 angiosperms and fern species described, each nominated as either native, archaeophyte, or naturalised neophyte, and most with colourful photographs, and in some species with photographs of different stages in their growth, what they look like in cultivation, in full flower and after flowering. The diversity of geraniums and cirsiums are well explained. Who would know, unless you were a grower, that the seeds of Wood Anemone have recalcitrant seeds (intolerant of drying).

One of the unique points of this book is that many of the species are illustrated with close-ups of their seed – and their morphological structure is fascinating. There is no other go-to book for this information, or such a book about the role of wildflower species in bringing back nature. The author’s introduction is based on his botanical scientific background, and he recounts the progressive decline the flora of the British Isles, including 97% loss of species-rich meadows and calcareous grasslands to 1984, and 80% loss of lowland heath to 1980. His Emorsgate Seeds, many of which have derived from surviving ancient meadows, have ultimately helped to make a big difference, but in no way enough to redress the catastrophic anthropogenic loss that has occurred in this country.

The book has a very serious scientific look at life of wildflowers, starting with the 1,400 species, rising to ‘around 2,000 species if apomictic ‘micro-species’ of apomictic genera (Taraxacum, Hieracium, Rubus) are also included’. Whatever popular book would describe DAFOR rating (that field ecologists use daily) is for abundance, but here.

For buyers, this book walks you through the different habitats that you might wish to create, and these break down into ten categories:  Neutral Lowland Meadow and Pasture, Calcareous Meadow and Pasture, Sandy Soils, Floodplain, Upland Meadow and Pasture, Moor and Heath, Wayside and Tussock, Hedgerow and Scrub, Woodland Ground Flora and Coastal habitats. The book is not only a background on how wildflowers have been used for bringing back nature, but for practitioners on estates, groundsmen, landscape gardeners, council workers and ordinary gardeners who wish to bring some biodiversity sunshine into their gardens. It is therefore a niche book.  There are many references to further information and classic botanical texts, a Latin Index (no English one), a glossary and a comprehensive table listing all the species showing sowing rates for each habitat. A unique, classic, key work and highly recommended.

 

Conservation

Is A River Alive? Macfarlane, 2025

Is A River Alive? By Robert Macfarlane. 2025. London, Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books. 375pp. Hardback £25.00

Readers will have probably heard of this book as it was the Book of Week during early 2025. It was written by the author over three and a half years having visited three main rivers, one in Ecuador, one in India and one in Canada. The author is a Fellow of Emmanuel College Cambridge, and has written or co-authored nine other books.

However for this book he has other co-authors, as he says ‘I wish to say plainly’… ‘written with the rivers that run through its pages….They are my co-authors.’ He also wishes to make it clear that he refers to rivers as living, as in ‘river who flow’, rather than river that flow.

Macfarlane has as his main aim to fathom out ‘Is a river alive’. He also questions ‘Does a forest have a mind?’, for he is forever in forests through which rivers flow. He reminds us that we are all living in a watershed. Too true. Most villages, towns and cities are based around an original water source, and he refers to London’s now lost rivers, ‘ghost rivers’ 20 lost in London, others in New York….. These are ‘imprisoned’ rivers that have died. In Europe over one million barriers he says have been erected over watercourses, and he says that the body of water contained in the Three Gorges dam in China has ‘measurably slowed the rotation of the Earth’. There are copious references (and index), though not attributed to particular texts, three maps and a few black and white photographs.

So in this book we have more on the impact of man on the ecology of watersheds and the demise of rivers, and the people that live in the forest, than the nitty-gritty answers of are these rivers alive, are forests mindful, and is there any evidence of sentience by the rivers? 

The author spends a lot of time with people of the forests, how they have endured the loss of forest, gold-mining,  logging, expropriation, draining of wetlands and forests, canalisation….. etc. Some of his contacts with people are described in a verbatim manner, better for the radio, than in a book and not addressing the core questions.  

I would like to have the author cut to the chase with the results of his investigations. I would have like to have seen more on the evidence of sentience rather than the plight of people in the forests subjected to loss of their intimate environment which has been told many times over.  Yes, people in watersheds have always revered the water, just like sun and stars as stable entities. Yes, rivers are essentially alive. Most keep on flowing. It’s what they do.  

As for my own experience I have travelled the Amazon and its tributaries and am aware of its vagaries and its persistence, and need, and obligation to flow (melting snow water). It certainly has presence, standing and one has to be very respectful, and it makes its presence irrevocably known. Sure it is a living body of water and you need to be aware of that.

Rivers are given the right to flow by us, not to be abstracted or polluted. If they are to be ‘protected’ in the world we have chosen to live in, we have to speak for them as they do not have a voice. It is our anthropomorphic choice and we have chosen that avenue to protect one of our natural assets; an essential one.

 

 

Book reviews, Conservation

Ponds,Pools, Puddles, 2024

Ponds, Pools and Puddles by Jeremy Biggs & Penny Williams, 2024. New Naturalist’s Series No. 148. London, William Collins. 615pp. ISBN 978-0-00-220085-1.  £65

The authors are founders of the ‘Freshwater Habitats Trust’ which was formed out of ‘Pond Conservation’ initially formed in 1988 by Jeremy Biggs, now Prof. Biggs. It’s a very big and comprehensive book compiled by these two go-to pond experts. The fruits of pond research have been trawled to bring up to date information, graphs and maps of changes in the landscape, and the rise and fall of pond organisms at the hands of man manipulating the landscape. It is not only a good read but it provides a resumé of the state of populations of native and introduced wildlife, with especial detailed information of amphibians. GCNs (Great Crested Newts) we learn are the ‘pantomine villains of British nature conservation’ and ‘more money has been spent on this animal than other, often ‘without much success’ and of Natterjacks we learn are ‘perhaps the most intensively studied of Britain’s amphibians,” but one that is least seen I would add.  A dive into the book for obvious topics such as pingoes, the 1 million ponds project and fairy shrimps are all there with further information.  The history of ponds in Britain provides a fascinating insight into the how aquatic wildlife has worked its way into different habitats, even coastal ones, and abroad, too with information on now toads have evolved into old wet woodland. What the book will be particularly useful for practicing ecologists is that management strategies for looking after, enhancing and making new ponds and what to do with old terrestrialised ponds is all there with illustrations. The book carries many colour photographs demonstrating different types of ponds and wildlife from birds to dependant invertebrates – but no mention of ‘Buglife – The Invertebrate Trust’ in the index. There are indexes to common names and species and a big section on references typical of these NNS books which never disappoint.

 

 

Conservation

Perhosmaailma (Butterflies….fi)

 

Perhosmaailma, 2025.  by Helmut Diekmann, Reima Flyktman, Heikki Tabell, Helmut Diekmann, Matti Selänne, Olli Pihlajamaa, Teppo Salmela. ISBN  9789523739611 Published by Readme.fi, Helsinki, Finland. 528pp
(Note: Perhos comes from the word perhonen, which means “insect of the order Lepidoptera; butterfly, moth or skipper.”)
 Classification was invented by man to make it much easier to talk about the huge biodiversity on earth, however some countries’ languages do not distinguish the popular demarcation of butterflies from moths.  Certainly the natural world knows no precise boundary; such is the intimacy of evolution.  This Perhosmaailma book (Butterfly World) is roughly 50% butterflies (mostly all species in Finland) and 50% moths (a tiny fraction of moth biodiversity in Finland). The book is heavy (1.5kg) so moths make 0.75kg, so a big deal.  But all the book is fantastic to a butterfly-lover such as myself who has published lots of books on butterflies of Europe, N. America and the world.  The species shown appear to be well described, certainly exceedingly well illustrated. It is a joy to read, and to explore the Finnish countryside through the butterflies. These butterflies give a sense of place to Finland for this contribution to biodiversity. The book is entirely in Finnish so I am rather stuck with checking all the text. Each of the butterfly species are illustrated as full page spectacular images, usually in habitat, so you get a feel of the Finnish forests, the pines, the meadows, the mountains, the wetlands, bogs and the wildflowers, since butterflies have diversified successfully into all habitats.   When the book is shut, there are coloured bars on the edge indicating where the ‘blues’ are, green for the ‘whites’, reds for the nymphalids and greys for ‘moths’ (always the apparent less glamorous relations). It would have been useful to have maps showing distribution of each species, but with the butterflies males and females are shown, and sometimes caterpillars.  A good range of moths have been illustrated, not going to full page, but still showing their bright colours, especially in some of the day-flying moths (someday-flying moths are brighter than butterflies). It was interesting to see the good range of hawk-moths shown, since many are migrants from Africa that go north to enjoy the diversity of wildflowers that emerge in the continental summer, that on some days can be hotter than the Riviera, and, with longer sunny days have more time to sunbathe.  Underwings, tigers, zygaenids, bee mimics are all included. It is fascinating to see the grayling relations typically sun-bathing sideways on rocks – of which Finland has many.  As so much of Finland is forest of course the timber-devouring caterpillars of the leopard moth, pine hawk-moth, poplar, lime and aspen-dependent moths are shown. Overall, this is a superb book on the butterflies of Finland and a good range of their moth relatives. There are references, links to further information and an index only to Finnish names of the insects.
Book reviews, Conservation, Mitigation

The Lost Paths – Jack Cornish

The Lost Paths – A history of How We Walk from Here to There. By Jack Cornish. Penguin Michael Joseph, London. Hardback. £20. 399pp.  2024

The author is ‘Head of Paths at the Ramblers, Britain’s largest walking charity’ so says the cover blurb, and he packs a lot into this very readable and enjoyable book. He has walked across Britain from Land’s End to John O’Groats, and spent seven years researching this book and walking all over England and Wales. There are a dozen chapters broken down to three sections: Land, Life and death and Water with relevant road issues dropping into each section.  We are advised that when the Romans arrived there were already main paths or tracks, which are mentioned in his ‘Ancient Highways’ and his ‘Prehistoric Routes’   – often following animal routes – ‘wild animals were the first path makers’. (They still are in wilder parts of France –  a JF comment: made by solitaire male wild boars). He peppers his text with his first- hand accounts of his walks, for instance finding the lost roads above Sheffield and on the Moors; or on Drove Roads.  On Roman roads he says ‘It could be said that their (Roman) roads are the Archetypical lost paths.’  His sections on how turnpikes came about and local labour was used, how the railway infrastructure and the Enclosures changed things are all explained, in this circuitous country. Of the Salt Ways he creates an interesting salt map in north England. His section on battlefield routes is fascinating and he says the state of the roads must have been good for Harold and his men to cover the 200 miles for the Battle of Hastings in four and half days. Of the eroding coasts and loss of walkways, he speaks so well from experience trying to carry on walking when the (OS) route on the map does not equate to the way ahead. What is so good about the text is that it is interwoven with quotes from English literature. I was fascinated to learn that William Wordsworth was such an agitator against landowners blocking up footpaths (when he visited Lowther Castle in 1836 tossing rocks from a deliberate obstruction). Fast forward to the ‘scum of the earth’ ramblers case in 1998 of ESCC vs. Van Hoogstraten is described. This is definitely a good read for all walkers and ramblers; and a good book just to dip into.  The text is packed with fascinating information and there is a comprehensive index and plenty of references to explore further texts. The author does not let any side comments pass, and his long footnotes are fascinating in themselves. As an author I know that it is difficult to not include lots and lots of information, and in this well-researched book it shows in its comprehensiveness. Footnote: ‘The Saxons gave a lot to our naming of paths’: the word ‘way’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘weg’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      Climate and Nature Bill   (2024)   The ‘CAN’ Bill               

   (Briefing Note from Dr John Feltwell, Dip EC Law of Wildlife  Matters . 5 Jan 25)

Summary – the Bill seeks

  • To limit the global mean temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C
  • To ‘visibly and measurably’ see species and habitats ‘on the path of recovery’, to be measured from 2020-2030.
  • To abide by the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement,
  • To abide Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, 2020
  • To abide by the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, 2022
  • To abide by the UNCBD and its protocols , 1993.

The Bill

This Private Members’ Bill was presented to parliament by Alex Sobel on 21 March 2024  and supported by a dozen MPs, mostly Labour, Lib Dems and Green Party –that included notables Caroline Lucas and Ed Davey.

Progress through The House

The Second Reading is scheduled to take place on 24 Jan 2025.

The official  ‘Long Title’ is

A Bill to require the United Kingdom to achieve climate and nature targets; to give the Secretary of State a duty to implement a strategy to achieve those targets; to establish a Climate and Nature Assembly to advise the Secretary of State in creating that strategy; to give duties to the Committee on Climate Change and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee regarding the strategy and targets; and for connected purposes.

 It has two OBJECTIVES  – to ensure that the UK

 (a) reduces its overall contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions to net zero at a rate consistent with—

 (i)  limiting the global mean temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and

  1. ii) fulfilling its obligations and commitments under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, taking into account the United Kingdom’s and other countries’ common but differentiated responsibilities, and respective capabilities, considering national circumstances; (‘the climate target’); and

(b) halts and reverses its overall contribution to the degradation and loss of nature in the United Kingdom and overseas by—

 (i) increasing the health, abundance, diversity and resilience of species, populations, habitats and ecosystems so that by 2030, and measured against a baseline of 2020, nature is visibly and measurably on the path of recovery;

  1. ii) fulfilling its obligations under the UNCBD and its protocols and the commitments set out in the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature 58/4 5 10 15 20 Bill 192 2 Climate and Nature Bill and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework; and

 (iii) following the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities; (‘the nature target’).

The Bill has the following definitions of ‘nature’ as

“nature” includes— (a) the abundance, diversity and distribution of animal, plant, fungal and microbial life, (b) (c) the extent and condition of habitats, and the health and integrity of ecosystems;

And the definition of ‘ecosystems’ as

“ecosystems” includes natural and managed ecosystems and the air, soils, water and abundance and diversity of organisms of which they are composed.

Biodiversity  – one big ask

Most of the Bill is about C02, but on Biodiversity there is not so much, only the following statement, and a request to abide by previous pieces of biodiversity legislation

Restoring and expanding natural ecosystems and enhancing the management of cultivated ecosystems, in the United Kingdom and overseas, to protect and enhance biodiversity, ecological processes, and ecosystem service provision;

The three previous biodiversity commitments are:

  1. fulfilling its obligations under the UNCBD and its protocols and the commitments set out in the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature 58/4 5 10 15 20 Bill 192 2 Climate and Nature Bill and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework; and

Unpicking this statement, there are three biodiversity legal issues:

  1. “the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature” means the agreement of the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity of 28 September 2020; and
  2. “the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” means the framework adopted by the decision of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal on 19 December 2022; and “the Mitigation and Conservation Hierarchy” means the hierarchy adopted by resolution 58 of the World Conservation Congress at the International Union for Conservation of Nature from 1 to 10 September 2016. and
  3. “UNCBD and its protocols” means the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which entered into force on 29 December 1993, and all subsequent agreements and protocols arising from it;

Overall Comment

If all of these recommendations and commitments are upheld the steady plod of the Anthropocene will be stopped, C02 levels curtailed, and everything will be fine. However, history tells us that even after 30 years the 1993 initiatives have not been followed which is why the Anthropocene is upon us.

How will the Climate and Nature Bill fit into local politics?

If enacted, the Act will require Rother District Council to abide (especially) by the paragraph highlighted in red above, and their own declaration of the Climate Emergency in 2019.   They only have five years from NOW.

 Dr John Feltwell, BSc (Hons Zoology), PhD (Botany), FLS, FRES, FRSB, FLLA, Dip EC Law,  Henley’s Down, Battle, TN33 9BN.   07793 006832 john@wildlifematters.com   www.wildlifematters.com

 ends

Book reviews, Conservation

Education of a Prince by Prance & Crosby, 2024

The Education of a Prince, The Diary and correspondence of Frederick Waymouth Gibbs: tutor to King Edward VII. Edited by Ghillean T. Prance and Rachel J. Crosby. 2024. pp141.  ISBN 978-1-908787-50-7 and ISBN 9 781908 787507.

The papers of Mr. Gibbs (1821-1898), including his diary, letters and prints have come directly down the family tree to these two authors, Prof. Sir Ghillean T. Prance (Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 1988 to 1999) and his daughter (manager of international projects in Africa and South America), Frederick Gibbs being Prance’s second cousin of his grandfather.  Gibbs’ claim to fame was that he was the tutor to Queen Victoria’s two eldest sons, from 1851-1856, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and Prince Alfred.

And what a hard life Gibbs seems to have had. It was not an easy teaching job, since the Prince of Wales was particularly truculent, aggressive and prone to throwing things around. These transcripts of diary entries and letters (some originals are shown written in a spidery quill hand) are revealing and deal mostly with everyday life in royal Victorian circles. Most of the political issues of the day are not included. There are timetables and strict work schedules, often metered out by Victoria who insisted on seven hours teaching, sometimes seven days a week especially if the princes were especially naughty. There were many “wishes of the Queen on a number of small points and generally the host of nothings which become important only when neglected” said Gibbs in a letter home from Windsor Castle in 1852. There were “Rules for Meals” and regulations, such as not being rude to their sisters, how not to fidget with cutlery at the table, and never to interrupt people speaking at mealtimes, and when precisely to wear a kilt.   The Queen also provided approved lists of suitable boys (17 are listed) who the Prince of Wales could have round to play during the summer – and  eight listed for Prince Alfred.  Eton, being next door to Windsor Castle had been a source of teachers and appropriate playmates.

Day to day entries in his diaries are sometimes like entries in a school report…”the impulse to oppose is very strong and offers great difficulties in his education”, and  “nothing makes a deep impression, and he forgets the greatest part of what he learns”…  It seems hard work for Mr. Gibbs considering all the non-cooperation he had with the Prince of Wales, all for an annual fee of £1,000. He took over from a master at Eton who was regarded as being too lenient with the boys, which is why the Queen wanted someone a little more stricter. This did not go down well with the boys so Gibbs took a while to settle in. The diaries show that Victoria gave him presents, and that he dined with her on some evenings. In his role as a teacher he had to work at Buckingham Palace, Osborne House and Sandringham and took voyages around the coast following his subjects. In 1852 the Queen had a phrenologist look at the princes’ heads to see if they were developing correctly. “The predominant organs are still combativeness, destructiveness, self-esteem, firmness and conscistiousness. Concentrativeness also is large, and the cerebellum is of considerable size having increased since May 1851.”  Phrenology was highly regarded at the time.

The book is illustrated with very good sketches from Albert Edward, and black and white photographs of the boys later in life, and Queen Victoria.  There is correspondence between the princes after Gibbs left when he continued to write to them, and received letters from them with presents, and others, including Tennyson residing at Henley on Thames. He was given £400 rising to £800 for his pension after four years.

The book provides a valuable insight into royal life during this snapshot of Victoria’s life. The entries will provide historians with a wealth of finer detail from ‘upstairs’ as seen by a teacher, as well as shining a light on the abundance of courtesy, etiquette and behaviour amongst the royals.  As a teacher Gibbs clearly earnt his keep within the household and the princes obviously appreciated his efforts as they continued to send him presents during his retirement; so did the Queen. This was not an ordinary life of a teacher, but a privileged one.

 

 

 

 

Book reviews, Conservation

Groundbreakers. Lyons 2024

 

                               

Groundbreakers, The return of Britain’s wild boar. By Chantal Lyons. London, Bloomsbury Wildlife. 2024. ISBN  978 3994 0163 0  &  9 781399 401630.  288pp

 Having almost been shot by a chasseur, whilst he was stalking me as a wild boar, and I was stalking him, I am fully aware of how keen the French are to kill les sanglier. The British wild boar was always native to Britain but then it went extinct, then reintroduced. This book picks up the European story. Chantal Lyons has French blood, and whilst visiting family in SW France has embraced what it is like to get inside the way of life of this large herbivore, which also doubles up as an omnivore and carnivore. Lyons says they are 90% herbivorous. Tell that to the French farmer rearing boar decades ago who said if a gendarme fell into the corral there would be nothing left except his pistol.  Her particular boar habitat of study is The Forest of Dean (Gloucestershire) where there is a viable population, and made Sus scrofa her subject of at least two dissertations. Why Dean? She says it is ‘The biggest unintentional field experiment in Britain’s nascent rewilding history’ (steady on). On bluebells she provides evidence that boar eat the bulbs, and help to wreck woodlands, which is understandable as they search for invertebrates in wet woodland. Incidentally she refers to geophytic bluebells, so I am left wondering where the epiphytic ones might be in our delicate Atlantic climate. One very important aspect of boar’s rotavating the soil is that they enhance biodiversity as wildflowers spring up from seeds brought to the surface. Biodiversity is only mentioned in the index in the sense that Britain is in its own Anthropocene where it is declining. I like the book; it follows Ramamoto’s 2017 book ‘Wild Boar’ (Reaktion Books) which has a more historic worldwide edge. I would like more on male ‘solitaires’ which do their own thing, or on ‘ear-tagging’ data, and on cross-country movements in France, and ‘motorway tunnels’ that boar do through impenetrable thick scrub.  I don’t like the flannelly paper used in the printing of this book, already foxed within the year, and which smells!  (not of foxes)  There are no illustrations or references, but there is an index.

Sus scrofa, the wild boar in captivity, with young

Book reviews, Conservation, Insects

Damselflies & Dragonflies of Sussex, 2024. Martin et al.,

Martin,A., Linington,S. & Foreman,B., 2024. The Dragonflies and Damselflies of Sussex – their status and distribution. REGUA Publications. ISBN  970-0-9568291-3-9  pp 154.   £20 softback.

Three local naturalists have compiled this excellent up to date review of the county’s odonata, some 44 species comprising 28 species of dragonflies and 16 damselflies. The book is beautifully illustrated in colour, mostly shot in SE England, with each species showing males and females and any forms. The prelims are exhaustive on life cycles, and comparisons with neighbouring counties, especially Hampshire, Surrey and Kent; Sussex benefiting from the heathlands of Ashdown Forest when compared to Kent.  The book would not be so good if not for the data provided by the Sussex Biodiversity Records Centre (SxBRC) with access to the 1,900 observers’ records from the last 20 years. Species thus have a map showing dot distribution overlying the habitats of both East and West Sussex. There is also graph data showing trends on occupied 1km squares. The maps showing species per 1km square are interesting if not predictable, highlighting wetland areas and river valleys, and generally indicating that the quantum of records demonstrates greater certainty of known distribution. More odonata are now recorded every year up to 2020 than in 1985. Towards the end of the book there is a comprehensive review of all the best places to view odonata, showing inviting photographs of each location and descriptions. The message from this book is that the future will be like the last few years with new arrivals, vagrants, migrants and others firming up on their new territories gained. Climate Change is discussed, stating that in places such as Ashdown Forest warm periods of dry weather may decline heathland odonata populations.  Some species such as the Small Red Damselfly are at risk of local extinctions and are Nationally Scarce, and the Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly is classified as Near-Threatened on the British Odonata Red Data List. There are references, but no general index. This is a fine compilation of the species of this order in Sussex, not as a field guide for the pocket (it is too big) but as a timely reference for the home or lab. Congrats to all three authors.