Ecological succession

The natural landscape all around us is continually changing. It is not a static thing. The thought occurred when thinking back to my childhood in Wanstead Park and on the Flats. In those days (1960s and 70s), there always seemed to be much more grassland around. Areas like around the big mound opposite Northumberland Avenue and the Shoulder of Mutton and Heronry lakes. The areas were almost like pampas. Today, there are some big thickets of brambles, especially around the mound area. Similarly the terrain on the flats has changed a lot. The Epping Forest authorities spend a lot of time cutting back broom and brambles to maintain grasslands. The big changer in all of this was that back in the day cows roamed freely across these areas, eating back brambles etc. Herds of 30 or 40 plus cows would wander around, eating back the vegetation. They did help themselves to the prize plants in some front gardens but that was unusual and a small price to pay for the ecological succession. The cows brought a wonderful intervention that helped many other creatures in the ecological succession. The recent reintroduction of a few longhorn cattle over by the plain area in the park for a few months each year is having a similar small scale effect. The longhorns are due back in September. Nature is a constantly changing thing. A wood is not a wood that will stay the same for ever. The same applies to meadows and fields. Every landscape is a dynamic thing, constantly changing. Landscapes are growing, living breathing things. If the cows are not around or alternative interventions made then the land would turn (or should that be return) to scrub and bramble. All will turn to forest. It is important that as humans we act in partnership with nature, not act to dominate and destroy for the benefit of human beings. Human beings are but one element of the natural world. We need to partner with the other aspects not seek to dominate. An absence of this type of approach is evident in some of the mindless rhetoric we hear about how bats and newts must not be allowed to stop "development." Fortunately, we are seeing more of the partnership approach with things like the rewilding movement. Locally,there are encouraging developments in the park and on the Flats. The floating reed bed put in at the end of last year on the Heronry Lake, opposite the mound. The skylark enclosure on the Flats plus the efforts to develop wildflower meadows. These are all positive things that work in partnership with rather than against nature. This has to be the way to advance in the future - very much together forever.