(C) Florida Phoenix This story was originally published by Florida Phoenix and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Modern Britain pines for its inner Druid; in Florida, we prefer ‘nature on a leash’ [1] ['More From Author', 'June', 'Diane Roberts'] Date: 2023-06-12 LONDON — You want drama? Sex? Violence? Birth? Death? Incredibly cute baby otters doing adorable baby otter stuff? You want “Springwatch,” a BBC television program on every week night with birds, bugs, fish, and mammals hatching, hunting, and occasionally murdering each other caught on critter cameras all over the U.K. A posse of witty and telegenic naturalists, stationed in rural parts from the mountains of northern Scotland to the wetlands of England’s eastern coast, provide play-by-play as young badgers romp in the woods and kingfishers mate. “Springwatch” has been called “the ultimate reality show for our times” and a “national treasure.” I know what you’re thinking: The people who gave us Shakespeare, Byron, the Brontes, the Clash, Monty Python, and Stormzy sit around watching jays build nests on TV? Hell, yeah. This is a nature-obsessed nation. BBC Radio 4 broadcasts a “Tweet of the Day” every morning. It ain’t Elon Musk’s latest megalomaniacal rant, either. It’s an actual bird. You can hear the song of a Manx Shearwater, a Ringed Plover, or a Great Spotted Woodpecker, complete with ornithologists discussing the creature and its ways. Eight out of 10 Brits live in urban areas, but in their dreams they reside in cozy villages set in green valleys or down hawthorn-lined rural lanes or in farmhouses with fat pink roses flopping over rustic stone walls. Even those who like concrete better than cow pastures want trees in their midst. Mess with the trees, you’ll be punished. In April, the governing council of Plymouth had 119 mature trees chopped down in the middle of the night. Civic improvements, claimed the council. Money! Jobs! The citizens of Plymouth were unimpressed. In May’s local elections, the majority of the councilors lost their seats. Our great, green canopy Floridians are all too familiar with this scenario: politicians destroying ecosystems in the name of profit and in defiance of public sentiment. We seem, however, less inclined to kick the clear-cut brigade out of office. In Tallahassee, most of us cherish our great, green canopy, especially our live oaks. Our city officials apparently do not. There’s supposed to be a “tree ordinance” to protect our environment, but if it’s a choice between trees and some Chamber of Commerce-favored development, the money wins every time. Nevertheless, many Americans share the British reverence for nature, both for what it gives our species and for its own sake: The ecosphere is a way to see into our past and get a grip on our uncertain future. The oak has a particular hold on these islands: It’s the tree of Druids, whose name may derive from a Celtic word meaning “oak-magician.” Oaks symbolize kingship. Hunted by the Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarians who’d captured his father, Charles II supposedly hid in a big oak tree before he escaped to France, an event still celebrated in England on Oak Apple Day. Oak trees are champion sequesters of carbon, too, beating most other trees in sheer volume of greenhouse gases absorbed. Florida DEP and FWC take note. Environmentalists want to preserve as much of Britain’s native flora and fauna as possible; a few even want to restore parts of the neolithic ecosystem. These islands have been farmed for something like 6,000 years, pastures cleared, roads cut, earth moved to make mounds and henges. Rewilding But there are still wild places to save. A movement to map and protect the remnants of temperate rain forest that used to dominate the western parts of Britain, weird, wet areas rich in species of lichen, moss, and fern, is gathering momentum. Other enviros favor radical rewilding as well, bringing back long-extinct species such as wolves and lynx. As you can imagine, farmers are not thrilled at the idea of reintroducing top predators, any more than the ranchers, growers, and suburbanites of South and Central Florida want panthers moving back into their areas — even though the panthers were there first. In Florida, people tend to prefer what the film maker John Sayles called “nature on a leash”: golf courses, an avenue of palm trees, a nice hibiscus. In the U.K., they also love the order and beauty of a well-tended garden. The Chelsea Flower Show, a venerable exhibition of theme gardens attended by the Royal Family and a sell-out crowd of 160,000, fascinates people who may have no more than a window box to plant in and can only watch the show on television. In a bad (but beloved) poem of 1911, Rudyard Kipling wrote, “Our England is a garden.” It’s far more, of course. The peonies and roses of the tidy cottage yard, the bird-filled marshes of the North Sea coast, the heathery sweep of high moorland and what’s left of the ancient woodlands are part of this country’s emotional landscape — just as the live oaks, the Spanish moss, the brown rivers, and blue springs are part of ours. [END] --- [1] Url: https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/06/12/modern-britain-pines-for-its-inner-druid-in-florida-we-prefer-nature-on-a-leash/ Published and (C) by Florida Phoenix Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/floridaphoenix/