First pass at the first chapter of my video essay. Needs a lot of refinment but I think the guts of the first chapter are there.
- Re-write some elements
- Add corroborate evidence
- Re-record intro on location
- record remainder as “clean” V/O
Land Seared – Chapter 1 – First Draft
Transcript
The land has always been altered by animals, whether by mega fauna or keystone species, such as Beavers, Wolves, Elk. The land has always been shaped by the animals that live upon it. The land scape biases certain animals, so it is a symbiosis, so the landscape whilst being dynamic, is more passive in this relationship.
The animals upon the landscape alter what plants grow, how they grow and what occurs within that landscape. Man is no different an animal, Man only has a greater degree of agency. Whilst one could also argue that man is a keystone species in some respects, creating certain habitats and environments that again bias certain animals and certain plants. A greater weight of argument could easily be made to the fact that we are merely an animal influencing the landscape beyond what we should be.
Man has always altered the landscape, as long as man has been within an environment, that environment has been altered permanently by Man. We think of the Anthropocene and the changing of the landscape by Man’s hand as a modern phenomenon. But is has always been the case. The tools at our disposal multiply our agency, and as our tools grow and our means of exploiting the landscape proliferate, again the influence that we can act upon that landscape is multiplied. Take those tools away, we still have an impact.
One could easily romanticize, with the distance of time and think of a past where Man lived in harmony with nature. But if you look into the record of the land, Man has altered it from its earliest beginnings. From as long ago as the Mesolithic era, when man burnt the forests of Scotland with the endeavor of farming, we’ve always dramatically impacted the landscape.
Any effort to alter or better the landscape now are also only able to be done within a certain degree of influence. We are impacted by the acts of our forefathers in that respect. The grand Scottish estate for example, can only perform so much conservation work within a certain degree of radiance based on a path set by past generations.
The landscape has a time horizon beyond that of any lifespan of a mere mortal human. That kind of long-term planning restricts what land managers now are able to do, they also restricted by other factors, more local in time than the actions of their past. Current government policy, subsidies, tenant farmers, public opinion, the wider economy, the availability of capital. All of these things are influencing factors on how a landscape may be managed and altered by Man’s hand.
But by doing so, Man also limits and inhibits the natural cycle that the fauna on that landscape will go through. By burning upland moors for Grouse shooting, one prevents natural regeneration of woodland, Man prevents plant succession. We hold our wild places, so-called, in a state of arrested succession. A monoculture of plants, so poor, that they can support very few animals. And those that they do support, are chosen specifically for the sport that is acted upon that landscape.
It is a managed landscape, but it is a farm. It is a farm designed to produce an abundance of a certain type of animal, so that a certain activity can happen upon it. No different to any farm that creates a monoculture, either for crops or for pasture for livestock.
The narratives built around our upland and wild places however, tells us this is a natural state of play. That these are wild places and that these are a normal natural state for them to be in. Fence off and area of upland moor and leave it, and plant succession will begin. Slowly at first with lichens and mosses, followed by blaeberries and heathers, and ultimately ending in woody perennials, trees and mature woodland. Again, this is a slow process and one that will usually one that will take more than one lifetime to complete.
External factors also have their part to play in inhibiting and encouraging a change of policy within and estate or managed landscape. The external factors I previously alluded to all impact what an estate may choose to do upon a landscape. Their hands not only being tied by the actions of past generations, but by much more local factors in terms of time.
Land management in any context, but particularly in an upland context is an incredibly long-term project. The external influencing factors are significantly shorter in their scope of time than what the land requires for its natural cycles to complete and to be influenced. Therefore and estate may operate to a five-year business plan, but will still have to consider 30, 60, 120 year timescales for certain activities of commercial or conservation work.
Certain activities are benefited or hindered by external factors. Each trying to enact its agency over those who are custodians and owners or managers of a landscape. Westminster government legislation also has its part to play and usually impacts commercial operations more than conservation works. Where within a Scottish context, the Scottish Executive having devolved powers over certain conservation and land management issues. Through reform is perhaps encouraging change, but is also inhibiting financial expenditure and development of certain things. These multiple competing factors are all balanced by those who have the estates and who manage those landscapes.
And again, the narrative is only ever simplified. The same simplification that tells us that our upland moors and these wild open hillsides are in a natural state, also tell us that those managing those landscapes are doing so only for their sole benefit and profit. And they do not consider the landscape or the people who live on or around it either.
The narratives surrounding those people is similar to the narrative told of the lairds that they have replaced. That they are gods over their domain and that they can enact and make sweeping changes at their whim. Whereas the reality, as always, is significantly more complex and nuanced than that. And sometimes only when a landscape has changed do we fully engage with what was there previously and question that change.
A stand of trees planted for commercial purposes as a crop in the 1800s, harvested now, is seen as a tragedy. Yet some would also see the changing of an already damaged farm landscape of a heather moor from one of a shooting ground to that of a wind farm as also being a travesty.
There’s no simple solution or answer to any of these questions, but the over simplification of the narrative is where most of the problems in my view begin.