In September 2024, writer Guy Shrubsole, published a book titled “Lie of the Land”. The promotional blurb for the book opens with this provocative statement: “For centuries we’ve been sold a lie: that you need to own the land to care for it”. It goes on to finish with the line: “We can start by replacing the lie of the land with a profound truth: that any of us can care for the countryside, regardless of whether you own it”. My mind has been exploring this topic of late, as I have walked the paths and fields that circle my village. I know and love this land deeply, and it is the topics of knowledge and love which I want to explore here.
I’ll start with knowledge. We are often told that farmers or landowners are the ones who know their land the best. I’m not sure that is true. Farmers and landowners will know their land well, and have knowledge about certain things. They may know its history, know how to navigate it, know where the wet and dry bits are, where some of the wildlife can be found. But there are others who will know their land well, and in different ways.
I will use myself as an example. I have spent years walking the paths and fields around my village. I think I know them very well. I know where the Brown Hairstreak butterflies lay their eggs. I know where the tiny patch of Meadow Thistle grows and where to find the Green-winged Orchids. I know where the only Pear tree is and which tree the wild Honey Bee nest is in. I know which fields have the greatest numbers of winter Snipe. I know where the Ivy Bees nest and where the last fragments of chalk grassland plants cling on. I have a deep connection to this land, a deep knowledge that is always growing with every walk that I do.
I rarely see a farmer or landowner when out on my walks. The only times have been when they are doing stock checks on their quad bike or cutting the grassland in their tractor. I’m pretty sure I have never seen them walking the fields or the paths. Maybe they do and I just always miss them. Do they ever stand in their gateway, as I have done on many occasion, as winter darkness draws in, listening to the Snipe squawking overhead?
I’m not intending this as a criticism. Nor am I seeking to be competitive. However I do feel that I have a claim to know the land well, at least as well as the landowners and farmers, if not better. It is possible I spend more time on it, observing more and studying it more. There will be many others like me, who walk their local land weekly (or daily for some) and who therefore know that land extremely well.
Why does this matter? Because I often feel like the statement of the landowner/farmer knowing the land best is said to push other views out of the conversation. Views which, to my mind, are of equal validity due to them being informed by the land itself. The countryside is a complex place, a mixture of overlapping factors and views. In order to know what to do with it we need to know it, and that knowledge has to come from a range of sources. That means listening to landowners and farmers, but also others who know the land.
Not only do I know my local land, I love it too. I am connected to it, both physically and mentally. In many ways my health depends on it. I care about it, when it is harmed I am harmed. I feel as though I have a stake in it, dare I say it, even a claim on it. By virtue of the bond that has formed I feel my claim has legitimacy. Ownership isn’t the only way to claim the land. One can emotionally lay claim to it too.
How do we make sense of this intoxicating cocktail of knowledge, love and ownership? We have to find ways to have better quality conversations about how we use the land. This means less polarisation, less pitching people against each other and less framing one ‘side’ as having greater legitimacy than the other. To do this we need to recognise the multiple connections that different people have to the land. If we can do this, we can learn together and better understand each other. We all love the land, in our own way. Perhaps by sharing that love with each other, we can find the common ground needed to lay the foundations for how we will all need to work together to restore nature back to the land.
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