WILD SERVICE - WHY NATURE NEEDS YOU

REVIEW

Book Title Wild Service — Why Nature Needs You
Edited by  Nick Hayes with Jon Moses
Publisher         Bloomsbury

I have only read the 8 page Prologue that sets the tone of what the editors aim to achieve with 13 contributors giving their thoughts. I will read through them all, some 256 pages, and comment later.  
Nick Hayes is the author of The Book of Trespass and The Trespasser’s Companion. Jon Moses is a freelance writer and organiser of campaign group Right to Roam —they fight for free, fair and informed access to land and water throughout England.  He has been involved in a mass trespass at Cirencester Park and has clear views on the freedom we all should have on Dartmoor.

Guy Shrubsole book on ‘Who Owns England’ and his ‘The Lost Rain Forests of Britain are two other books that fit in with the concept of our freedoms.

The Prologue opens with reference to the open doors of St Mark’s Church in Englefield, West Berkshire and the close proximity to a country estate. It is owned by a lord and as is usual with country estates the right of access ‘remain shut, at all times, to the public.’ This is in contrast with open doors of churches where people can enter with ease. What a contrast!  A line in the book repeated here says; ‘the grace of God and the meanness of man, side by side in the little village of Engelfield’.

England is bottom of the list when compared with fourteen European countries on three factors: biodiversity, wellbeing and nature connectedness. There are activists out there who seek to remedy this but it is for all of us to take part as a community and make a re-connect with what we did have. 

There is so much in these few pages and I would urge people to buy this beautiful book with words that should affect us all.