Twenty five thousand years ago it was prehistoric man who roamed our region of south-west France – perhaps the earliest established settlements of man to be found in Europe. Hunting, fishing and living in caves were what passed for entertainment, as seen in the paintings of the Lascaux Caves and numerous other prehistoric sites in the region.
At that time the land here was largely covered by mixed forests, and the landscape we see today – open fields interspersed with areas of woodland – is what remains after thousands of years of clearance for agriculture. Still very beautiful, but also very different.
In France the problem of deforestation is not now an important one, because each year twice as much land becomes forest as is cleared, due to both new tree plantations and also abandoned land becoming naturally reforested – it is no longer worked as farmland, since it is both hard work and inhospitable terrain.
In our own little plot I’ve spent the last four years trying to turn a three acre field back into natural woodland, and I can assure you it is easier (and cheaper) just to let the original trees grow rather than get them back again afterwards!
In other countries of course the problem is much more severe, nowhere more so than the Amazonian and Asian rainforests. As we all know, huge areas of rainforest are cleared every day, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the future of the planet. Well today you can do something to help!
I came across this campaign, ‘Rainforest Conservation in Action with the World Land Trust’ which is doing its best to help. So I thought I’d mention them here. The organisation has Sir David Attenborough as its patron so we can be assured it’s not a fly-by-night organisation who are going to spend your donation on Brazilian beefburgers and teak furnishings for their offices.
The smart idea is that you make a donation of £25 (don’t worry if you are in the USA, there is a similar option for you!) that is used to preserve a piece of rainforest, or perhaps a mangrove swamp or elephant corridor, for ever. The money is literally used to buy the forest.
You can also ‘buy’ it as a gift for someone, and they will receive a ‘certificate of ownership’ – pretty cool, huh!?
Anyway, if you do feel an urge to save the planet and stop it turning into a sweltering dustbowl where cockroaches are the highest form of intelligence, get over there now and make a donation: www.worldlandtrust.org
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