Shanna McGoldrick’s piece on the new Wordsworth Way trail in the Lake District, through no fault of its own, falls victim to the same issue that the Lakes have faced for generations – everyone assumes that the landscape they see (or saw as children) is how it has always been (Poetry in motion: walking the new Wordsworth Way in the Lake District, 9 April).
The name for this phenomenon is shifting baseline syndrome, and it is natural – humans base our impressions on our own experience. Unfortunately, this is incredibly damaging for nature, as we fail to see the gradual decline over generations of ecosystems.
By Wordsworth’s time, the Lake District had been ravaged by industrialisation for charcoal and mining; before that, intensive sheep grazing since the 13th century for the wool trade had stripped it of temperate rainforest and drained its lowland alder swamps.
At the moment, the Lake District has a paltry 13% tree coverage, and the target for 2050? A measly 17%. Trees aren’t everything, and peat bogs and grassland will always form a part of the Lakes, but this is lower than the tree cover in some cities.
We can and should do better to restore this landscape in a way that benefits nature and farmers both. Regenerative farming, rewilding and the unpopular reduction of sheep numbers would all help and create valuable stewardship jobs. Or else, the cycle of decline can continue, and the Lake District will remain for ever frozen in the image of one Victorian poet.
Andy Massey
Kenilworth, Warwickshire
