The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
I’m all for ‘Wee Forests’, but let’s try a bit harder with the green spaces we have
Iloved reading about Stobbie’s new “Wee Forest”, a small area of land to be reforested in Stobswell, Dundee, where plants, trees and animals can flourish. These “Wee Forests” are being created by a team at the botanic garden, so people will never be more than three minutes from a nature spot.
I have suggestions for a bunch of new places, and I also have some ground rules we should probably all agree to before we set these little woodlands up, because at the minute we’re acting like we dinnae really deserve them.
Storm Arwen ripped doon a fair few fences in Dundee. And all around my bit, secret little brownfield enclaves were exposed. On the Hilltoon, a building with sturdy steel struts to stall its subsidence overlooks one such exposed patch.
The wooden fence that had hidden it buckled in the winds, revealing this dead area that is currently home to a mingin’ mattress and some broken traffic cones – queuing traffic gets an eyeful of this enclave of ugly as they wait at the lights.
Imagine a lovely wee wooded area here. A micro forest, wi’ a couple trees, some undergrowth, birds in a branch, bees at a blossom.
As we pech our way up the brae fae the toon, what a braw place to stop and catch wir breath this would be. Green space from a dark place?
Along fae my flat is a semi-derelict plot of land about three metres wide and six long. This channel is truly ripe for a micro forest. There’s our backies on one side, a wall on the other and beyond that some old sheds where sex workers and their clients meet in the shadows.
Surely the families that play in the backies and those who work in the darker neuks back there would benefit from the healthful air of a wee forest? Some foliage to combat the endless grinding diesel hum of the Cleppy Road would be a blow on behalf of nature, at least.
These spaces can be beautiful. And they are essential too. The congested Strathmartine Road is getting a skelp of new social houses that dinnae seem to have a scrap of garden space between them. More of these micro forests will be vital if the future inhabitants are to have any nature within walking distance at all.
My demand for more green space, even totty wee ones, doesnae come without conditions. We have a responsibility here. We can’t sit around and point fingers, demanding others come in and improve our environment. This is our community, let’s make it nicer ourselves too.
Dealing with dog mess would be a good start. When pals come to visit me in Coldside, they often remark upon the prodigious quantity of muck on the streets.
Burnt out cars is another sore point. I walk regularly at night round the outskirts of the city, where Dundee meets Angus. This often takes me through the various golf courses and scraggy woods that abut the Dichty Watter.
The other night, I was on the phone to my partner as I sauntered along a dark fairway. Suddenly, the black dark night ahead of me erupted in flames. A real fleg of high tangerine flame scorched the air. By its light I saw a cabal of silhouettes moving about it.
Being a jessie, I quickly exited the scene. On returning the next day, I found a Ford Mondeo ditched in Gelly Burn, well and truly gutted.
This is the third I’ve come across in my
year and a bit here. The most supremely melted example was an unidentifiable car dumped just off Mains Loan. Doubtless there are plenty more scattered across the city.
They strike me almost like found art, or a contemporary exhibit by some challenging artist who wants to make an on-the-nose point about our relationship with nature.
The patterns on the bonnet of the Mondeo were genuinely captivating. But, fundamentally, I disapprove. We can all do much better for our green space
When I was wee, some Dundonians came out to Newbigging and nicked our old Cavalier and flamed it in a field. It was unnerving for us, as well as for our neighbours, and left us stranded in the village for ages until we could get another vehicle.
Our natural world deserves better too.
Leaving litter to skitter into the wind is bad enough, but dumping a car in a water course? That’s a level beyond. Think of wee Nemo and his pals, swimming aboot in the poison runoff fae the blazed sump.
So aye, it’s a big yes to the “Wee Forests”. They sound class. But let’s mind and improve our respect for the living green world if we want to prove we deserve a greater proportion of it.
The patterns on the bonnet of the Mondeo were captivating