Your countryside

HAVE YOUR SAY ON RURAL ISSUES

A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP

In November’s issue there was an interesting juxtaposition of John Craven’s complaint about litter and Nick Hayes’ excellent article on countryside access. This led me to wonder whether, disagreeing with John Craven, we drop so much litter because we don’t have enough sense of ownership of the land. Perhaps if more areas were easy to enter and people were given more sense of ownership we might take more care of it.

Nearly 20 years ago, I was heavily involved in obtaining the lease of 100 acres of woodland and making it safe and accessible to the public. Not only are there very few examples of littering there but there is a store of plastic carrier bags at the entrance that people use to keep the place tidy. It is very much “our” woodland. If communities were given access and management of local land perhaps they would have more pride in it and keep it litter-free. Roger Stevenson,

Cwmbran, Torfaen

THANK YOU TO THE TEAM

We have subscribed to BBC Countryfile Magazine for some years and when I started

I thought it would be for two or three years as has happened with other subscriptions, until you started repeating yourself. But that has never happened.

Each month there is article after article of interest. Not just obvious ones that one might expect, but national and social history, customs and traditions, recipes, botanical and ornithological facts and always something topical and sometimes contentious. I also always enjoy your regular contributors, my particular favourites being Sara Maitland and Ellie Harrison. And, of course, the

quiz and crossword that, between us, my husband and I usually crack. I have learnt that thorough reading of the articles helps!

So thank you editorial team. We shall remain subscribers for the foreseeable future.

Alison Ellis, Monmouth

ACCESS APPRECIATION

I read Nick Hayes’ feature We Need

More Access (November issue) with interest. The benefits of being outdoors in nature are too great to allow access to be restricted to a privileged few and I am fully supportive of the campaign to improve public access to nature. While the article lists a number of countries with greater levels of public access compared to England and Wales, I am grateful for the access that we do enjoy along the extensive rights of way network and across existing open access land.

I came to appreciate the access rights that I previously took for granted when walking in other countries. For example, in Australia, bushwalking is largely limited to within national parks owned and managed by the state. The best walking for wildlife spotting I have done was in Namibia, but I was confined to within the fences of the farm that I was staying on each day.

The starting point in many other countries is that there is no access to privately owned land and I recognise how lucky we are to have a long history and culture of some level of public access to improve upon.

Mary Hudson, via email

LISTENING PLEASURE

I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to the BBC Countryfile Magazine podcasts/plodcasts over the past couple of months. I am very fortunate that I have continued to work during the pandemic and I’ve loved hearing all your nature stories from across the country as I worked. The podcast has even inspired me to start my own small podcast, based on wildlife in the Fens and where my passion for wildlife photography first began.

The Fens can often be overlooked as being desolate and devoid of life, but in my opinion it is hardly the case. So far, I have talked about the history of the Fens and what can be found not even a mile from my house. I plan to do outdoor recordings while I am out and about with my camera, so I will be taking a break from releasing more episodes in the next couple of weeks to get as many live encounters recorded as I can.

If you wish to have a listen to my recent episodes, the podcast is called Lens from the Fens, and can be found on Spotify, or here: lensfromthefens.libsyn.com.

Again, I have thoroughly enjoying listening to all of your podcast episodes so far, with my favourite one being the story of Saint Melangell and how she protected the hare and created a haven for all wildlife.

Lydia Pinfold, Cambridgeshire

Listen to our podcast episodes here: countryfile.com/podcast