What's Natural

The Glasgow Naturalist (2014) Volume 26, Part 1, 11-16 FULL PAPERS What’s natural: a species history of Scotland in the last 10,000 years T.C. Smout University of St Andrews, Institute for Environmental History E-mail: [email protected] oxymoran; nature has never ceased for one moment ABSTRACT to control us. The question of what is natural is considered, and a mismatch is pointed out between the view that man But in common parlance most of us, even scientists, is part of nature and the view that ‘natural’ means all continue to speak as if nature was something apart living things apart from man. The history of man’s from us: we talk of the ‘natural environment’ in ability to change the environment of Scotland is distinction from the ‘built environment’, of Scottish briefly outlined, with reference to climate history Natural Heritage as opposed to Historic Scotland, of and some recent modifications to the view that man the ‘natural world’, as the world apart from reduced Scotland to a ‘wet desert’. The distinction humanity. I shall do the same in the rest of this talk, between native and alien is traced to the Victorians, but this use of nature and natural to mean only the but it did not become set in stone until after the non-human is a matter of subjective convenience, Second World War. The history of mammals is not of scientific reality. discussed with particular reference to island races, and to the varied history of the red squirrel and The whole discussion of re-wilding, and of favouring attitudes towards it. In the case of birds, some that native above alien species, depends upon by this are not alien can still be almost entirely dependent definition of nature as beyond or before the human. on man. Plants are divided into archaeophytes and Re-wilding and re-introduction, therefore, have neophytes depending whether or not they arrived more to do with history than science, if we define the before 1500, and some archaeophytes are now wild as being in the state of nature, or what some protected. There is brief mention of insects, fungi, term (following George Peterken, 1996) the ‘original the carriers of plant diseases and aquatic organisms. natural’. Re-wilders look to discover the condition of Globalisation has been the greatest carrier of alien the environment before man acquired the power to species, but only a few have proved invasive. alter it. They make a romantic and daring attempt to return to the Garden of Eden, using an assumed INTRODUCTION historical knowledge as a pass to re-enter it. They In 2012, Prince Charles wrote a foreword to will use ecology once they get in, but they need Plantlife’s booklet, Our Vanishing Flora, deploring history to tell them how to recognise the Garden, and the destruction of native biodiversity. He said to tell them what is native to the Garden and what is ‘‘progress has completely disconnected us from the not. natural world, so that we no longer appreciate that we are, in fact, an integral part of Nature; we are The power of man to alter the environment came Nature’’. gradually and incompletely. In Scotland, the earliest traces of humanity yet found are those of hunter- He was of course quite right. We are not above gatherers at Cramond on the edge of Edinburgh, Nature or separate from Nature, we are subject to dated to about 10,000 years ago, within a millennium evolution in the same way as a toad or a fungus, a of the end of the last ice age. It used to be assumed twig in the tree of life not intrinsically different, that Mesolithic people were too sparsely distributed better or higher than any other. Darwin established and ignorant to be able to alter their surroundings, that. True, we are the only species that has evolved but many archaeologists now think that they set fires to be able to alter even the physical properties of the big enough to make substantial woodland clearings, earth’s atmosphere. But like every other species we in order to attract grazing prey. Then came farmers: are still dependent for survival on the energy of the about 4000 years later there is evidence of Neolithic sun, and the integrity of global ecosystem services. communities, the first identified site being at We speak of our control over nature, but that is an Balbridie in Aberdeenshire. They practiced pastoralism. Then there followed the use of hoes for agriculture and of axes to clear woodland, and which was immemoriably present and native in the thereafter our ability to change the environment is wild, and one which had escaped from local gardens not in question. or had enjoyed an assisted passage in a bale of Australian wool or a consignment of American grain. But even if we tried to recreate the environment of The latter, the alien, was considered as less natural Mesolithic Scotland today, in one important respect and authentic, and marked on their lists with an it would not be authentic. The Scottish climate of the asterisk or a dagger, as it still is. Mesolithic (and indeed the Neolithic) was variable, but generally more benign than it is today, warmer However, definitions of native and alien did not and less wet in summer, more like that of the south- become set in stone until after the Second World west of modern France. No amount of search for the War, in the context of the rise of genetics, and original-natural can recreate that situation now, growing concern about the damage done by some though within a few decades when the effects of releases of non-native species. In many cases, the global warming kick in, it might become possible. question of what is native and what is alien is riddled with paradox and puzzle. (See Usher, 2000, Webb, However, at the start of the Bronze Age about 4000 1985) years ago, there was an abrupt change in the climatic systems, inaugurating the modern age of rising Broadly, for us, the native is the ‘natural’ inhabitant winds and rain. This had a dire natural effect on the of a ‘natural’ Scotland. The last ice age left Scotland a existing vegetation and ecosystems of Scotland. So tabula rasa, plants and animals from earlier should we be looking to the Bronze Age as the model interglacials having been removed by the extreme for an authentically re-wilded Scotland? From this cold. Anything which came here since that time point the formation accelerates of most of the raised unaided by people is defined as natural. Anything and blanket bogs of Scotland, associated with the that came through human agency is defined as an natural decline of forest. The latest findings of alien. It does not matter when they came, except that palaeoecology (Tipping, 2008) indicate that this was species that existed here in the interglacial before an entirely natural phenomenon, not in any sense the last ice-age, but did not arrive unaided since the anthropogenic, and you might argue that at this point last one (like the Norway spruce) are classified as nature in Scotland reaches its modern form. aliens. However, if a species has been made extinct through human agency at any point in time in the last Some would go further. James Fenton, whose work is 10,000 years, it is entitled to come back as a native, not yet widely accepted or even discussed (being even if its return will need (as it often does) the most available mainly on-line) more contentiously argues extensive and expensive human aid (and today also that not only the bogs but also the open spaces of the Government approval) to become re-established; heather moors are entirely natural, as in this new capercailllie, beavers, sea eagles and red kites are the climatic regime the ground became incapable of relevant cases in point in Scotland. supporting extensive tree cover: red deer would graze down regeneration, as it was not sufficiently The alien, by contrast, is defined as a taxon with no protected in winter by snows as it was in Scandinavia earlier natural residency in Scotland, but which (Fenton 2011) In his view, the open spaces of arrived with human assistance. Aliens are not Scotland are not the anthropogenic wet desert of considered natural in Scotland even if they arrived Fraser Darling (1956), created by overgrazing and centuries ago, like rabbits, pheasants and sycamores, human neglect, but the finest heritage of natural so are not normally afforded any legal protection as open space in Europe. It is threatened (he argues) by part of the natural heritage, though there are tree planting, not only of alien conifers, but also of exceptions. For instance, the little owl is protected Caledonian pine and other native woodland because the relevant mid-twentieth century promoted by charities like Trees for Life, the legislation predates the highest modern anxiety Woodland Trust and the RSPB. Trees are, he would about alien species, and in the interwar years argue, inappropriate in most of the places where scientists had spent a lot of effort demonstrating that they are being encouraged because they threaten a it was harmless to game. natural, albeit Bronze Age and not Mesolithic, ecosystem of open space. DISCUSSION Unless you have wings or can float in the air like dust, This is the context of the species history of Scotland there is certainly a large element of luck as to in the last 10,000 years. What about natives and whether you are a native or not.

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