Lazy days
NATURE IN RECOVERY
An ecologist’s tale of the battle to boost biodiversity while keeping a farm afloat
BOOK
WILD FELL: FIGHTING FOR NATURE ON A LAKE DISTRICT HILL FARM
BY LEE SCHOFIELD, TRANSWORLD, £20 HB
A vein of mistrust and suspicion runs through Wild Fell like lines in a stick of rock; seeking to navigate the yin and yang of wildlife conservation and sheep farming, Lee Schofield frequently comes unstuck. “If you hate sheep so much, Lee, why are you even bothering with them?” asks one farmer at a meeting in Ambleside he attends.
It’s not a bad question, as Schofield himself tacitly acknowledges. Many conservationists do hate sheep, and yet Schofield runs a hill farm owned by Britain’s biggest wildlife group, the RSPB.
The Lake District is our most famous national park and a World Heritage Site to boot, with some 20 million visitors every year, but on the whole, it is not a place flocked to by people who want to see something feathered or furry. Or
