RSPB September talk

Steve Lovell talk, my notes!

As part of my We Are Marshy Folk research I attended an RSPB talk on 15 September. It was by Steve Lovell and titled The State of Nature in the UK. He talked about Shifting Baseline Theory, which I've come across before in Robert McFarlane's Is a River Alive? book, which I've read this summer as part of this project. It's a theory that does make you think about the wildlife, nature and landscapes that get lost between different generations, just because they simply fade out of living memory. This is one of the reasons for this project. The idea that Grimsby had marshes and wetlands has been utterly lost. The only reminders, our east and west marshes, are well known for being areas of deprivation, not for the former landscape of the area. The word survive detached from its original meaning, a bit like the Fitties in Humberston - the word means grazing land over turned regularly by the tide, it now is a collection of 300 heritage chalets. Part of this project is about really looking at the signs in the language we have locally that have survived and can give clues as to what was once here before.