fly, run, creep or swim should be our motto, so that man, who is at all times the
most predatory animal of them all may study and learn to respect them. Nor
should the lower forms of life be forgotten ... let us leave intact those marsh
places which teem with life invisible to the passer-by, and in which some
budding Hervey or Lister may find his inspiration."
This contrasts with the results of the policy of thinning and promoting
trees: widespread elimation of herbs, shrubs and their faunas by creating and
perpetuating a dense canopy over much of the wooded Forest, and the present
conversion of plains and glades to groves. These are a legacy from the
precipitate change in management a hundred years ago.
Herein lies the difficulty: what is the natural aspect? I am inclined to the
view that it is an abstract concept that in view of the trouble it caused should
have been eliminated by amending legislation before 1900 (see Prof. Boulger's
comment).
However, if the Conservators had followed the requirements of the Act to
the letter (see above) they would not have had to concern themselves with
deciding what 'natural aspect" they were supposed to preserve: that of climatic
optimum around 5000 B.C. or the Iron Age; that of c. 600 A.D. when the Forest
was probably first managed as wood-pasture (Rackham, this volume); that of
1800 when the system governing the management of wood-pasture was
declining, or some other concept.
By continuing the former management and doing what the Act says, the
Forest could have been maintained in its artificial ecological equilibrium —
much as Hatfield Forest has this last 50 years. Today the Forest is, by and large,
going its own way ecologically with some checks (e.g. light grazing, scrub
clearance on the plains and tree felling on roadsides — mainly for social
reasons, and thinning to produce high forest). The tendency is toward a simpler
ecosystem through a simpler form of management.
Removal of the artificial
Buxton devotes much of this section (p. 159) to condemning "the most
important and widespread interference with the natural aspect of the Forest",
"an extremely monotonous condition extending over wide areas" arising from
pollarding — especially in Loughton Manor. He does not want them all
removed because "Many of them are curious and picturesque, besides which
they have a history and tell of a system of forest management which has had an
important place in the centuries past". Seeing that he realised this why did he
not advocate their continued management at least in part? Neglect is death —
even of the curious and picturesque pollards and those he would have vie with
those of Hatfield — and how does this " protect the pollards'' ?
Reproduction
Here (p. 160) Buxton is in tune with nature conservation and in keeping
with the past: he is also very modern — advocating only natural regeneration
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