Among the beauty of Caithness, we won’t know what we’ve lost ‘til it’s gone
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Northern Drift by Monique Sliedrecht
The earth is an amazing place. In my small corner, I am currently looking at the Scottish primrose dotting the hillsides; oyster catchers are loudly crying over the sound of crashing waves, snails have emerged in the low cut grass after the rains, and three deer are bounding across the field.
Bright yellow gorse bushes line the farm track, and the clouds are moving swiftly across the windy skies.
There is so much life. Not to mention the moss and lichen covering ancient stones, the dandelions and forget-me-nots popping up, the bees buzzing and the rook hopping across the back garden.
All these things weave through the abundant tapestry of our world. There is much we can observe and many ways we can care. You in your small corner, and I in mine.
There are numerous writers and artists that draw our attention to our place on the earth and how fragile the beauty is all around us.
One of the most powerful books of the 1960s is Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring which was one of the first great wake-up calls about loss of diversity and the decline of species. Following from there, almost a decade later, Joni Mitchell wrote her very famous song Big Yellow Taxi. The first stanza declares:
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot / With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot / Don’t it always seem to go / That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone? / They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.
The overwhelming loss of plant and insect life in Britain, the declining bird and bee populations, and the threat to marine life is universally known. The whole world teeters on the edge of a climate devastation.
Ironically, the development of technology with all its advantages has greatly contributed to the destruction of our natural environment. For example, without the invention of the chainsaw it would be inconceivable that the Amazon rainforest could be decimated. Without the motorcar, levels of carbon in the atmosphere would be far lower.
Yet we have all the health advantages of modern medicine, irrigation projects and communication systems that enhance life and wellbeing in so many ways.
All our contemporary advantages seem to have a paradoxical nature. TV entertainment isolates as well as feeds our imagination, mobile phones create valuable family connections but also destroys the vital play time and mental development of young people.
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot. Joni Mitchell’s song, written when she was so young, is incredibly prophetic.
We’re lucky in Caithness. When you think of the skylarks, which I’ve heard so often in recent days, and the flocks of lapwings so rare in other parts of the UK, we are truly blessed in the far north.
But we cannot be complacent. Ten years ago I heard the snipe every summer, it was like a herald high in the sky with its haunting sound and thrumming tail feathers. I don’t know why it has vanished from my area, but is this a warning?
The lovable and familiar puffins are affected by the decline in sand eels, and there is a slow and certain feeling of loss in all parts of our precious natural environment.
Don't it always seem to go / That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
There is no doubt that Caithness is a special version of paradise. One of the things I’ve come to love most is the brightly coloured lichen on the stone walls and ancient buildings. The ochre yellow is a sign of the purity of our air. Surely an amazing asset for everyone thriving in this exceptional ecosystem of the north.
Let’s celebrate what we’ve got and do everything in our power to preserve and cherish it.
• Monique Sliedrecht is an artist and blogger based at Freswick. Visit her blog at www.moniquesliedrecht.com
