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The Bit Outside

The Bit Outside

Autor: Richard
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There are still people who think mankind is blameless, that the environmental catastrophe taking shape before us is for others to resolve. Not true. Each of us must do what we can to help Nature recover. The Bit Outside is part of my effort to do just that. I knew little when I started, I know much more now. Join me, help me, advise me. There is little time, if any, to react. Please listen to what follows and see what you think.

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  • Can Pine Martens Save the Red Squirrel?

    Can Pine Martens Save the Red Squirrel?
    Oct 20 2026
    Grey squirrels were brought to Britain by people, pine martens were driven out by people, and red squirrels declined. Now, in South Cumbria, those relationships are beginning to change again. In this episode of The Bit Outside, I ask a deceptively simple question - could the return of the pine marten help restore the red squirrel naturally, reducing the need for repeated grey-squirrel culling?The usual answer to grey squirrels is often straightforward - trap them, shoot them, remove them. In places where red squirrels are under immediate pressure, particularly where squirrelpox is present, there can be good reasons for doing exactly that. Yet on my own land in the Lake District, I remain uneasy about making lethal control the automatic first response.The grey squirrel is, after all, a problem of our own making. Native to North America, it was deliberately brought to Britain during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, largely for country estates and parks. We put it here and then discovered that it was remarkably well suited to the landscape.The consequences for red squirrels have been serious. Greys compete with reds for food, particularly in broadleaved woodland, and exploit foods such as acorns especially well. Reduced breeding success and juvenile survival can then drive red populations down.Then there is squirrelpox. Greys can carry the virus while appearing healthy, whereas reds can suffer severe disease and very high mortality. Cumbrian research shows that red decline can be dramatically faster where squirrelpox accompanies invading greys.Yet the history is more complicated. Reds were already under pressure from habitat change, disease and persecution. They were once regarded as forestry pests themselves - the Highland Squirrel Club, founded in 1903, paid bounties for red-squirrel tails and recorded more than 100,000 killed.There is an uncomfortable lesson there. A century ago, people were killing red squirrels. Today, we protect the red and kill the grey. Human judgements about which animals belong and which should be removed can change remarkably quickly.That is one reason I am interested in another possibility - the pine marten. Once widespread across Britain, it was greatly reduced by persecution and woodland loss. In September 2024, thirteen adults were translocated into Grizedale Forest and the Rusland Valley to establish a breeding, dispersing population.They are already moving, and my land lies within that South Lakes landscape. I do not need a pine marten to live permanently on my property. It may be enough for martens to regard the woodland as somewhere worth travelling through. If they do, could their presence alter the balance between grey and red squirrels?Research from Ireland and Scotland suggests that it might. As martens recovered, grey squirrels declined in some areas and reds returned. Scottish work found the same broad association.Why should a predator capable of eating both species apparently favour one? Part of the answer may lie in evolutionary history. Reds have lived alongside pine martens for thousands of years - greys evolved in North America without them. Experiments suggest reds respond more cautiously to pine marten scent.Diet studies add another clue - pine martens eat both species, but greys appear disproportionately often where both occur. The marten is not protecting reds, it is simply behaving as a predator. Yet the competitive balance may change.That sounds wonderfully neat, but ecology rarely is. Pine martens do not arrive in a woodland and immediately remove its grey squirrels. Research in Wales found that greys altered their movements after pine martens were translocated, but there was no immediate detectable reduction in grey squirrel survival during the study. Martens themselves may also travel many kilometres before settling.Nor are red squirrels completely safe. Pine martens eat reds too. The important point is that reds generally appear better able to coexist with them, although habitat matters. In some native broadleaved landscapes, pine marten presence has been associated with better prospects for reds. In some conifer-dominated landscapes, the relationship has been less favourable.This brings the story back to my own land, and to something that appears at first to have little to do with squirrels - sheep. One thing I notice is the scarcity of naturally regenerating saplings. At my home in Bowness, where there are no sheep, young trees seem to appear everywhere. On the fell, saplings are much less obvious.I have long suspected grazing pressure. British upland studies, including experimental work in Cumbria, show that the season and intensity of sheep grazing can affect tree regeneration and browsing. As pressure falls, more seedlings and saplings may survive, although livestock density, forage and vegetation all matter.I have also noticed more flowers as sheep grazing has fallen. That does not prove causation. Weather and observation vary, ...
    Rozwiń Zwiń
    21 min
  • Food Security in the United Kingdom

    Food Security in the United Kingdom
    Oct 1 2026
    In this episode of The Bit Outside, I look at one of the most important but under-discussed challenges facing the United Kingdom: food security.The UK is not about to run out of food, but that does not mean the system is secure. Around 40% of the food we consume is imported, while British farming is dealing with drought, flooding, depleted reservoirs, rising costs, imported fertiliser, labour shortages, declining biodiversity and fragile supply chains. The real question is not whether Britain has food today, but whether the country can continue to provide enough affordable, nutritious food when several pressures arrive at the same time.The episode begins with a recent walk across London to a conference on food and national security. Hyde Park was yellow after the summer drought, yet it was pouring with rain and I arrived soaked. That contradiction captured the wider problem rather well. Britain can move rapidly from too little water to too much, and a wet week does not immediately repair depleted reservoirs, damaged crops or months of drought. At the same time, climate shocks elsewhere can affect British food supplies just as quickly as events at home.The UK currently produces about 60% of the food it consumes by farmgate value. That figure was above 80% in the 1980s. This does not mean Britain should try to become completely self-sufficient. Trade gives us food we cannot sensibly grow here and can strengthen resilience when domestic harvests fail. The danger comes when too much depends on too few places. Spain, for example, supplies a very large share of some of the fruit and vegetables eaten in Britain. The shortages of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers in early 2023 were a useful warning that a supermarket shelf can look wonderfully diverse while the supply chain behind it is surprisingly concentrated.This is one of the central themes of the podcast: efficiency is not the same as resilience. A system can be extremely efficient in normal conditions but have very little spare capacity when something unusual happens. That matters because unusual conditions are becoming less unusual. England moved from its wettest 18-month period on record between October 2022 and March 2024 into drought. By early September 2026, reservoir storage stood at only 58%, more than 19 percentage points below the average for the time of year.At the same time, an exceptional El Niño is developing in the Pacific. El Niño can alter rainfall and temperature patterns across major food-producing regions. That does not mean Britain will necessarily experience a food shortage, but it does mean poor harvests abroad can affect British prices and availability. We do not simply import food. We import weather.Food security is also a defence issue. During the Second World War, Germany did not need to invade every British farm. It needed to disrupt the ships carrying food, fuel and fertiliser. That principle still applies. The war in Ukraine has shown how agricultural land, grain stores, ports and export routes can become part of a conflict. NATO already includes resilient food and water supplies among its civil-preparedness requirements, and the UK Government itself has warned that ecosystem collapse could threaten the country’s ability to maintain food security.The episode also looks at the land beneath us. Around 69% of the UK’s land area is used for agriculture, although only about a quarter of total land is classed as croppable. That land is increasingly being asked to provide food, housing, energy, biodiversity recovery, carbon storage, flood protection and recreation all at once. All may be legitimate aims, but the same hectare cannot always do everything.Nature is part of this story, not separate from it. Pollinators, healthy soils, water retention and nutrient cycling are agricultural infrastructure. The 2023 State of Nature report showed serious declines in wildlife across the UK, including pollinating and predatory insects. A farm cannot remain productive indefinitely if the natural systems that support it are steadily degraded.There is also a hidden international dimension to food that appears British. A field of wheat in Lincolnshire may rely on imported fertiliser, machinery parts, fuel, crop-protection products, packaging and energy. Phosphorus is a good example. British agriculture depends heavily on imported phosphorus because the UK lacks economically significant phosphate rock reserves. Research into phosphorus flows through the UK food system found that large quantities are imported, yet only a proportion ultimately appears in food and exported commodities. Much is lost, trapped in soils or wasted. This is both an environmental and a strategic problem.People are part of the infrastructure too. The food system depends on farmers, vets, agronomists, engineers, seasonal workers, lorry drivers, food processors and warehouse staff. A crop can grow perfectly and still be wasted if nobody is available to harvest, grade, ...
    Rozwiń Zwiń
    23 min
  • Who Should Hold Back the Flood?

    Who Should Hold Back the Flood?
    Aug 17 2026
    Flooding has always been part of Britain’s landscape, but the way we manage it is changing. In this episode of The Bit Outside, Richard Villar asks a deceptively simple question - who should hold back the flood?The episode begins in a traditional hay meadow. It is a familiar upland scene, with grasses moving in the breeze, wildflowers scattered through the field, bees working steadily from flower to flower and a curlew calling overhead. Yet this meadow may have another future. It could become part of a flood-storage scheme, deliberately allowed to hold water during periods of heavy rainfall in order to protect communities many miles downstream.At first sight, the idea seems logical. Flooding is becoming an increasingly serious problem. More than six million homes and businesses in England are now at risk from flooding, and climate change is increasing the likelihood of intense rainfall. A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, meaning that when conditions are right, more water may fall in a shorter period of time.Yet climate change is only part of the story.For generations, we have changed the way water moves through the countryside. Rivers have been straightened. Wetlands have been drained. Floodplains have been developed. Agricultural soils have sometimes become compacted. Roads, rooftops and car parks now cover ground that once absorbed rainfall. Each individual change may have seemed reasonable at the time, but together they have altered the hydrology of entire catchments.Rain that once soaked slowly into woodland, grassland or peat can now reach rivers far more quickly. The result is faster runoff, higher flood peaks and greater pressure on communities downstream.One of the central ideas explored in this episode is that every flood has an upstream story.Water falling on a distant hillside may ultimately determine whether a family many kilometres away remains dry or is forced to evacuate. That changes the way we should think about flooding. Rather than asking only how to defend a town or village, we must also ask how the whole catchment behaves.Healthy soils matter. Woodland matters. Peatlands matter. Wetlands matter. Even longer grass in gardens, parks and roadside verges can make a small contribution by intercepting rainfall and allowing more water to infiltrate the ground.This broader approach is known as Natural Flood Management, or NFM.The name may sound modern, but much of the principle is simply about restoring some of the functions that landscapes once performed naturally. Rivers can be allowed to meander again. Wetlands can be restored. Damaged peatlands can be repaired. Woodland can be planted in carefully chosen places. Soils can be managed to improve infiltration. Leaky woody dams can slow the movement of water through small streams. Even beavers can play a role by creating wetlands and temporarily storing water behind their dams.None of these measures is a miracle solution. Their strength lies in combination.The aim is simple: slow water, store it and release it more gradually.For much of the last two centuries, however, Britain followed a different philosophy. Rivers were straightened, embanked and confined. The goal was to move water away from vulnerable places as quickly as possible. Traditional engineering still has a vital role. Flood walls, pumping stations, reservoirs, embankments and major barriers such as the Thames Barrier protect huge numbers of people.The problem is not engineering itself. It is the assumption that any one technique can solve every flood problem.A flood wall may protect a town but do little against surface-water flooding. Woodland can slow runoff but cannot prevent every extreme storm. Leaky dams may help small streams but will not control a major river. Natural Flood Management is valuable, but it is not a universal answer.The strongest approach is likely to combine natural processes with conventional engineering, tailored to the needs of each individual catchment.From a purely hydraulic point of view, a hay meadow can be extremely useful. One hectare flooded to a depth of thirty centimetres can temporarily hold around three million litres of water, roughly one and a quarter Olympic swimming pools. To an engineer trying to reduce a downstream flood peak, that is an attractive proposition.Traditional hay meadows are among Britain’s rarest habitats. Around 97% have disappeared since the 1930s. Those that remain support wildlife, store carbon, provide winter fodder and preserve generations of farming knowledge. Deliberately flooding one may help protect homes and businesses downstream, but it may also alter a valuable landscape and change the livelihood of the farmer who manages it.That leads to the ethical question at the heart of the episode.If society asks one landowner to accept repeated flooding for the benefit of hundreds or thousands of other people, who should decide? Should the farmer be compensated? If so, should payment reflect only the ...
    Rozwiń Zwiń
    13 min
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