Linescapes: Remapping and Reconnecting Britain's Fragmented Wildlife

An eye-opening exploration of the lines that cut through our countryside, from hedges to railways, and a passionate manifesto for reconnecting wildlife. 'Glorious... Political, passionate, perceptive' Robert Macfarlane An eye-opening exploration of the lines that cut through our countryside, from hedges to railways, and a passionate manifesto for reconnecting wildlife. Our landscape has been transformed by a vast network of lines, from hedges and walls to railways and power cables. In Linescapes, Hugh Warwick unravels the far-reaching ecological consequences of these changes. As our lives and our land were fenced in and threaded together, wildlife habitats were cut into ever smaller - and increasingly unviable - fragments. Yet as Warwick travels across this linescape, he shows that we can help our flora and fauna to flourish once again. With his fresh and bracing perspective on Britain's countryside, he proposes a challenge and gives ground for hope, for our lines can and do contain a real potential for wildness and for wildlife.

About the Author :
Hugh Warwick is an ecologist and writer with a particular fondness for hedgehogs. He is the author of A Prickly Affair and The Beauty in the Beast and Hedgehog, a monograph. Hugh has studied hedgehogs, off and on, for over 30 years, spending months radio-tracking them around the West Country and Scotland. He is a spokesperson for the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and appears regularly in the media talking about wildlife and the environment. He lives in Oxford with his wife and two children.

Review :
In Linescapes, Hugh Warwick has written a gloriously unclassifiable book, a manifesto-adventure-exploration-reflection that manages to be political, passionate, perceptive – and very funny A requiem, a call to arms and a delighted amble along a hedge: a kind, wise, angry, jolly and mournful book, as rumbustiously readable as it is urgently important Part discovery, part wonderment, both a travel narrative and a scientific exploration, Linescapes could change the way we perceive our land and its inhabitants forever A fascinating work of landscape detection based on entirely straight journeys Eye-opening and inspiring. Linescapes has utterly transformed my vision of the British countryside. Hugh Warwick offers a compelling primer for rethinking and rewilding our fragmented natural world. Accessible and entertaining... Linescapes has given me hope for the future. I will never again look at a hedgerow or dyke in the same way. This is a beautifully crafted book which elegantly explains why and how our UK landscape has comes to look like a patchwork quilt – with each section of the quilt joined together by human-created needlework in the form of hedgerows, ditches, dykes, paths, green lanes, canals, roads... This book is both timely and essential reading. I can’t recommend it highly enough Hugh Warwick’s tremendous book is a lurid, mournful and sometimes enragingly upbeat account… Warwick is a warm, chatty writer – first-class company in a ditch or swamp… He’s one of the warriors of Twyford Down; a naturalist of great stature, with palpable empathy for the natural world… To march with him along these linescapes is to learn, to laugh and, ultimately, to weep… He has composed a profound, lyrical love song – and hence a powerful call to arms In Linescapes, Hugh Warwick provides a good-humoured, even visionary, perspective on the fragile ecology of our hedges, roads, power lines and railways… The author is at his lyrical best when discussing “ancient paths and green lanes” … He focuses his inquisitive eye on beauty and complexity… and praises the luxuriant foxgloves… Warwick is a generous companion and never a prickly know-it-all, even as he presents his manifesto for reconnection Linescapes is a timely book. Warwick pulls together a lot of disparate elements of the landscape and tries to make us think about them in a cohesive way