(^182) an environmenTal hisTory of Wildlife in england
Weirdly and wonderfully, nature survived in the most uncongenial of places,
and made them its own.
Conclusion
None of this is to deny that the steady expansion of urban and industrial
areas in the period between c.1860 and 1950 caused acute problems for
much indigenous wildlife. Slow-colonizing plants and those associated
with traditionally managed agricultural habitats more generally – flowers
of grazed grassland, meadow and coppiced woods – suffered marked
declines in urbanizing areas. In the century between 1869 and 1969 no less
than 78 native and naturalized species became extinct within the county
of Middlesex, mainly as a consequence of the growth of London.^115 Some
species of bird, unable to adapt to the new conditions, also disappeared,
at least as regular breeders. In the century and a half following 1833, the
number of species breeding in the area around Brent reservoir in Middlesex
thus declined from 70 to 43, the losses mainly being of the rarer and more
specialist species.^116 On the other hand, for good or ill the actual numbers of
species increased in urbanizing districts due to the successful establishment
of a wave of new aliens, especially garden escapees. The 76 plant species
lost from Middlesex were more than matched by the 100 new species which
successfully established themselves here over the same period.^117
The idea that towns and suburbs were environmentally sterile areas, which
displaced a wildlife-rich countryside, is thus at best an oversimplification.
They comprised a wide variety of habitats different from, but in some respects
no less rich in wildlife than, those of the rural landscape. Already, in 1898,
Hudson was noting how in many suburban areas ‘the bird population
is actually greater... than in the country proper’, albeit featuring fewer
species.^118 Two years later Coward and Oldham described how:
Along the northern border of the [Cheshire] Plain the country is rapidly
losing much of its charm owing to the extension of the southern suburbs
of Manchester, and here the requirements of a residential district, rather
than the proximity of factories, are yearly curtailing the haunts of many
birds. It must, however, be borne in mind that the plantations, shrubberies,
and extensive gardens, as well as the ground devoted to the cultivation of
market produce in these suburban districts, have undoubtedly contributed,
directly and indirectly, to the increase of others.^119
In the post-War period, as the practice of farming was transformed by a new
agricultural revolution, the niches provided by urban wastelands, suburban
gardens and the rest came in many districts to provide more space for plants
and animals than was afforded by the surrounding countryside, beyond the
city limits.
elle
(Elle)
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