This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Reith Lectures.

This lecture in the series Wilderness and Plenty, given by Sir Frank Fraser Darling,

was originally broadcast in 1969.

In this broadcast, I shall touch down in many countries,

but first I'll talk about the one I know best, Britain.

William the Conqueror made his playground in southern England the new forest.

He chose well, knowing nothing about wildlife conservation

and such ecological notions as habitat, community and succession.

Normans and their ancestors, the Vikings,

were plunderers and destroyers rather than conservers.

Nevertheless, the forests, chasers and parks

that the Normans reserved in England for their amusement

have stood us in good stead.

The new forest is on poor gravel, overlying an impervious clay, a horrible

place agriculturally, and I can't believe William ejected many farmers, because the Saxons

had a good deal of ecological sense. Let's be thankful it became a royal forest, and has remained so till our day, being now the playground of a lot of people, a remarkable place for growing trees, and a considerable haven for a representative sample of England's wildlife.

It's a big enough place to have some ecological power of its own to

retain its integrity. The new forest is not a British national park, a national nature reserve,

or a forestry commission holding as a whole. It's the new forest, and a place of which we should be proud. Of course, in time of war,

busy bodies without knowledge chirrup about the necessity of growing food, and the apparently

lazy new forest had to give up some of its lawns. And they did grow their sugar beet and whatnot

eventually. The commoners had looked after

...