What can you give to a river that needs everything?

This Christmas I decided to give my river the gift of life, in the form of willows trees. I headed out on the River Roding in my canoe, from sunrise to sunset on the shortest day of the year, to see if I could hand harvest & plant 100 willows in a day. Here’s how I got on…

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At 8am, as the sun rose over the towers of Barking, I pushed my canoe out into the river & paddled downstream. Even in those first few minutes, out amongst the calling of the birds & silvery reflections of the sky on the river, I knew this day was as much a gift for myself as the river.

I stopped at a group of willows that I had planted with friends 5 years ago & found a tree that had recently fallen to harvest green willow sticks to plant. The joy of willow is that you can cut branches from existing trees (ideally 1cm to 5cm diameter), push them into wet mud along the river & they will grow into new trees.

I loaded up the canoe & headed downstream with as many willows as I could carry.

Creating one of the most remote chapels in Britain

After my recent pilgrimage to Iona, I travelled on to the Island of Gometra just across the water.

On Gometra (which is located off the Island of Ulva, off the Island of Mull), I had the same sense as on Iona that it was a place where the veil between the worlds was thin. The landscape & geography of the island is stunningly beautiful & the most similar to Iona I had seen. The two islands were just across the water from each other & there were even legends of St Columba coming to Gometra to pray. I realised that, in a different version of events, Gometra could have been the cradle of Celtic Christianity & a holy place of pilgrimage in the modern world.

I felt that this place still deserved a sacred space for people of all faiths & none. I began to dream of creating a chapel on the island & how I could make that dream a reality.

I spoke to the owner of where I was staying & they too felt that the island had a holy feel & deserved it’s own chapel. There was also an existing building- an old stone farm building- that would be perfect for it. Luckily it wasn’t being used for anything important; unluckily that meant over the years it had become the dumping place for all manner of things that are hard to get off an isolated island over the years.

Over several days, I moved, sorted, tidied, stacked & cleaned

A pilgrimage to the edge of the world.

I had heard of the holy island of Iona as a sacred place where the veil between heaven & earth is said to be thin. On a visit to the Western Isles, I decided to see for myself this tiny island where St Columba founded a Celtic Christian Abbey on the edge on the edge of the known world in the year 563🧵 I arrived on the island on the last ferry of the day, carrying just one other person. I had a slight trepidation, as it was getting late, I didn’t have anywhere to stay & had no plans except to walk, be in nature and wallow in the mysticism & history of the place.

I was surprised by how visually prominent Iona Abbey was as we approached the island: in glorious isolation in its grassy setting between the blue bands of sea & sky.

At the quay I found a map of the island with a ‘hermit’s cell’ marked in the hills above the Abbey, which k immediately knew would be my sleeping place for the night. I found the circle of stones, where holy men would live in glorious isolation, laid out my sleeping mat & bag and went to sleep as the sun set.

Why London needs a micro de-paving revolution 🧵

We need a scheme to de-pave & green small (less than 50 sq. metres) currently impermeable areas in London. This is illustrated by some of the *100’s* of such areas I saw on a 20 min cycle through one part of the city in LB Newham





One of the biggest causes of both flash flooding & sewage spills in London is the extent to which we have made the city more impermeable than it needs to be, by excessively paving & asphalting.

Much of London has combined sewers, where sewage & surface water run-off are combined together & sent to sewage treatment works. This may work ok in dry weather, but when large amounts of rainfall happens, the system can’t cope & the mixture of sewage & surface water is discharged into rivers via Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO’s).

Thames Water has failed to invest properly in infrastructure, causing these CSO’s to spill more than they should. However, climate change (causing more intense downpours) & excessive paving, are also responsible for an increase in CSO spills.

The recent London Climate Resilience Report also notes that surface water flooding is also a key risk for climate change risk for London

london.gov.uk/sites/default/…

I have been the guardian of the confluence of the River Bourne in Kent for many years & have always wondered where it came from.

This weekend I went on a riverine detective adventure find out, & to touch the source of a river & then swim in its confluence on the same day

The River Bourne rises on the greensand ridge East of Sevenoaks.

One of the springs giving rise to it flows from Oldbury Fort, 1 of the biggest Iron Age forts in the South East. This source appeared to be a winter one & was dry, so our attention turned to a pond we had heard of

Just returned from a 5 day pilgrimage, walking from London to Canterbury with no money, tent, phone, or much of a plan other than to keep walking until I got there. It was a hard but peaceful & rich experience, through layers of history & miles of exquisitely beautiful nature…





I left Southwark Cathedral at 7pm along the Thames path, walking 10 miles to get to the first piece of green outside the city & slept on the banks of the Thames by the Lighthouse at Tripcock Ness. The estuary is a weird & lonely place, where heavy industry meets wild nature

Both of the actions you see in these photos potentially amount to the offence of ‘public nuisance’.

One is punishable with “long, long prison sentences” & the other is rewarded with huge bonuses & billions in profits.

Why the disparity? What does this mean for the rule of law?

The statutory offence of public nuisance is set out at section 78 Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Act 2022. There is a strong case that water companies across the country are committing this offence when they carry out illegal sewage spills into many of our rivers & seas.

A turd in the hand is worth… billions in profits!

As OFWAT allows massive bill rises to reward @thameswater’s continued failure, here’s what my experience of standing in a river full of shit has taught me about the sewage crisis, it’s origins & what we must do to fix it 🧵 A few weeks ago, I organised a clean up day with @riverroding to remove rubbish from the River Roding in central Ilford. Even in such an urban location, the water was clear & flowing over sand & gravel. There was a short rainstorm & we sheltered under a bridge…

In my Chapter in Wild Service, I wrote about an adjoining meadow (owned by aristocrat Viscount Falmouth) which was destroyed with glyphosate. They’ve done it again this year, with a clear line between brown death in adjoining field & green life on my thin strip of land





The kestrel I wrote about has returned, but seemingly can’t hunt in the huge field next door as all of the plants are dead, & thus the creatures that they support are gone. It’s hypnotising to watch it hunting on my riverbank, but melancholy that it’s restricted to a tiny area.

One of the best publicly-accesible rewilding sites in London is due to be enclosed & destroyed for artificial pitches for @SpursOfficial. I visited Whitewebbs Park in Enfield to see why it’s special & why local people are against this destructive sell off by @EnfieldCouncil 🧵 Whitewebbs Park used to be a golf course. This has been used to justify turning it into artificial football pitches: after all it’s already had 1 leisure use, why not another? However, over last 4 years since the golf course closed, it has already started to significantly rewild

Finally found a rare status symbol I can covet! Through a laborious process, a team at @wakehurst_kew have found a way to enable black poplars to sexually reproduce again & I’m now the proud owner of one of the first such unique genotype black poplars in the UK… Thread below gives some background about black poplar. For the last 150 years they have struggled to reproduce sexually. Although they can easily be propagated by taking cuttings & effectively cloning them, lack of sexual reproduction meant there was a limited number of genotypes

https://twitter.com/paulpowlesland/status/1678748780739407872

Destruction of a precious ancient bluebell woodland in the Kent countryside under a deluge of illegal landfill waste shows the utter failure of environmental law, complete inaction by the authorities & increasing lawlessness in the UK. Let me tell you the story of Hoads Wood 🧵

Hoad’s Wood is a special place. 200 acres of ancient woodland in the Garden of England, smooth sculptural hornbeams vie with statuesque mossy oaks, amidst a vivid blue carpet of bluebells. The wood is precious, & it’s an SSSI: one of our strongest legal protections for nature

As the year draws to a close, the moments of connection to, & service of, nature are some of my strongest memories. Here are my favourites: one per month throughout 2023.

January: out on the river planting willow trees by rowboat to naturalise sheet piling along the Roding. February: occupying one of the Wellingborough Lime Trees for 8 hours in freezing conditions to stop it being chopped down. Very glad to say that the police dropped charges 6 months later & thanks to amazing efforts of @wellywag, all the trees are still standing!

Today whilst walking along my river I found someone doing heroin & leaving rubbish everywhere. I asked him politely not to do it & he grabbed a pole & chased me down threatening to kill me. I ran as quick as I could & came to a roundabout where- thank god- there was a police car I knocked on the window & told the officer inside that I had just been chased by a man wielding a weapon & I needed her help. She looked annoyed but agreed to pull over. I told her I had the whole thing on film & could she go & arrest him. She said that she was on her way…

As part of researching #rightsofnature in Ecuador, I was keen to meet indigenous communities acting as guardians of nature. I was honoured to be invited to the territory of A’i Cofan Sinangoe people, meet their president & talk about their incredible efforts to protect nature 🧵 The Sinangoe are an indigenous community of around 50 families & 250 people. They have a territory of over 60,000 hectares alongside the Rio Aguarico in North East Ecuador & West of the city of Lago Agrio. They belong to the A’i Cofan people of North Ecuador & South Columbia

With official inquiry published & this apology, one of the last parts of the Sheffield Tree Scandal to investigate & unpack is the role of law & lawyers. In this thread I call for @SheffCouncil to waive privilege & release all legal advice & correspondence bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan… Full disclosure: I was counsel representing Sheffield tree protesters in court numerous times, either pro bono or low cost because I agreed with the protesters’ cause & thought that the actions of Sheffield City Council of destroying trees & persecuting residents was disgraceful

The outpouring of grief, sadness & anger about the felling of Sycamore Gap Tree shows the strength of love & care many British people feel for our trees. Here’s why we should change the law to give ancient & veteran trees the same protection as historic buildings & monuments 🧵 The main form of protection for historically important trees is currently Tree Preservation Orders (TPO’s). However the TPO regime is significantly less robust & protecting of trees than the Listed Building or Scheduled Ancient Monument regimes

There’s a lot to unpick in the Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold the severe sentences given to Morgan & Marcus from @JustStop_Oil, but this part is very telling: “the sentences meet the legitimate sentencing aim of deterrence for such offending in current times” I’d like to ask the judges what they meant by the words “in current times”, because it looks like they mean ‘in times where more & more people are protesting actions that will lead to the deaths of millions of people’; & that as more people realise the horror of our situation…

*On the trail of the UK’s rarest native tree*. I’ve recently joined an academic study into the genetics of the black poplar; one of our most imperilled, but enigmatic, trees. This study will help to unlock info that may be crucial to our efforts to save this wonderful species🧵 Black poplars (populus nigra betulifolia) are incredible trees, often growing to great heights with a sweeping shape to their branches & with fat gnarled trunks covered in burrs called lentocils. They grow fast but live long; some of our oldest trees are likely over 200 years old

And there we have it- a full admission & apology that Sheffield City Council were completely in the wrong over the tree felling saga. This doesn’t, of course, bring the trees back nor undo the violence that was inflicted on the brave activists who were in the right all along 🧵

https://twitter.com/sheffcouncil/status/1671086890001342465

We now also need accountability from the legal system & introspection from High Court & senior judges as to why they unquestioningly believed the word of the council & granted an injunction to put people in prison for standing under a tree.

‘We will love that which we know & protect what we love’: in an effort to get to know my river, the Roding, I’m walking the whole river from source to sea over the next week, & mapping it in as much detail as possible so this knowledge can be used to protect & restore the river Here’s the map, which I’m slowly inputting with data; & where you can see my progress along the river, the kinds of things I’m mapping, & learn more about the Roding itself: google.com/maps/d/edit?mi…