Skip to main content
Advertise with the Morning Star
Is ‘naturalness’ worth preserving?
From John Clare country to ancient fenland, Ed Miliband’s solar farm approvals risk industrialising precious rural spaces — we must find greener solutions that don’t sacrifice our countryside’s beauty, writes DAVE BANGS
A reedbed at Chippenham Fen (Pic: Hugh Venables/Creative Commons) and a pasqueflower (Pic Bernard Dupont/Creative Commons)

AS I stood on the top of Mount Caburn, a chalk promontory of the South Downs, and looked east, I could see, stretching for many miles, the landscape that has been created over 140 million years. Scarps and combes, floodplains, ridges and rivers.

I could “read” this sleeping giant of a landscape and its deep-time story in all its natural detail, under its soft blanket of woods, pastures, crops, and villages.

I could picture the immense tectonic heavings that had thrust up the Wealden Dome, and I could see the Ice Age torrents, freezings and meltings that had eroded the chalks, clays, and sandstones back to their current forms.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Erhai lake
Climate Crisis / 9 October 2025
9 October 2025

One of the major criticisms of China’s breakneck development in recent decades has been the impact on nature — returning after 15 years away, BEN CHACKO assessed whether the government’s recent turn to environmentalism has yielded results

he famous trek up the Kinder Scout in Derbyshire in 1932
Features / 26 April 2025
26 April 2025

This year’s march and swim in a reservoir in the Peak District will continue the fight for 'access for all' in a nation where 92 per cent of land remains inaccessible to the public, writes SHAILA SHOBNAM

A general view of Aberdeen Harbour in Scotland, which has be
Features / 28 February 2025
28 February 2025
Rich natural resources built Aberdeen twice, but today it lies almost abandoned, as our city faces a third major transition — and the renewable energy future threatens same old exploitation, warns LARA FLANNERY
The grouse shooting season, in Eddleston, Scotland
Features / 15 December 2024
15 December 2024
A green campaigner’s new book argues that large landowners have used their self-proclaimed role as ‘stewards of the countryside’ to deflect attention from the environmental damage that their activities cause. Professor CHRISTOPHER RODGERS reports