Tim's Tales: The frontline of our battle to save nature

The wood is called Herdmanflat Wood by locals, after the hospital which occupied part of the site. It is a small wood, squeezed between housing and the abandoned hospital buildings which are closed off.

The moment I walked into the wood, I realised it was a special place. Native trees, including Scots pine, silver birch, rowan, ash, lime and cherry, were growing alongside hornbeam and sycamores. Some trees I think had been planted, such as some yew trees by the western wall, but the main gardener of this wood has been nature herself.

The tree canopy is not too dense and so there was a profusion of bushes and flowers, including dog rose, hawthorn, brambles, cranesbill, rose bay, willow herb and clover.

The wood was alive, I even saw a kestrel hover and dive, and as I stood to soak in the atmosphere a speckled wood butterfly landed just in from of me and stretched out its wings in the sunshine, as if to welcome me to the wood. It then fluttered around me and flew off to feast on the nearby brambles.

I’ll be honest, by this time I was already smitten by this wood. I spend lots of time in woodlands and I heartily agree with John Muir that “going to the woods is going home”. But this wood has a special character, it’s a rewilded gift that nature has given us. If you don’t believe me, go visit it yourself, before it’s partially destroyed.

It may be small in terms of actual size, but anyone who spends time in a wood will know that trees make a space feel much larger than its acreage. I wandered through the wood for over an hour, getting occasionally lost before I got to know the different parts, each with its own atmosphere. I passed many people: dog walkers, families, as well as lone walkers like me, but for the most part the wood was big enough to engulf my senses and make me feel I was in a wilderness, even though I was in the middle of Haddington.

That’s one of the reasons why we need such woods on our doorstep, they meet our deep-seated need to be immersed in nature. The benefits for our mental health, our physical wellbeing and spiritual connection are all well known. And of course, at a time of climate crisis and catastrophic decline in biodiversity, when natural habitats and species are being wiped out, a small rewilded woodland such as Herdmanflat is a glimmer of hope and renewal.

So I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness that much of this wood will soon be no more, despite the attempts by many local people to save it. East Lothian Council have declared a nature emergency and a commitment to address the biodiversity crisis, but such statements just feel like meaningless platitudes when wild woods like this, and others, such as the bunds at Cockenzie, are dismissed as unimportant in the face of development needs.

Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand the need for new housing and that difficult choices need to be made. The homes are much needed. But there is something in the language being used that reveals a real disconnection from nature that is at the heart of our environmental crisis.

The council’s planning officer was reported to have called this magical wood “a bit of open ground,” while Provost John McMillan called it “an open space” which “was a man-made space that was developed”/

It’s not “a bit of open ground” or an “open space”, it’s a special, admittedly small, but beautiful rewilded wood, full of life, and a vibrant example of what nature can do when allowed to return to an urban environment. It’s nature’s own answer to the nature emergency, because ultimately it's rewilded woodlands like these which will be a big part of the solution.

That’s why I think Herdmanflat Wood, and others like it, are in the frontline in the battle to save our natural world, not just because they represent the much-needed return of biodiversity on our doorstep, but also because of the attitudes they reveal.

If decision-makers devalue a beautiful, accessible and much-loved rewilded woodland by labelling it as “a bit of open ground” or just a “man-made open space”, and suggest that because there was development on it before there shouldn’t be a natural habitat on it now, what does it say about their commitment to addressing the nature emergency?

What this shows is that the emergency is not just in the depletion of nature, but also in the disconnection we have to nature, which is the root cause of the crisis we have created. In a small way, Herdmanflat Wood restores that connection, and I defy anyone to visit this beautiful wood and call it “a bit of open ground”.

The children playing in the wood who I met on Sunday will remember it as a magical community wood, lost because decision-makers had decided that their declared nature emergency wasn’t really an emergency after all.

The truth is, the solution to the nature emergency is not just grand schemes, it’s the thousands of small patches of nature like this, allowed to regenerate and flourish, reconnecting us to nature on our doorstep. Each one is part of the frontline and it’s our children who will inherit the consequences of our decisions today.

A group called Friends of Herdmanflat Hospital are still hoping to save the wood, or most of it, by raising money for a community buyout that would save most of the woodland while still allowing development of the remainder of the site for much-needed homes.

They recognise the two needs are not incompatible.

I hope they succeed.