![]() ![]() Then, on the ridge above, one of the giant ancient trees Bangs had pointed out on the map. First, we discover the bog beacon by a trickling gill. The wood we enter is a tangle of overgrown rhododendrons left unchecked by the landowners and steadily choking the understory of plants growing beneath the tree canopy. He extracts a piece of tarpaulin from his bag and folds it neatly over the barbed wire, overcoming the barrier with an elegant two-step. We spot a covered area behind a bush and mount the fence. Several charities, including the Woodland Trust, countryside charity CPRE Sussex and the RSPB this week warned that if the project went ahead it would “tear the heart out of Oldhouse Warren’s irreplaceable ancient woodland … resulting in irreversible loss of habitat for wildlife”. North of where we stand, a new Center Parcs development is being planned that will cover hundreds of acres of the Sussex woodland. “In fact, on some estates it already has,” he says. ![]() He has no doubt the situation will only get worse. “I’ll just take my hat off … I wear it an awful lot and it’s such an identifier.” He has been investigating the area for more than 30 years, since learning of two ancient woodlands that were clear-felled by estate owners in the preceding decades. Bangs drops his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. We set off up a lane towards one of the estates looking for a place to hop over the fence. In contrast to those who believe the best way to protect nature is to keep people out of it, Bangs argues that access is crucial to its protection. ![]() He believes most environmental damage occurs in the 92% of the country the public is forbidden to enter – deepening an alienation from nature that makes it harder to save what remains, or even understand what is being lost. “Because no one knows it, no one loves it, and if no one loves it no one is going to fight for it,” he says. In contrast to some conservationists, who believe the best way to protect nature is to keep people out of it, Bangs argues that access is crucial to protecting such landscapes. “They’re fiercely private, all of them, and completely moronic about nature conservation. Together they form the Worth Forest, which in Bangs’s view ought to bear the same relationship to Crawley as Epping Forest does to London: an open expanse of forest, available to all.īut whereas the latter was saved from enclosure in the 19th century by mass protests, Worth is divided into a series of large estates. Land ownership in England is notoriously inscrutable, but even a cursory look makes the reality clear: on almost every side we are surrounded by wooded estates that we are forbidden to enter. Heavily annotated Ordnance Survey maps are dug out from an old satchel. “The sites are all off-piste so we might be challenged – but it’s unlikely.” Because no one knows it, no one loves it, and if no one loves it no one is going to fight for it Dave Bangs His shredded Barbour jacket is clearly accustomed to a life spent in dispute with barbed wire and bramble. Tall, sprightly with strong features, Bangs has something of the iguanodon about him. I meet Bangs off the train at Balcombe for what he promises will be “a real cook’s tour” of a countryside few are permitted to see. ![]() His field surveys have culminated in three books, a video and, in July, the basis of one of the largest mass trespasses in the UK in recent years. For nearly six decades he has scoured the Sussex countryside for hidden ecological treasures, unearthing the neglected and endangered flora behind its fences. The find is one of many illicit discoveries documented by Bangs. The exclamation – accompanied by an expletive – belongs to Dave Bangs, who, at 70, is perhaps Britain’s most enduring guerrilla botanist. The candle belongs to a luminous fungus, Mitrula paludosa, otherwise known as bog beacon that is thinly scattered in the swampy habitat of the Sussex Weald. It sends my companion into a paroxysm of joy. I n a prehistoric bog where iguanodons once roamed and the early Britons first smelted ore into iron, what looks like a tiny orange candle peeps through the mire. ![]()
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