Book Review: Regeneration
- Regeneration by Andrew Painting
- ISBN: 9781780277141, available now for pre-order: due 18 Mar 2021
- Buy from WildSounds & Books for £17.99 (
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This book introduces a strong voice in nature writing to the world. This is Andrew Painting’s first book and it is a cracker.
Painting works for the National Trust for Scotland at Mar Lodge Estate in the Cairngorms. This book is about the very long-term regeneration of habitats and wildlife that are underway, and are planned for the future. It’s the equivalent of Isabella Tree’s excellent Wilding, but for the Scottish uplands. Here we are dealing with Scots Pines, Red Deer, Golden Eagles, mountains, lochs and a very large area. This is illustrated early in the book as the author tells us that it would take a fit person around three days to walk the estate’s boundary, and that boundary encompasses 30,000ha, four of the five highest mountains in Scotland and a total of 15 Munros – Knepp, this isn’t.
It’s an inside story and is described as a celebration of the acquisition of the estate by the National Trust for Scotland in 1995. But, as best as this reader could tell, it is an honest account of progress to date and the massive challenges ahead. Of course, I don’t know what the author didn’t tell us, but the book is full of frank explanations about the tensions of estate management in the current ecological, social and political context in Scotland.
Mar Lodge has for centuries been a sporting estate and still is, but driven grouse shooting and intensive muirburn have ceased. Salmon fishing and deer stalking continue, as does walked up shooting.
There are three main sections of the book, about woodlands, moors and mountains, and within these there are chapters on particular components of those habitats and the issues that arise with their conservation. And so we meet Scots Pine, Hen Harriers, Curlews, Alpine Sow-thistle and Downy Willow, amongst others. There is much discussion of rewilding (and the NTS do not plan to reintroduce Lynx to Mar Lodge), and it is a very grounded discussion informed by real experience of ecology and society. If you have read George Monbiot’s Feral, Isabella Tree’s Wilding, Benedict Macdonald’s Rebirding and Derek Gow’s Bringing Back the Beaver then you’ll want to read this book, but even if you’ve never heard mention of rewilding you will enjoy this book for its insights into nature and into nature conservation.
If you are a member of the National Trust for Scotland, as I am, you should read Regeneration to find out how some of your money is being spent – you’ll get a warm feeling from the book.
Tricky issues are not avoided and are dealt with, often with some humour. The author gets bonus points from me for his use of the word ‘synecdoche’ near the end of the book in relation to a rare plant in a landscape – I’m sure no readers of this blog will need to look it up but I did, and I’m grateful to Painting for that small addition to my vocabulary.
The jacket illustration, including the back cover and the bits that fold inside the book, by Abigail Salvesen is beautiful. If only that Buzzard-like raptor under the tree were erased, replaced or redrawn, it would score 10 out of 10 from me. Its design, composition, execution and content are quite lovely. As it is, I’ll give it a 9 out of 10.
For a first book, or any book, this is a great achievement. Yes, it’s about the place where the author works but that doesn’t necessarily make the writing any easier, and it is certainly about much more than this wonderful location. It’s a compelling and enjoyable read. Andrew Painting’s Regeneration deserves to win prizes.
With the slow pace of change in the uplands it might be a good 25 years before we get a sequel updating us on how things are going. For me, that would be far too long to wait to read more of this author’s thoughts and experiences.
Mark Avery - markavery.info
March 2021
This book review was first published on Mark Avery's blog and is reproduced here with permission
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