Skip to content
1981
The Short Story and Ecology
  • ISSN: 2043-0701
  • E-ISSN: 2043-071X

Abstract

‘TreeLand’, a neglected pier attraction in northern England, has become home to some of the country’s last remaining trees. On a day trip with her children, Ama’s encounter with the verdant forest prompts her to question the stories she has always been told about trees being a threat. In this alternate near future, technological solutionism, the drive for development and resistance to lifestyle change has enabled the spread of carbon capture technology and the demonization and widespread replacement of real trees. The roots of this fictional societal response are shown to go back through generations and are perhaps not as far removed from today’s England – where ancient woodlands are under threat and plastic lawns proliferate – as we might want to believe. The accompanying poetics, ‘Some notes on losing trees’, explores how stories can shape our understanding of, and interactions with, the natural world. The author reflects on how their imaginative world in childhood was forested through fiction when many native woodlands and trees had already been destroyed. Together, the story and poetics, invite consideration of how we respond as individuals, and as a society, when loss of nature is raw and immediate, when it is remote in time or space, or when it is just another part of the barely noticed everyday.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/fict_00097_1
2024-10-28
2024-11-03
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Maitland, Sara (2012), Gossip from the Forest: The Tangled Roots of Our Forests and Fairytales, London: Granta.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Millhauser, Steven (2008), ‘The ambition of the short story’, New York Times, 7 October, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/arts/07iht-millhausert.16749036.html. Accessed 20 November 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Nixon, Rob (2011), Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Perec, Georges (1997), Species of Spaces and Other Pieces (trans. J. Sturrock), London: Penguin.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Rackham, Oliver (2015), Woodlands, London: William Collins.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Shrubsole, Guy (2021), ‘Take action: Help map the lost rainforests of Britain’, Lost Rainforests of Britain, 16 March, https://lostrainforestsofbritain.org/2021/03/16/mapping-the-lost-rainforests-of-britain/. Accessed 20 November 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Soga, Masashi and Gaston, Kevin J. (2018), ‘Shifting baseline syndrome: Causes, consequences, and implications’, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 16:4, pp. 22230.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Woodland Trust (2021), State of the UK’s Woods and Trees, Grantham: Woodland Trust, https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/state-of-uk-woods-and-trees/. Accessed 20 November 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/fict_00097_1
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error