Nature is very important to me, I grew up on an estate but literally the outskirts surrounded by farmland, regularly being up close with cows and horses was what I grew up with yet some kids have never seen cows up close or in the flesh at all, that must be strange. I think urban living has resulted in a disconnection with nature for too many people, so they don't understand, maybe even fear or dislike it and can unintentionally harm it or not even care if they do. I think the government needs to take seriously educating people about individual responsibility because ripping up mature trees and hedges for no good reason and pouring concrete everywhere is commonplace, any wonder we have gone from 35 million hedgehogs in the 1950s to 1 million today. I'm amazed there is such complacency about this, the councils don't even set a good example, they are just as bad because they cut down mature hedgerows and trees, not because it's necessary but because they save on clearing leaves. Our neighbour only on monday cut down half the evergreens that border the back of his garden, why do it, but in nesting season as well. Legal ownership shouldn't be carte blanche to destroy nature and I think permits should be required for destruction of trees and hedgerows and only granted for safety or building structural reasons. Sorry if that turned into a bit of a rant but nature means so much to me I get very angry about it being treated like it doesn't matter. The British especially are tree-haters, see a tree and they get this uncontrollable urge to cut it down, whereas in the US, even in some of the projects you'll see trees.

While I'm a nature-lover, I do have this strong wariness of bears, I like bears very much but many beautiful places I know are bear country and so would never consider holidaying there let alone live there. I also rarely watch wildlife documentaries because they invariably show kills and that just plain upsets me. No-one wonder kids are depressed today because when I was little I don't remember nature docs being like that, it started in the late 80s I'd say, and it's not necessary as far as I'm concerned, yes it's an inherent part of that animal's life but so are many aspects of human life which they don't feel the need to show in fly-on-the-wall programmes.

I like woodland best, trees. I heard recently that apparently the coastline makes people happiest and while I like it I still prefer woodland, I'm a tree person. I'm not really keen on the city, it's noisy and feels hectic, I'm always relieved to get away from it.