Twibber Writes Diary in the Woods for a Year. Now it’s a Bestseller – with a New View on Trees

I am a writer and a farmer, and in my opinion the modern idea that woods should be sacred, untouchable museums of trees is false.

I learned to go to the woods to cut and gather fuel for the fire and also to forage mushrooms and berries for the pot (wild, free food – is there better, healthier food?). I learned to send my cows and sheep to the wood for ‘tree hay’, to send in my pigs to rootle for roots (is there better, healthier fodder?). I learned to go to the wood to ‘coppice’ trees, which grows more wood. My working of the wood – cutting down trees to make grassy glades, coppicing, sympathetic farming of animals there – increased biodiversity.

A working wood is a virtuous circle, where we all win; humans, livestock, Nature. Oh, and working in a wood does more than sustain the environment: it sustains the human body. It sustains the human soul. There is no better place for peaceful reflection than sitting at the base of an ancient tree. Ask the Buddha.

‘The Wood’ at Penguin and now, in German, at Dumont.