This 32-acre reserve centres on the River Ure, near Ripon, and is exceptional for its biodiversity, which includes 600 moth species (almost one-quarter of the national total), 19 different dragonflies and 300 plants. Yet in some ways, High Batts is even more extraordinary for its origins and history.
In 1973, a 21-year-old naturalist called Colin Slator walked up unannounced to the door of High Batts’ owners and asked if he could rent and manage it for nature. They agreed, and 50 years later the place is still being run by a cohort of remarkable (if increasingly white-haired) volunteers, some of whom have kept up their unpaid efforts for the full half century.
On the day we gathered to celebrate this anniversary it looked as if High Batts had never been in better shape. It also struck me that not only are volunteers the very lifeblood of almost all environmental achievement, they are at the heart of our relationship with nature. As I walked down the rides through its wet woodland, there were deep stands of comfrey, hogweed and bramble. These, in turn, held thousands of white-tailed, common carder and buff-tailed bumblebee workers, as well as more vestal cuckoo bees than I had ever seen.
The first three species were engaged in supplying reproductive services for the plants in exchange for payments of pollen and nectar to nourish their own siblings. This reciprocity benefits not only the vegetation and insects, but it also makes our species possible.
One in every three mouthfuls eaten by humans is thought to originate with pollinating insects. More than 150 crops – including cotton, coffee, chocolate and tomatoes – are enhanced or are only possible as a result of these invertebrate services. That cumulative effort has been valued globally at $400bn. In return we are deploying 3.5m tonnes of toxic chemicals annually, some of the most powerful of which can kill 2.5bn insects with just 10 grams.
Our chemical warfare with so-called pests has been ongoing for 80 years. If and when we finally relent, it will be refugia sites like High Batts that will resupply our wider countryside with those wonderful volunteers on which all life ultimately depends.
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