Freezing the Lake District in Wordsworth’s time means we miss damage done to it

‘The Lake District has a paltry 13% tree coverage, and the target for 2050? A measly 17%.’ Photograph: Simon Whaley Landscapes/Alamy

Shanna McGoldrick’s piece on the new Wordsworth Way trail in the Lake District, through no fault of its own, falls victim to the same issue that the Lakes have faced for generations – everyone assumes that the landscape they see (or saw as children) is how it has always been (Poetry in motion: walking the new Wordsworth Way in the Lake District, 9 April).

The name for this phenomenon is shifting baseline syndrome, and it is natural – humans base our impressions on our own experience. Unfortunately, this is incredibly damaging for nature, as we fail to see the gradual decline over generations of ecosystems.