A HEALING FOREST

Our supporters have been out and about in the Forest of Dean this month hoping to catch a glimpse of the boar.  Reports are that it is still very difficult to see any due to the tall bracken.

Having said this, we have had a few incidents reported already about boar getting too close for comfort.

One such nature lover contacted us about a standoff between himself, his dog and five boar near Brierley.  Concerned for others in such a situation, he (Scott Worgan) contacted the local press who wrote of his experience here.  The report was exagerrated of course, to make a better story, and sadly Scott was criticised in the next edition by boar lovers, including (alarmingly) someone claiming to be from Friends of the Boar!

We would like to make it clear that Friends of the Boar did not respond to the press report at all, and it concerns us that some people may be using our name in vain.

This cat-fighting in the pages of the local letters section of the press does nobody any good.  It only entrenches people's belief towards the boar, good or bad.  Yet what we are discovering is an increasing tolerance for the boar even in situations like Scott's, including residents who have contacted us about boar outside their homes.

We now believe that the hatred coming out of both camps (boar lovers versus boar haters) is actually being initiated and catalysed according to how we perceive each other (in the press usually) as human beings.

It is becoming clearer that boar haters are actually hating the people who support the boar more than they hate the boar themselves. And visa versa.

This is a classic divide and rule strategy employed by the authorities who are happy to read about the "war of words"  at the same time as getting on with their agendas without any democratic accountability.

A bigger picture begins to emerge, one where our countryside, our forest, our towns, and indeed our own individual health is at stake.

More and more studies are coming to the conclusion that we NEED nature, and that nature needs to be working properly.  Human beings have evolved in sync with nature and it's cycles of boom and bust via drought and flood, warming and cooling, freezing and melting.

But as we are more and more aware, things are changing rapidly towards a disequilibrium.  Whether this is because of human activity (as per the climate change idea) or via natural variability it does not matter.

Einstein famously stated that a problem cannot be solved with the same "mind" that created it.  We, therefore, cannot solve any crisis, be it climate or animal in nature if it is us that created it in the first place.

But rather than just sit back and watch the "war on words" unfold, now believing that our destiny is pre-ordained, we must change the "mind" of ourselves and those around us.

Not only that, but we must also understand that we have an inner ecosystem at work within every individual.  It is becoming more obvious that this inner world is becoming just as out of equilibrium as the outer world.  A doctor would term this as a "disbiosis".

Intensive farming, antibiotics, vaccinations, growth hormones, fertilisers (rich in nitrogen and phosporous), soil degredation, food additives, sweeteners, bulking agents, and the quest to make a quick buck has led us inexorably to ill-health through the food we eat.

All the above are linked to allergies, gut problems, fatigue problems, cancer, neurologic problems, autism,  heart disease, the list is long.

This terrible affliction starts in the gut when our microbes are killed off or starved of their nutritious power source.  We are dependent on the balance of these microbes in our gut for we are 90% microbe (only 1 in 10 of the cells in our body are human).

To restore our physical health requires nature to do what it does best, and what we have evolved with.  We need a restorative ecology that provides us with nutritious food that feeds our inner ecosystem.  Once this suceeds, we will learn very easily that the microbial world of ours has a direct influence on our wellbeing (sense of security) and importantly on the way we think (the mind).

Conservation is a tool that requires a fresh mind.  This fresh and healthy mind can cure what we humans have harmed, both in respect of our food production, our climate and our relationship to the wild.

A forest is a very special place unlike most other external ecosystems.  It has defined boundaries we can perceive.  It contains trees that give us clean air and convert carbon dioxide into oxygen.  The trees need the microbes in the soil to do their work, and the microbes need larger animals to manage them in turn.

One such architect of a healthy forest is the wild boar.

A wild boar is thus a symbol of a healthy you!

Repsect and cherish our healing forest.

Forgive those who do not think like you.

Reap the reward of less anger and feelings of insecurity, and reap the benefit of love and acceptance.

We hope that one day we will change the mind that created all the problems, for only then will we move on to better things.

David J Slater