Wild Places
Sand eels, seabirds and the food chain nobody sees
Seabird breeding failures are usually a fish problem, and the fish problem is usually about temperature and fishing.
Wild Places
National parks, coastlines, deserts and the ecosystems inside them.
25 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 2 of 3
Wild Places
Ancient trees are habitats, not old plants
A veteran tree supports species that exist nowhere else, and most of them live in the decay.
Wild Places
Montane heath is the habitat above the tree line nobody names
The dwarf shrubs and lichen heaths of high plateaux are Arctic vegetation stranded at low latitude, and they are retreating.
Wild Places
Saltmarsh is a coastline that survives by drowning twice a day
Flat, muddy and easy to overlook, saltmarsh is one of the hardest-working habitats on any coast, and one of the most easily lost.
Wild Places
Biological soil crust: the living skin a single footprint breaks
In dry country the ground itself is alive. It takes a very long time to form and moments to destroy.
Wild Places
Mangroves do three jobs at once, which is why losing them costs so much
Trees that live in salt water, hold a coastline together and raise fish for a living. Their value is only obvious once they are…
Wild Places
Kelp forests are a moving wall the coastline leans on
Underwater forests that grow at extraordinary speed, shelter whole communities and can vanish in a season when the balance shifts.
Wild Places
Cloud forest drinks from the air it stands in
A forest that intercepts water directly from mist can hold more moisture than the rainfall alone would allow, and it depends on a…
Wild Places
Glacier forelands are the youngest ground on the planet
Where ice has recently pulled back, bare rock and gravel become soil in front of you. Nowhere else can you walk across a century of…
Wild Places
Permafrost thaw changes the shape of the ground itself
Frozen ground is a structural material. When it warms, the landscape above it subsides, slumps and reorganises in ways that are…
Wild Places
Lowland heath is a human artefact that now needs humans
Purple hills of heather look like wilderness and are the product of clearance, grazing and burning. Stop the management and the…
Wild Places
Some landscapes are built by fire, and we built houses in them
In fire-adapted country, burning is not a disaster interrupting the ecology. It is the ecology, and suppressing it changes what…