Rebuilding a forest: How humans lost touch with woodlands – and how we’re restoring the connection

Despite apparent government indifference to the ailing natural world, rewilding projects are on the up, writes Harry Cockburn

Wistmans Wood, in Dartmoor National Park in Devon, is one of the last fragments of temperate rainforest in Britain (Getty/iStock)

Wood has shaped the whole of human history – from using it to create fire to, later, building ships and cathedrals.

Many of our houses, furniture, and crafts such as musical instruments remain dependent on wood. Carpentry is recognised as one of the oldest occupations of our species, and it is still going strong.

But the rise of homo sapiens has also spelt disaster for our planet’s forests, which are becoming dangerously depleted as alongside demand for wood, demand for land – primarily for farming – continues to take a catastrophic toll on woodlands.