living with nature and uncertainty…

Somewhat ridiculously, I watched two television documentaries a couple of days ago, back-to-back (I know… some people have to go to work!).
If you didn’t get a chance to see the BBC’s “The Great Mountain Sheep Gather” programme (first shown in 2020), it’s currently back on iPlayer and well worth watching. It’s a 100minute documentary about sheep farming on Scafell Pike, England’s tallest mountain. Every summer, half a dozen shepherds and perhaps 20 sheepdogs gather a flock of 500 native Hardwick sheep from some 1,200 acres(?) and bring them down the mountain to the farm for shearing. It’s an event that has taken place in the Lake District for over a thousand years. It’s a humbling account, seen through the eyes of Lakeland shepherd Andrew Harrison – the knowledge of the dogs, farmers and sheep passed down from generation to generation for centuries, the challenges of life in the fells, and the conflict posed by visitors and the 21st century… Some of the smaller farms have been sold and the farmhouses converted to holiday homes. There are less and less experienced farmers and shepherds remaining to pass on knowledge acquired over generations. Harrison talks movingly of the pride and respect he holds for the land and the privilege of doing what he does.
It’s absolutely mesmerising and quite, quite brilliant.
The second documentary was the first episode of Simon Reeve’s “Wilderness” programme - a journey into the Congo Basin (it’s taken me a long to get down to watching the series)… with its exotic wildlife, awe-inspiring landscapes, and terrifying rise of deforestation. It’s a powerful tale of the importance of conservation. Reeve and his ranger/conservationist guide
canoe along the Motaba River, before trudging through thick vegetation to meet the nomadic Baka (an indigenous people with very limited interaction with the western world). Reeve and his guide are warmly welcomed and the women of the village immediately proceed to construct impressive, elaborate huts to accommodate their overnight guests.
In the morning, they’re taken by the men in the village to gather honey. Like every Baka hunting haul, the treasure is, instinctively, equally shared. A telling remark from Reeve’s guide (“They take what they need, not what they want”) stayed with me long after the programme had ended.
Another hugely impressive insight into another world.
Of course, the two documentaries are very different – about lives on different continents and in very different circumstances – but there was something of a humbling connection between them… about how people live off the land with skills and knowledge passed down from generation to generation… and yet both with uncertainty about what the future had in store for the generations to come.