Undiscovered Scotland

 

"Community: People and Wildlife on the West Coast of Scotland" by Jane Smith is a marvellous book that leaps out as something very special from the moment you pick it up. The production values are simply outstanding. Something approaching half the book is made up of full page prints of the author's beautiful artworks of Scottish wildlife in the places she visits and discusses in the accompanying text. It's a joy to look at, even before you begin to read.

In her introduction, the author says: "I started this book as a celebration of communities of wildlife. In my twenties I used to make wildlife programmes. I filmed in landscapes all over the world and I fell in love with the beauty of ecosystems - communities of animals and plants, evolved together over millennia to live with each other and their surroundings... I wanted to learn more about the wildlife communities of the place I now live - the west coast of Scotland."

The book is divided into chapters that look at different types of habitat, for each taking a distinct area of western Scotland. We start with a garden landscape in Argyll before moving on to peatland in the Western Isles; machair on North Uist; farmland on Islay; woodland at Loch Arkaig; wetland in Knapdale; river and estuary in Dumfries and Galloway; coast on Jura; sea around St Kilda; urban landscapes in Glasgow; and community on Eigg. The result is an evocation of all that is best about the west of Scotland that does not overlook the many issues arising from the interaction between humans and wildlife. This is a book we'd recommend to anyone with an interest in Scottish wildlife and landscapes.

The publisher's description says the following: "Nature artist Jane Smith has been fascinated by wildlife communities and ecosystems her whole adult life. Starting from her own garden in Argyll, she travels to ten locations in the west of Scotland - from the towering cliffs of St Kilda and the peatlands of Lewis to the Solway estuary and the urban sprawl of Glasgow - to explore the interaction of people and wildlife in a variety of diverse settings. On her journey she discovers a number of communities who are taking on the job of regenerating their own landscapes and meets a host of fascinating people whose lives are inextricably bound up with questions of sustainability, conservation and landownership."