Kielder: the story of a man-made landscape

Around the world, rural landscapes have been transformed by human
activity as never before. In England, one of the most striking
locations of such anthropogenic changes is Kielder Forest and
Water in Northumberland. Since the 1920s, this site has seen a
massive tree planting effort, creating one of the largest
man-made forests in Western Europe. During the 1970s a large dam
and reservoir were constructed at Kielder in order to create a
secure water supply for the industries at Teeside. As a result
Kielder has witnessed significant and dramatic environmental
changes over the course of the twentieth century, as it was
transformed from a pastoral agricultural landscape, to that of a
commercial forest and finally it received the addition of a large
man-made lake.


To tease out how people have experienced and perceived the
man-made environment of Kielder, the Kielder Oral History Project
was conducted. On this episode of the podcast, the two
researchers carried out the Kielder Oral History project,
Professor David Moon of the University of York and Dr Leona
Skelton of Durham University, will discuss some of their
findings.


Music credits: Memories of an Old Dog by Fireproof_Babies, Where
You Are Now by Zapac.