Country diary: Here for all to see nature's remarkable ability to rebound | Mark Cocker

"Had you been here 40 years ago, however, it would have been hard to tell which would have been more impactful: the sight of the sewage works or the smell from the municipal dump. And don't leave out the gasworks, whose production of town gas from coal tar had further saturated the spot in heavy toxins. Recall those earlier words about the rush of the river? That flow had long been used as the town flush toilet, carrying off all manner of pollutants, leaving the Goyt system almost devoid of life."

"Yet the world hadn't reckoned with the vision of the late Sir Martin Doughty, who'd been on New Mills council since the age of 26. Add in 22,000 trees, 500 of them oaks planted by the town's schoolchildren. Bring in the habitat creation works of a council ranger team (whose resources, incidentally, have been slashed from 300 days a year to a mere five), which turned those straight-lined saplings into complex woodland."

"Over three decades, these combined forces converted a literal shit-heap into a beautiful town park, a glorious riverside walk and tourist attraction. Standing here now, you realise that no brownfield site is beyond redemption. The real hero, however, is not our species, but the patient whole-system collaborative efforts of organisms we cannot even see. The archaebacteria, actinomycetes, nematodes, a"

Mousley Bottom beside the River Goyt was once dominated by a sewage works, a municipal dump and a gasworks that poisoned the area and left the river nearly lifeless. A long-term restoration led by local leadership planted 22,000 trees, including 500 oak saplings by schoolchildren, and used council ranger habitat creation to develop straight saplings into complex woodland. Over three decades the site transformed from a literal waste-heap into a town park, riverside walk and tourist attraction. The recovery relied heavily on whole-system biological processes, including archaebacteria, actinomycetes and nematodes.

Read at www.theguardian.com