Beneath The Surface

Bestselling author Robert Macfarlane talks to us about reconnecting with wildlife, the woodwide web and why he no longer calls himself a ‘nature writer’.

- Patrick Barkham

The dreaming spires of Cambridge are not an obvious place for a wildlife safari, but Robert Macfarlane soon unveils the unexpected natural riches of the city he has called his home for the past quarter century. On one particular spire perches some “living stonework” as Robert calls it: the hulking figure of a female peregrine. A feral pigeon clatters around a lower pillar, precariously close to becoming lunch.

“I sometimes walk along here and find a pair of pigeon legs on the pavement,” says Robert, who possesses the lean build of a climber and the soft voice of a deep thinker. We continue into the gardens of his college, Emmanuel, pausing by the carp pond, before stopping to talk beneath a majestic oriental plane tree – a sleek magpie bounces on its triffid-like limbs.

Robert is a Cambridge fellow and writer who has quietly become one of Britain’s leading public intellectuals and environmentalists. This boyish 42-year-old is a young father to British nature writing. He first spotted its resurgence in 2003, and his five bestselling books, including The Wild Places and The Old Ways, define the genre. But he’s also championed several other wild writers.

Spreading the word

As fears over the state of nature deepen, Robert is becoming more influential than ever. His ‘Words of the Day’ – an online project to rewild language and widen our ability to name landscapes, geological features, climates and species – has a third of a billion Twitter impressions. He helped edit and write Chris Packham’s People’s Manifesto for Wildlife in 2018 and some of its smartest 200 ideas – such as twinning every primary school with a farm – were his.