This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
People Fixing.
People Fixing the World.
Hello and welcome to People Fixing the World from the BBC World Service.
With me, Mayra Anubi.
And as you know, I'm all about solutions.
So today I'm on location to find find out how re wiggling a river and using old Christmas trees can help to save our environment.
I've made my way up to the north of England to an area called the Lake District.
Now, it took me about four hours to get here, but my goodness, was it worth it?
The Lake District is a magical place.
It feels like I've actually stepped into a storybook.
Cozy villages, hills and mountains, sheep grazing dotted all around me and soft sounds from a river right next to me.
But this beautiful landscape isn't quite as perfect as it seems.
We're standing in Swindell Valley, which is a dramatic and absolutely beautiful valley, but especially over the last 70 years, since the end of World War II, where production in sheep has really increased greatly, which has the consequence of basically grazing out a lot of the natural regeneration of trees and scrub that we would want to see, for instance, in this valley.
This is Glenn Swainson.
He's the site manager of this area known as Wild Haweswater.
It ends up being quite an impoverished landscape in terms of the mosaic of habitats, whether it be scrub woodland, wetlands, grasslands.
It tends to not have that diversity that you would want.
And then also quite a lot of the land would have been drained in some way as well for agriculture.
And the effect of this isn't just bad for wildlife, it can be disastrous for local communities.