Destruction of Local Wildlife for HS2...How Does it Make Me Feel?

Since the day I was born I have lived in the same village, in the same house - down the bottom of my lane are fields I have grown up walking through, over the last 22 years. Always beautiful, the fields are normally filled with sheep, lambs, horses and natural wildlife. Hedgerows would separate tens of fields and farms, all with open public access and footpaths - not a single restriction for miles. The image below and to the left was taken in the summer of 2020. At the end of a bridge I have spent my life crossing, are lambs and sheep with berry bushes and green hedgerows in the background. The field behind would home horses and sometimes cows! The image below and to the right is the view I have from the same bridge, today, spring 2021. High Speed railway 2 will be a huge wildlife catastrophe for many parts of the country, including for the fields 50 metres from my front door. Bushes that can be seen in the background before, are now no longer there - miles of hedgerows have been ripped out and destroyed to make way for this devastating railway, to take commuters from London all the way up to Leeds.

Stepping off the bridge and straight into a fenced walk-path is a completely new experience. The photos below show the view in-front of me, to the left and to the right - just fencing and construction! Prior to work starting for the preparation of HS2, this was a completely open space, for people and their dogs to walk freely, as far as one would like. Now, we are fenced in, with multiple strict paths to limit us from walking over land that will one day soon be completely destroyed and converted. The photos below feel so shocking every time I look at them - where now you can see as far as the land will let you, before there were the trees and bushes to separate the fields, homing birds, foxes, rabbits, pheasants and deer.

Its truly a heartbreaking experience, that myself, my family and a lot of people in our village are struggling to cope with. Its hard to believe that such natural beauty can be so easily taken away and ruined, all for the benefit of what? A shorter commute, for some. This is happening all across the country - 'HS2 will destroy or irreparably damage 5 internationally protected wildlife sites, 693 local wildlife sites, 108 woodlands and 33 legally protected sites of scientific interest'. The freedom and escape from the busy towns and streets that has been on our doorstep my entire life, is now being transformed for the worst. Its a sickening and hopeless feeling to know that people and the government leading us simply dont care about the ultimate destruction this is going to cause.

Saying all of this, where these fields have very much been an important part of my life, they are not my home, where I sleep, rest, live and work. I understand the processes as to why things like this have to happen. Beautiful animals, such as the orangutans who have their nests and habitats ripped from them within seconds, without being able to understand why, go through these traitorous, terrifying, inescapable experiences all the time. The fright would be inexplainable, and I can only feel a fraction of this through these experiences of my own. Being able to relate to even a fragment of the heartbreak is enough to make me want to contribute to voicing the situations orangutans go through in order to benefit us humans. I want to attempt to convey this emotion through my outcome of this project. I want to try to explain and highlight the pain that can be felt as a result of palm oil plantations and logging, and the result it has on the depleting population of the helpless orangutans in Malaysia - all whilst representing the Foundation and showing what they do to benefit and aid the wild orangutans as much as they possibly can.