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An engaging blend of conservation stories and humorous, personal anecdotes from Philippa Forrester about women who, like her, choose to live and work in the wild.
Surviving in the wilderness has long been associated with men, and traditionally conservation and environmental biology have been male-dominated subjects. Yet many remarkable women also choose to live and work in wild and challenging landscapes. In her new book, Philippa Forrester studies and celebrates what it means to be a wild woman.
Taking an anthropological approach, Philippa considers the grit and determination required for women to maintain connections to wildlife. She reveals stories of female conservation heroes and other extraordinary wild women and relates some of her own experiences from three decades spent travelling around the world working in some of the wildest places on Earth. What does it take for a woman to live or work in the wild? Which qualities help women to survive and thrive in the most challenging of natural environments?
Talking to women from around the world, she examines how these women benefit from a life spent in the wilderness and considers what the natural world gains from them. And as she explores our relationship with the wild, Philippa contemplates what we expect and need from nature and ponders why we still feel a pull towards it despite living pasteurised lives disconnected from the natural world.
Prologue: A Tsunami of the Soul
Chapter 1. The True Power of a Machete
Chapter 2. What Really is a Wild Woman, then?
Chapter 3. Memories – Scrambled Brain Anyone?
Chapter 4. Spekboom to Rebloom
Chapter 5. What I Can Do
Chapter 6. Perseverance
Chapter 7. The Groundwork
Chapter 8. Clearing the Way
Chapter 9. Woodswoman
Chapter 10. It isn't Just Tree Hugging
Chapter 11. A Visit to the Zoo
Chapter 12. Decades On
Chapter 13. Looking Back Again
Chapter 14. A Rewrite?
Chapter 15. A Fascination for Plants
Chapter 16. Knowing My Place
Chapter 17. Surviving Motherhood
Chapter 18. When Doing What it Takes Doesn't Work
Chapter 19. I Don't Believe in Signs
Chapter 20. Creation
Chapter 21. From Stick to Chick
Chapter 22. This Place is Buzzing
Chapter 23. Out of the Depths
Chapter 24. An Enduring Theme
Chapter 25. Acceptance
Chapter 26. Letting Go
Chapter 27. The Killer Menopause
Chapter 28. A State of Awe
Epilogue: Hugging the Bloody Tree
Notes
Acknowledgements
Index
Philippa Forrester’s broadcasting career spans three decades of primetime TV including Robot Wars and Tomorrow’s World. With her husband, she has also written and produced a string of award-winning science and nature documentaries for the BBC, Animal Planet and Discovery. Philippa has published three books and has degrees in English literature and Ecology and Conservation. For six years, Philippa lived and worked in Wyoming encountering wolves, grizzly bears, moose and the odd cowboy. She returned to live in the UK in the summer of 2020. Back home, she is rediscovering her own patch of wilderness and the joys of the English countryside, especially her favourite wild animal, otters.
"After years of child-rearing and being wifely, Philippa Forrester emerges with a lot of pertinent questions. Wild Woman is a piercing, funny, self-deprecating answer to what it is to be wild. Locally, globally, diverse and female, it is full of a lifetime's awe – and wise. This delightfully brilliant, sometimes rightfully angry book, puts women where they should be: at the heart of conservation, knowing what it is to be wild, to tune in, mend and support the natural world and our place in it. I am cheering her, and all these wonderful women on!"
– Nicola Chester, author of On Gallows Down
"A powerful testament to why women must have a greater say when conserving our natural world."
– Mike Dilger, naturalist and broadcaster
"Wild Woman is a timely reminder of the feminine energy behind some groundbreaking successes in global wildlife conservation. Through deeply personal experiences, Philippa shows us with spirit and gusto that the natural world is a source of strength, wisdom, humour and comfort."
– Sophie Pavelle, author of Forget Me Not
