Madeleine Finlay
speaker
2,527 appearances
37 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 4d ago
Madeleine Finlay’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 37 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 8.
Appearances
The ultimate goal is to restore natural habitats and return wildlife to the land.
But when in the site's history should they look at?
When's a good benchmark for what's natural and beneficial to a place?
To figure that out, a research project is being undertaken to reveal how the land has been used across the centuries and what's grown there in the past few hundred years.
For the visit, I'd been advised to wear long trousers tucked into boots to avoid tick bites, and I was glad I listened because my first meeting with Dr Sam Turner, Professor of Archaeology at Newcastle University, was among the long grass, ferns and creeping thistles on Galley Moor.
A small mound topped with mossy grey stones ran alongside us and down below a line of trees was rustling in the breeze.
So Sam, the first thing that I really wanted to find out about was a bit of the history of this estate.
What do we know about what's happened on this land over the years?
And this is where your project comes in so what are you doing?
Unlike most archaeologists, Sam's digging holes not to search for artefacts, but to look at the sediment itself.
The team are using a technique called Environmental DNA Analysis, eDNA, to search for genetic material left long ago by plants.
They can then pin that to a date in time, revealing what nature was around when.
Combine it with LIDAR surveys uncovering man-made structures, and you begin to build a picture of the ecology and history of the estate across hundreds, if not thousands of years.
The Wildlife Trusts will not be managing the land alone.
As it stands, there are 12 tenant farmers.
If the purchase goes ahead, it can mark a time of change.
The Northumberland Wildlife Trust are hoping to help us shift to more wildlife-friendly agriculture.
One of the people beginning to bring that change to the estate is Rosie.
I met her with her very sweet and well-behaved border colleague Jock in a field on one of the farms she was working with.
We were also joined by a crowd of very curious young bulls.
Showing 1081–1100 of 2,527 · page 55 of 127
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