HOPE FOR EDEN?

The BBC's stunning new series Wild Isles reveals that nature flourishes in Britain's wonderfully benign conditions: rich seas, varied geology and a kind climate. Despite the devastating setbacks of recent decades, these natural advantages offer good prospects for the future recovery of wildlife, writes Patrick Barkham

- Patrick Barkham

There is a nation of snow-capped mountains that contains more golden eagles and red deer than any other in Europe. It's also a haven for nearly half the entire continent's population of seabirds. Another part of this archipelago boasts most of the world's chalk streams, which flow through flowery downland home to more large blue butterflies than anywhere else on the planet. These islands are home to a bewildering array of habitats, from temperate rainforests to pine woods usually found in the high Arctic, vast lowland estuaries, and purple-hued heather uplands.

Keen to visit this remarkable place? The good news is we don't have to travel far. This is the British Isles, and they are wilder than many of us imagine.

We are probably familiar with the uncomfortable facts about home: it is one of the most nature-depleted countries in Europe, densely populated, intensively farmed, polluted and still losing both abundance and rare speciesat least 500 extinctions, and counting.

All this is true and yet, seemingly against all odds, there remains eye-opening biodiversity for us to discover, enjoy and protect. Such a relatively small area of land at such a northerly latitude would not necessarily be so blessed, but the fact that Britain and Ireland are islands is the key to their natural wealth - and their vulnerability.

RARE GEOLOGY

There are four reasons for our wealth of wildlife. The first is that our islands are extremely geologically diverse. The gneiss rocks in north-west Scotland and parts of Wales and Ireland are 2.7 billion years old and once formed part of an entirely separate continent, dividing from the land that ultimately made up Britain's south-east by 4,500 miles of ocean.