Source A: The line on the flood map

An original contemporary non-fiction-style practice text, written for this question.

The flood map showed a blue strip through the lower streets. In the engineering office, it was a risk category. On the ground, it was the bakery’s cellar, the school’s bicycle shed and the road my mother took to work. I had spent four years preparing the case for a higher sea wall. At public meetings I used the phrase “protection for the whole town”. It was accurate, though it made the work sound simpler than it was.

The wall would narrow the strip of saltmarsh between the road and the water. A coastal ecologist’s report described the marsh as feeding ground for wading birds. I read the report before the first meeting and marked the pages that dealt with the wall’s footprint. The birds mattered, but the houses had names and numbers on the flood map. I believed that distinction was practical, not callous.

The second report was harder to set aside. It showed that a channel through the marsh carried water away at high tide; the first design would partly block it. The ecologist did not argue that the wall should never be built. She asked us to model what would happen beyond the section of coast we were responsible for. I remember resenting the question. Our budget and remit ended at the town boundary. The water did not.

We changed the design, leaving a wider opening where the channel met the estuary. The revised model reduced the effect on the marsh, but could not show what would happen after several seasons of changing tides. At the council meeting, I presented the new figures beside the old ones. The wall would still go ahead. The figures supported that decision, although I knew they could not make the uncertainty disappear.

At the opening, I stood beside the wall while the mayor spoke about security. Beyond us, the saltmarsh was already cut by the access track. A flock lifted from it and settled further along the shore. I could not tell whether they had been disturbed or were moving as they usually did. My report had described the wall as a boundary against water. Looking at the birds, I understood that the boundary on the plan was not a boundary in the world. I still think the town needed the wall. I am less certain that the map showed the whole cost.

Source B: The trees marked for winter

An original contemporary non-fiction-style practice text, written for this question.

The forestry notice was pinned to the gate in October: a section of the school wood would be thinned before spring. The timber was needed to repair the footbridge and keep the paths open. I had helped choose the trees. They leaned over the track, and two had dropped branches after a storm. When a group of pupils asked whether the work would disturb the birds, I said we would be finished before nesting began.

That answer came from the calendar, not from the wood. A volunteer who had been recording bird calls showed me her winter notes. The same patch of trees was used by birds gathering before dusk, including some that stayed through the cold months. I had thought of the wood as a collection of trunks with a job to do. Her records made me notice the pauses between calls and the bare branches where birds waited.

I asked for the work to be delayed until the records could be checked. The head teacher objected that the bridge was already unsafe, and that keeping the paths open mattered to pupils who used them every day. I could not answer that by pointing to a list of birds. The volunteer could show where and when they gathered, but not what would happen if the work went ahead. I began to distrust both the easy promise that winter was harmless and the opposite claim that any cutting would be disastrous.

We walked the marked area together. The trees over the path were not the same as the denser group where the calls had been recorded. We moved the work away from that group and kept the route to the bridge open. The repair took longer, and a smaller amount of timber could be used. The school agreed to keep a record of the birds through the next winter, though no one could promise that the pattern would repeat.

In spring, the wood did not look untouched. There were fresh cuts beside the path and a gap where the light reached the ground. I heard birds there, but I did not treat that as proof that the decision had been right. What changed was the question we asked before choosing the trees. I had begun with a date and a safety problem; I ended with a decision that had to account for evidence whose limits were part of the evidence too.

Compare how the writers present their perspectives on decisions that affect both people and wild animals. In your answer, analyse how each writer uses evidence to support or challenge their perspective, and how this shapes the way their views develop. Support your answer with detailed references to both texts, including brief quotations.