Ecos 36 3 4 whole edition

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2015 issue 36(3/4)

Revitalising Conservation Why we need polymaths Farming schemes get clunky

ECOS

A REVIEW OF CONSERVATION ECOS is the journal of the British Association of Nature Conservationists

www.banc.org.uk

ECOS 36(3/4) 2015

ecos@easynet.co.uk Editorial

Managing Editor: Rick Minter 07768 748301 ecos@easynet.co.uk

Loving the Greenwood

Assistant Editor: Martin Spray Hillside, Aston Bridge Road, Pludds, Ruardean, Glos. GL17 9TZ 01594-861404 Acknowledgements This issue was edited by Rick Minter.

Cover photo: Students warm up before they debate lynx reintroduction. Photo: Action for Conservation The opinions expressed in ECOS are not necessarily those of BANC Council or of the Editors.

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Chair: Gavin Saunders

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Secretary: Alison Parfitt Treasurer: Ruth Boogert

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‘It’s not about the money’ says David Blake in this issue, as he considers conservation’s glum situation. This is a risky, inflammatory statement, not least given the Chancellor’s 2015 Autumn Statement which announced further deep bites into the budgets of Defra and its agencies. Environment and wildlife activity is falling further down government’s priority list. The chips are down.

In this edition we begin our look at Revitalising Conservation, exploring the dip in conservation’s fortunes, and suggesting how to regain confidence, purpose and influence. Our contributors form an eclectic mix, including a farmer, storyteller, wildlife photographer, shaman, blogger, youth workers, and founder of a rewilding charity. We also welcome friends from the e-networking group Values in Nature and the Environment. VINE are keen to communicate the love of nature which is apparent amongst the conservation workforce, but is too often overlooked. The touchy-feely side of our subject isn’t easy for some of us to embrace. And VINE go further. They recognise a sense of pantheism in the way some people relate to the natural world. Perhaps it is these deep roots and this elemental strength that we need to call upon while nature conservation finds itself downtrodden.

It is no surprise, maybe, to see connections with wellbeing so strongly pushed by wildlife groups at present, including the desire for a Nature and Wellbeing Bill. The Bill has been sidestepped by government in favour of a 25 year plan for nature’s recovery, but the new era of policy must have a quality of life dimension, to press the point that we ourselves need nature for all its different worth, whether or not we see ourselves as pantheists.

Back to David Blake’s provocation: is he too brutal, or should we look beyond the resource problem as we try to revitalise? Austerity makes conservation bodies poorly equipped, whether for topical concerns like flood management, the routine matters of habitat care, visitor facilities and people engagement, or the more foundation work of research and monitoring. A beleaguered and cash-strapped workforce will feel ineffective. There’s no escaping the need to generate funds, both creatively and through nudging government, especially to stage a 25 year nature recovery plan. But David Blake is not alone amongst our authors in bemoaning conservation’s formulaic and lofty procedures. This is beyond the bureaucracy and contrived monitoring that farmer Martin Hole complains of in this issue. Revitalising conservation may need a change of mindsets, avoiding an elitist culture and a preoccupation with process at the expense of product. A greater focus on human-scale conservation, celebrated by Gavin Saunders, VINE and others in the following pages, may be a liberating force.

Geoffrey Wain

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In search of Nature’s renaissance people Some voices say conservation needs to pull itself together and become a rigorous scientific, evidence-based discipline once again, ridding itself of its woolly, peoplecentred distractions. Others are turned off a coldly scientific approach and want a warmer, more human approach which delves deeper into wider culture. The modern challenge for conservationists is to span these extremes, and become cultural polymaths – and real people.

GAVIN SAUNDERS She watches us rise at dawn “Get up, my children” she says Because of her we think and create Because of her we make songs Because of her the designs appear as we weave Because of her we tell stories and laugh We believe in old values and new ideas (Lucy Tapahonso, Navajo)

Needing Nature?

I’m writing this two days after the Paris attacks in November 2015. I feel cold horror and impotent empathy for the victims, their families, their city and their country, and all those other countries facing similar violence. And I think of the trail of uprooted humanity spilling out of the Middle East and Africa, the hardship, and the mix of warm welcome and cold suspicion they face in Europe. And I think of all those twisted, brainwashed people who want to divide us from each other, creating hate to legitimise their own.

And against that apocalyptic backdrop I find myself asking: what use is my plea about the natural world? What point is there in arguing for nature conservation?

It feels like the conventional arguments for saving wildlife are fair-weather contentions for comfortable people, not for those fleeing bullets, seeking shelter, food and safety.

Yet I know in my heart that the need for Nature is not negated by more pressing exigencies of human suffering. On the contrary, it is underlined by them. I know that the succour, the redemption, the reflection, the grace that wild nature offers, is a source of deep goodness for any individual, family or community. The neutral ground that a wild space provides for us, for free, lets us see other people on a level, stripped of hierarchy, label and tribe. It allows us to connect with life, not just cling to it.

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ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 It is in my heart that I know this – not just my head. My heart sets the spark which my head then busies itself with manifesting, rationalising, describing, making sense of. But my head sometimes thinks it can stand alone, without that spark, and rely on reason, and communicate with other heads, in the same stripped-down way. Welltrained after a science degree and 30 years in conservation, my head can construct a neat scaffold of arguments about the need for biodiversity, the importance of ecosystem services, the moral obligations to non-human life, and all the rest of it.

But I know that scaffold will crumple like matchsticks in a November gale, as soon as the Kalashnikovs sound.

My heart feels the tie to wild nature, in my guts, and that tie binds me to every other human being as well, regardless of the circumstances. That same heart feels for human suffering, loves those whom I love, brings tears to my eyes when I listen to music in a minor key, and wants to express its experience in shape and colour and words.

Head plus heart equals whole But it doesn’t do to imagine too stark a line between heart and head. When I look at nature, and enthuse about it, write about it, represent it, share it, and remember doing so afterwards, I do so with the whole of myself. I use the rational bit of myself, and the other-than-rational bit. The scientific bit and the artistic bit. The future-focused bit and the nostalgic bit. I can’t experience nature with just one facet of my cultural self, even if I try and convince myself that I am doing so.

Throughout human history we have experienced the rest of Nature with the whole of ourselves, and the creative outpourings of cultures across the world are the expression of that experience. Some aspects of culture illuminate the world for others. Some can darken it. Science is a product of culture, like any other human endeavour, and in common with the rest, science can both reveal and confuse. Its enlightening and obscuring capacity can affect the scientist, as well as his or her audience. Science can on the one hand be the most clear-sighted expression of human intelligence, and on the other, the most willfully self-blinding exercise in selfdenial. When conservation begins to see itself as primarily an objective, scientific discipline, then it teeters on the edge of that self-denying trap.

I’ve never got the hang of the concept of objectivity. I’ve never understood how anyone or any group can think they are capable of being genuinely objective. What is done in the name of scientific objectivity is all too often a convenience rather than a truly defensible disinterestedness. Evidence is thrust forward when it is convenient, and hidden when it is not. Who are we trying to kid? Ourselves, mostly.

Science and emotion – the ever present tussle The question of whether nature conservation is primarily a scientific discipline or a cultural project is not new. It dates back at least to the ‘invention’ of professional conservation in the post-war years. Max Nicholson and colleagues forged the serious business of conservation in the context of the founding of the NHS, the welfare state, the mechanisation of agriculture and the great future-hope of the 3

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wartime and post-war scientific revolution. To be taken seriously, it needed to be primarily a science, founded on data, measurable and defensible. All public policy had the same cast, despite its human motivations.

I deeply respect the work of that generation, of the original Nature Conservancy, Countryside Commission and other bodies, and the efforts of the successor agencies, despite the slings and arrows they have endured. But their work has its roots in post-War paternalistic scientific management, when future-confident (mostly) men planned a better society based on rational application of scientific truths. It feels to me like the statutory coat currently around the shoulders of UK wildlife comes from that age. It doesn’t seem to be human-scale, or feel any longer like the expression of popular will. It seems distanced, coming from a scientifically-removed elite.

Contesting the wild in Nature Before the post-war science-based conservation establishment took shape, there was another world, a world where science and arts overlapped – still fought, still clashed, but were enmeshed. Early lovers of nature were artists, poets, painters, as well as natural historians. The Aurelians of the eighteenth century, for example, came to butterflies for their artistic possibilities. Yes, an effete gentlemen’s pastime, but it did not require scientific endorsement to be real.

But that Romantic world view had its own blind spots. One hangover from the period which stays with us to this day is the desire to see in Wilderness the untrammelled state of nature, free of human stain. Despite the allure of this notion, it tends to reinforce the sense of distance between human culture and wild Nature. I fear that today’s Rewilding movement is prone to this idealist desire to allow nature to rediscover a timeless state of perfection, to say ‘let’s get rid of all this mistaken human meddling, and let Nature be its proud self’. But where is the recognition in that of human legitimacy, of wildness in us? Yes, say the Rewilders, once we have our wild landscapes back, then people will be able to enter them and express their wild selves. But they can only do that once they are liberated from human habitats.

I revere the example of John Muir, for expressing passion for wild nature and for being the catalyst who channelled that passion into public policy through the creation of the first National Parks in the US. Yet he chose to see those magnificent landscapes as wildernesses without human agency, ignoring the Native American culture which had shaped them. Had he recognised that influence, the presence of 4

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There are many currently working in the conservation sector who, like the Huxley, Tansley and Nicholson generation from whom they have inherited their world view, still see nature conservation in this way, albeit with respectful nods to the cultural, aesthetic and recreational needs of society, insofar as those needs are expressed in the language of public policy. But increasingly this is an elitist view, expressed by professionals only too aware they are no longer an elite. I hear between the words of some, a nostalgia for those good old days when policy statements carried weight, when a well-referenced scientific pronouncement was listened to, when authorities had authority.

pre-existing human culture should only have added to the magnificence of those landscapes, not detracted from it.

A holistic approach – the benefits and risks The diversity of the world’s ecosystems is closely related to the diversity of its cultures.

Both are declining. With the extinction of culture, we lose knowledge, wisdom, oral history, sense of place, sense of meaning. If we see a continuum between nature and culture, then we can begin to perceive the commonality between biological and cultural diversity, and better understand the wildness in ourselves. Songs, stories, sculptures, paintings, designs, clothes, recipes, machines, philosophies, faiths – all are part of the diversity of the collective human mindscape. They don’t just mirror or bear a resemblance to flowers, insects, birds, weather patterns, rock types and land forms – they are another dimension of those things.

Conservation has both a strong scientific foundation, and a strong cultural context and drive. It is not simply an expression of ecological science, and neither is it simply poetry. Often what makes it fascinating is that it is – or can be – genuinely both. But with that dichotomy comes risks. One risk is around perceived legitimacy. Those who see themselves as ‘pure’ scientists or ‘pure’ artists may be dismissive of a discipline which appears to wear the clothes of both. I have worked alongside scientists and artists at different times and sensed that I am not regarded as ‘one of us’ by either.

Another risk is around actual legitimacy. Most of us within conservation’s big tent enter with one or another primary perspective – scientific, artistic, educational, practical. Few of us are fortunate enough genuinely to be polymaths, comfortable 5

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in many sets of clothes. But conservation demands us to be both scientifically grounded, and also culturally adept at communicating, enthusing, and translating Nature into cultural terms which any audience can understand. Yet not all scientists are literate in the widest sense, and not all those who are good communicators are any good at science. One small example: I know Forest School leaders who can’t identify common wildflowers or even trees. And similarly I know field naturalists who can’t – or don’t even want to – communicate their knowledge to the uninitiated.

It’s a big ask, but conservationists have to become pan-cultural, Renaissance men and women. And to revitalise nature conservation as an activity, movement and profession, its exponents have to open themselves to a deeper understanding of the nature of human beings. To spread the sense of care and wonder we have for wild nature, we have to learn to share our hearts. And it will be culture – ours, others’ – that provides the tools for that. By doing so we help one another understand what it is to be truly human. And when we spend time in nature, with others, we each can give thanks for its wonders to my god, your god, their god, or no god, and it will reward our attention just the same.

Gavin Saunders co-directs Neroche Woodlanders, a woodland-based social enterprise in Somerset providing nature connection experiences and wild learning for adults, families and young people. He is also chair of BANC. gavinsaunders@btinternet.com

Grounded thinking to grounded action – Steps to revitalising conservation This article reflects some views and discussion amongst members of VINE (Values in Nature and the Environment) on the challenges of revitalising nature conservation.

Messages include the need to promote positive news, broaden the appeal of nature, link with other disciplines, and recognise a common love of the natural world.

SOPHIE LAKE & MEMBERS OF VINE Conservation’s roots and directions

The recent biography of Derek Ratcliffe1 and Peter Marren’s book Nature Conservation explain how our system of protected sites was set up to distinguish between those valued for their ‘scientific’ or ‘scenic’ attributes and the subsequent trajectory of the nature conservation movement. Both science and cultural strands have always been present and recognised, but given different emphasis.

Nature is valued in so many ways, and there is ongoing debate about the merits of valuation in terms of material benefits to humans. Views inevitably vary on this, but one view that most VINE members probably share is that nature has intrinsic value, and that our love of it is unconditional. This love is rooted in belief, often religious or pantheistic. Ten years ago, it took some courage to say ‘I love nature’ within the conservation workplace, but such conversations are becoming easier.

Conservation today has many strands, and they do not always weave together smoothly. Knotty areas such as biodiversity offsetting and the ‘bats, newts and badgers’ work of mainstream ecological consultancy seem a world apart from other conservation efforts. Both spring from the notion that a place is no more than the sum of its constituent living parts, and from financial motivations. Fortunately, there are other strands which offer more promise for the future.

Positive trends

A group of adults enjoying wild woodland during a nature-connection well-being session

by Neroche Woodlanders in Somerset.

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Photo: Gavin Saunders

The State of Nature report2 told us clearly that things were not, overall, going right in UK nature conservation. Nonetheless, there are some gleams in the stifling gloom created by the bureaucratisation of conservation, now a business obsessed with targets and money and entangled within its own internal language of policy, strategy and science. There is inspiring work (and in some cases this is longstanding) being undertaken by individuals and organisations who have the vision of enriching and rewilding both places and people. Examples include The Great Fen3 project, Trees for Life 4 , Wild Ennerdale5, the Knepp Estate 6 and many more. This is not to 7

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detract from the focussed habitat and species work that has been such a mainstay of conservation, but we know more is needed. There are also inspiring habitat creation schemes such as RSPB’s Wallasea Island project7, which has been expertly designed, including provision for species that may colonise in the future such as the black-winged stilt. These projects are usually centred on a particular place. The love of place (including the human and non-human beings and the rocks, water, earth, and air that in many cultures are also ensouled) is something we have struggled to articulate within conservation, and it is an aspect much discussed in VINE. However, we are edging towards a clearer-sighted conservation, in which we recognise that conservation is not solely rooted in science (although excellent conservation science is nonetheless needed) but in values, and that these values are conditioned by our culture. We are also confronting our fear of losing control and our need to ‘steward’ the land and are learning to embrace change and uncertain outcomes.

Although not new (remember RSPB’s Young Ornithologists Club?) the agenda of ‘nature connectedness’ has gained much momentum recently, and its own jargon.

Connection is a great starting point, but it needs to lead on to ecological literacy – the ability to understand how nature sustains life and how to live accordingly.9 We urgently need to get ecological literacy into mainstream schooling - people need to be empowered to take nature conservation forward for themselves.

Digital conservation – slave or master?

A recurring topic for VINE is the use of screen-based media (social media, film, apps, digital images and the like). Sometimes it seems that wildlife films are more enjoyed than wildlife itself, that engagement with the natural world is more likely to be through a screen than experienced first-hand with all the senses. There is some ambivalence within VINE about this, but mindful use of such media can help make the natural world accessible, particularly for people who might not be attracted initially. Technology is neither good nor bad, it’s a question of how it is used, and it could be used to consolidate understanding, to stimulate and inspire.

But, despite all these positives and potentials, places, species and habitats are still being lost and degraded, and that is in spite of the money being poured in, through agri-environment schemes for example.

What is going wrong?

Nature conservation is not compatible with current western levels of consumption, world population increase rates, and with a growth-based paradigm. But, at the 8

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We are also moving towards a better understanding of the values and frames underlying conservation. Common Cause8 has brought this to the fore and presents succinct recommendations that all conservation organisations need to take on board. They revolve around using integrity in the values that we promote. We need to be inspiring people rather than scaring or depressing them, empowering them to become active by helping them to undertake tasks that are proportionate. We should not be appealing to people’s intrinsic values (such as care for the natural world) through conflicting values connected with materialism and self-concern, because it is likely to backfire.

moment, many people are scared to voice this, scared of alienating those in places of power, scared of alienating the public by appearing too radical. VINE is a place where people can explore these issues personally, rather than in their organisational role. The support of others gives us more confidence to speak out.

Linked to this is the issue of language. It is often argued that we need to speak the language of those we seek to influence, but it is important that we do not forget that it is not our native tongue. We need to speak with bravery and passion, we need to use evocative language that captures the hearts and minds of the public, and we need to stop hiding behind weasel words when trying to defend some of the paradoxes of conservation.

Our willingness to fall back on science is another obstacle. Sound science can be a powerful way of understanding the world around us, but science is not helpful in distinguishing right or wrong, and it is not necessarily good at engaging people. We need to increase our knowledge of other ways of exploring the world and increase our work with artists, musicians, and performers.

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A shot in the arm for conservation?

Conservation needs to celebrate how beautiful nature is and what it means to us. We need to do this both to revive ourselves, and to engage others. As individuals, we also need to make it a priority to go out and seek those reflective moments when our personal connection with nature is not veiled by the everyday business of conservation.

Conservation needs inspired, creative people who will look forward to what could be.

Conservation action needs bravery and integrity - we should stop churning out jargon and second-rate data and get out there to make a difference on the ground.

Acknowledgements VINE (Values in Nature and the Environment)10 is a group of people working in or with an interest in nature conservation, who are brought together by their interest in the underlying values of nature conservation. VINE (a not-for-profit organisation) has no single voice and does not take ‘positions’ on issues - it has as many voices as members (some 250 at the last count). So this is not a VINE response to the key questions raised by BANC about revitalising nature; it is a discussion informed and influenced by the myriad voices of VINE. Individual members of VINE may not agree with some (or even all!) of the points raised, but the comments have all been informed or influenced by VINE’s (mainly online) discussions.

Particular thanks to Bill Grayson, Pat Vincent and John Bacon for organising the recent VINE event where these questions were discussed, and to VINE members Adam Cormack, Cath Grayson, Colin Leppard, Daniel Abrahams, Durwyn Liley, Gemma Burford, Ginny Battson, John MacPherson, Matthew Oates, Peter Phillipson, Ralph Underhill, Roger Cartwright, Ruth Waters, Sean Cooch and Sue Berrisford whose thought provoking conversations (both online and face to face) have informed and influenced this article. However, the views expressed here are not necessarily theirs, and any errors in interpretation are entirely my own. I would also like to thank the less vociferous VINE members who continue to hold the safe space for discussion.

References and notes 1. Thomson, D. Birks, J. & Birks, H. (2015) Nature's Conscience: The Life and Legacy of Derek Ratcliffe.

Langford Press 2. https://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/stateofnature_tcm9-345839.pdf 3. http://www.greatfen.org.uk/ 4. http://treesforlife.org.uk/work/dundreggan/ 5. http://www.wildennerdale.co.uk/ 6. http://www.knepp.co.uk/ 7. Ausden, M., Hirons, G., Lock, L., & White, G. 2015 Managing and re-creating wetlands in Britain for potential colonists. British Birds 107 December 2014 726–755 8. http://valuesandframes.org/ 9. Read Ginny Battson blog http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/blog/everychildwild/2015/11/04/ginny-battsonevery-child-wild 10 www.vineproject.org.uk

Sophie Lake is a founder member and current Secretary of VINE, and works for Footprint Ecology. She is co-author of Britain’s Habitats, a guide to, and celebration of, the habitats of Britain and Ireland. WILDGuides, 2015. sophie@vineproject.org.uk

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Conservation wisdom Looking back to look forward People helping wildlife have worked the land for generations with commitment, passion and wisdom. State conservation action has been well intentioned but its formulaic processes have stifled initiative and endeavour. The best of the old needs to combine with what we trust in the new.

DAVID BLAKE I live and work in an ancient landscape. I can feel its vintage qualities every day. Its Early Medieval links are written in place names and are tangible in the grasslands, woodlands and trees. In the first half of the Twentieth century, some of the early movers and shakers of what was to become the conservation movement lived in this area. They were an eclectic bunch: academics, soldiers, writers and landowners.

They had been through a world war or two and learned the value of life. They had enthusiasm for and fascination about our wildlife, our heritage and our nation.

Many of them were deeply conservative and mistrustful of change, challenging the policies and accepted wisdom of the day. Their passion for nature lead to the formation of some of the progressive organisations we know today, including the Soil Association. Amongst their cause, they strove for an acceptance that a responsible government should look after our environment on our behalf.

State wildlife support - a process not a passion?

Following the founding legislation, government started to take a lead, and provide action for nature. Thus people were encouraged to leave it up to ‘them’. An elite cadre was created of people and organisations entrusted with making policy, and who were uniquely qualified to turn it into action. On the whole, everyone else was happy to let them get on with it and it certainly worked well in many respects. In hindsight, two things went wrong. First, most nature reserves and protected areas for wildlife are owned by farmers and charities. Thus the designation of protected areas has limited influence. Certain activities are discouraged or regulated within them, so government limits the extent over which those restrictions to private enterprise apply. If we had gone the other way and made protected areas into zones of opportunity, where special tax reliefs or incentives applied, we would be in a different place now. Second, we came to rely on paying farmers to help wildlife through tax-payer funded schemes and regulation. The result is that, for many land owners, nature conservation is no longer the great passion that it once was. They are invested in the process and not the outcome.

Government money and regulation for nature conservation is packaged as a scheme, not a vocation; it’s a deal to be brokered, not a personal responsibility. Every pronature decision on the farm needs financial justification through a payment scheme; 11

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Signs of hope The direction of travel for nature conservation appears to be inexorably towards failure and collapse. But in the fine grain there is so much to inspire, celebrate and cheer for. If I just think about recent trends in 2015: Otters: I have been photographing otters on the Hampshire Avon and watching them munch signal crayfish in a local pond. Otters! Right on my doorstep! I still get the same thrill that I got when I first saw one in the distance on Loch Arkaig.

Orchids: I sat on the chalk downs near my home, surrounded by what I think is one of the most diverse grassland swards in the country, in a waving sea of orchids, yellow rattle and herbs.

Peregrines: I see peregrines cutting circles around the spire of Salisbury Cathedral.

This is still utterly marvelous to me.

Great bustards: In the spring, I was able to show one of my photography clients a great bustard powering across the dawn skies of Cranborne Chase.

Red kites: Every day on the way to work I see red kites swirling over the downs, pursued by ravens whose croak can be heard all over the Wiltshire Downs. Thirty years ago, we used to get excited about a buzzard’s nest!

A perfect wild brown trout (taken on a Sawyer’s PT nymph) in a Wessex chalk stream.

Photo: Wessex Wildlife Photography

so when the deal ends, so does the good work. We have created a situation where small ‘non-departmental government bodies’ run UK nature conservation. Mostly, this is done remotely by desk-bound officers who do not have the time or the freedom to get out on the ground. They just manage the process.

But are all these steps in the right direction just too small: too little, too late?

Red kite, searching for road-kill in the Nadder Valley, Wiltshire.

Photo: Wessex Wildlife Photography

We have spent the best part of a century trying to get governments to accept limited responsibility for our wildlife with a light touch in delivery. We have ended up in a world that we created, but perhaps none of us wanted.

Degraded by unintended consequences It’s not just public and charitable bodies that have gone down a blind alley. There was a time when game animals were reared and released to supplement wild populations.

Gamekeepers were employed to manage habitat. However, we have traded in our cherished game animals such as brown trout, salmon, grey partridge and wild duck for poor facsimiles. We pour thousands of tons of stock fish into our rivers and 40 million pheasants and 35 million red-legged partridges into our countryside every year.

Feeding them costs £80m in wheat alone. Wild game habitats are degraded because they are no longer needed. Field edges where partridges once nested are ‘sterile strips’ that reduce weed incursion, our wonderful chalk streams are little more than dredged ditches teeming with super-sized rainbow trout. Our woodlands are increasingly devoid of wildlife interest because the deer have eaten it all and we have to grow trees inside fences or in tiny plastic tree-prisons. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

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Changing mindsets?

Today we need to restore as well as conserve and enhance. On Cranborne Chase we are trying to do what we can by bringing groups of farmers together to act in concert regardless of schemes and incentives.

We need to stop accepting the failed solutions offered by many nature conservation organisations and the governmental, charitable and private vested interests. We need to incentivise private landowners in ways that will embed nature conservation in the warp and weft of how they farm and manage the land for decades to come, not these temporary deals with the tax payer. The hunters should cry out for wild fishing, demand fair chase hunting of wild birds and mammals so that we can get back to managing habitat instead of feeding artificial populations of stocked game.

There is no shortage of money, that is a poor excuse. We spend untold millions on ineffective and inefficient protection of European Protected Species and nationally protected species when we could spend that money far more wisely.

For instance, how much newt fencing do we actually need and would it not be better spent on securing landscape-scale wetland projects into the future? What more could we achieve for bats if we could take the money that is spent on formulaic surveys and spend it on managing foraging habitat?

David Blake runs Wessex Wildlife Photography.

He is also Project Development Officer at Cranborne Chase AONB. The views in this article are his own. wessexwildlife@gmail.com

ECOS 36(3/4) 2015

Nature Conservation: barking up the wrong tree?

Caring for nature is a message widely embraced by people and by businesses, yet much UK wildlife continues to decline. This article considers the contrast between the words and the action, and looks at some key choices for revitalising nature conservation.

MILES KING There is a fundamental paradox at the heart of nature conservation activity in Britain. The ‘movement’ if indeed there is one distinct ‘movement’, has grown extraordinarily during the nearly 30 years of my involvement in nature conservation. Bodies such as RSPB, National Trust and the Wildlife Trusts collectively boast millions of members, all signing up to pay their monthly direct debits for nature (or is it free car parking?). TV wildlife documentaries garner millions of viewers gasping in awe at the vivid spectacles. Governments fall over themselves to be seen as the greenest. Companies enthusiastically sign up to deliver wildlife action plans or to place natural capital at the heart of all their decision-making.

Yet at the same time, over the same period, nature continues to decline and to disappear. In some cases the decline is accelerating in lock step with the increased support for it. Farmers proud to have lapwings nesting in their arable fields simply cannot believe the farmland bird statistics that show unambiguously the birds which were formerly too common to bother with, are now at risk of extinction. They see things improving compared with their parents’ generation, blissfully unaware of Shifting Baseline Syndrome.

Tactical choices for helping wildlife Legal protection for wildlife has been partially successful at ‘holding the line’.

Places rich in nature have been protected from development by the European Nature Directives, at least in part. And Sites of Special Scientific Interest have gradually received stronger and stronger protection through a series of wildlife protection laws. Outside of protected areas, formerly ubiquitous wildlife habitats such as lowland grasslands have gone entirely from some counties; and hang on in tiny, unviable fragments in others. The 25 year experiment in ‘renting nature’, known as the agri-environment schemes, has not worked out so well – delivering only illusory gains for nature, and seems unlikely to survive another round of CAP reform.

And what nature are we trying to conserve? Habitats were created by and dependent on agricultural and forestry systems that have long gone. We try and re-create facsimiles of these systems – but for what purpose? Yes: many are Species-rich grassland on the banks of a chalk stream in Cranborne Chase.

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Photo: Wessex Wildlife Photography

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ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 beautiful (at least to our eyes) but are there not better ways of providing a future for nature in Britain, than looking to a past now gone?

Rewilding is one such approach – looking to create more ‘natural’ ecosystems, by bringing back large extinct mammals and birds. The scale needed for these systems to work is eye-watering, especially given how small and crowded these islands are: the only real options are in the uplands, which are themselves highly contested landscape. It’s difficult to see the shooters and shepherds giving up these hard-won hills without a seemingly fitting fight to the death.

Nature is nice, but does it pay?

Perhaps it is people who need rewilding, far more than land. Until people rediscover just how much benefit they derive from nature, wildlife will always struggle to be recognized. Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital frame nature in terms of economic gains, profit and loss, financial risk. Investors will only be interested in the aspects of nature that can be quantified, commodified, and monetized. Everything else will be thrown into a pot labeled ‘nice if…’ and ignored. So the carbon locked up in a forest, or the water that could cause downstream flooding, will shine brightly from the natural capital balance sheet, and the profit and loss account. The wonder a child sees in the flap of a butterfly’s wings will not even register.

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Submit or celebrate?

We also need to change the terminology we use. It’s too late to stop the demise of the semi-natural, outside of a few museum piece reserves or patches of landscape.

We should mourn its passing, create ceremonies to remember it, in the way we remember the fallen of wars on Remembrance day.

Despite these losses, we need to start talking positively about nature and what it means to people, celebrating the joy and wonder that nature provides us with, the inspiration it provides for art, music and writing. And we need to start talking seriously about the spiritual value of nature to people.

This is what we will be doing through People Need Nature (www.peopleneednature. org.uk), a new charity, which will be highlighting the value of nature to people for its spiritual value, for things like the inspiration it provides to writers, artists, musicians – indeed all of us. And it will promote the value of nature in the public realm, where nature is accessible for everyone. We will be working with individuals and communities across England and Wales on projects to celebrate wildlife, carrying out research and advocating the importance of nature to people for its sensory, emotional and spiritual values.

Miles King blogs at anewnatureblog. miles@we4kings.co.uk

The benefits of nature that really count for people are the things that create sensory, emotional and spiritual connections with the natural world. Few people are interested in wildlife because of facts or statistics. People are interested in and develop connection with nature through personal experience and through sharing stories.

Lapwing at Montague Farm, Pevensey.

Photo: Martin Hole

Nature and the new normal Most of us in nature conservation (but not landscape conservation) have tended to downplay the importance of stories and emotions, let alone spiritual connections with nature. We focus on ‘rare’ species, or ‘important’ habitat or ‘diverse’ places, or stress that tonne of peat sequesters so many tonnes of carbon dioxide. Is this displacement activity on our part? These labels of rarity or diversity, and these facts and figures mean little to most normal people. They probably make little difference to politicians either, who are mainly concerned about what normal people who vote for them care about and prioritise.

How do we get more people interested in nature? We need to focus our efforts on nature where people live. Is there much point in encouraging people to drive from their homes to a nature reserve, so they can empty their dog there? Great for the dog, but better to ensure that there is plenty of high quality nature in their local park, which they can see or experience every day. Better to work to get really good large areas of ‘wild’ land incorporated into new housing developments.

We need to work to incorporate nature into people’s everyday lives. And this is the crux: it’s not ‘rare’ nature that counts. It’s common nature which mostly gladdens the heart: street trees, green roofs, colourful flowers in planters on street pavements, turning boring amenity grassland parks into riots of colour.

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Revitalising conservation the Good, the Bad and the Ugly Nature conservation aims are not ambitious enough, nature reserves are too small, and the wider countryside is too inhospitable for wildlife to thrive. This article promotes land purchase, rewliding, and closer links with farming bodies as part of the answer to revitalising conservation in Britain.

SIMON AYRES The biggest threat to the natural world is the loss of habitats and the extinction of species. And the biggest threat to humanity is the loss of the ‘ecosystems services’ provided by these habitats and species. I am not referring simply to the services of basic survival like food and water. Without the beauty of nature and the company of other species, we lose what is integral to being human, the spiritual connection and inspiration of nature. These losses are the ongoing and direct results of the activities of modern human society.

The Good The people working for the conservation bodies are well qualified and highly professional. They are experts in their fields of biology, education, marketing, and the like. This applies to the staff in the charities and in government. People tend to be highly motivated in their work, and the sector has no trouble recruiting quality staff.

With all this expertise, the conservation charities are highly effective at delivering on their aims. This translates into a large network of nature reserves with good public access, education programmes, and projects to engage with landowners in the wider countryside.

The Bad On the other hand, UK governments have been quite ineffective at delivering on their aims, in particular with regards to halting the loss of biodiversity. In connection with this, the success of the charities in achieving their aims has not translated into an overall positive story for wildlife in Britain. The conclusion must be that the aims are not ambitious enough: nature reserves are too small, and that the wider countryside is too inhospitable for wildlife to thrive.

Landowner engagement projects, such as the Wildlife Trusts’ Living Landscapes, have limited impact. I have worked on this type of project, and my experience is 18

ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 possibly informative. There were a few committed landowners who were doing the best they could for wildlife: my input probably didn’t change what they were doing. There was another group who used me as a free service for submitting agrienvironment schemes. The majority of landowners were not interested in engaging with our project, despite regular mailouts to every farm. In short, the money I was paid to drive around the countryside discussing land management issues with farmers and landowners might have been better spent on buying land of wildlife value and potential.

Initiatives that focus on a particular species often boil down to prescriptive management on a few key sites. This possibly preserves the species from extinction, but does nothing to restore the abundance and resilience of our wildlife.

I also wonder about the vast sums spent on infrastructure for nature reserves.

About £2m was recently spent on infrastructure on a small reserve near here, much of it funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. This might well create a wonderful visitor experience (or does it cut us off from nature, making the experience more like watching telly?) but does it help the wildlife? Not directly, no. And if that money is instead spent on buying land, the gains for nature could be significant and direct. It is tempting to suggest that visitor attractions of this kind are more closely allied to business planning than helping wildlife. More visitors means more members means more financial security. Is this the most beneficial use of limited environmental funding?

The wider countryside is inhospitable to wildlife, and this is the problem that needs tackling if we are to see the ‘loss of biodiversity halted’1 or any recovery from the current low baseline. This is where the conservation movement have been so ineffective. From the euphemistic ‘changes in agricultural practice’ to describe the destructive practices of modern farming, to the unwillingness of government to legislate against or police these practices, the conservation movement has been feeble in its attempts to do its job.

While the mechanical destruction of habitats is a major problem, the use of pesticides across the landscape could be the most destructive practice: crop spraying, livestock parasite treatments, sheep dip, and treatment of forestry nursery plants all combine to ensure that almost every part of the landscape, whether lowland or upland, plants or manure, soil or water, is poisonous to invertebrates. The loss of invertebrate life is phenomenal.2 I only have to think of my own observations over a few decades. Up to the early 80s, every September there would be thousands of crane flies outside the windows attracted by the lights in houses. This year I saw two or three.

This loss of insect life is tragic in itself, but these are at the bottom of the food chain – inevitably there are knock-on effects up through the ecosystem. For example, the steady decline in curlew numbers could be related to the fact that their main food, invertebrates, are being killed off by pesticides such as sheep dip. On top of these influences, some farmers and gamekeepers make a habit of deliberately killing birds and mammals on the land they manage.

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The Ugly This brings us to the Ugly – what the conservation movement needs. What we need are bigger nature reserves, where wildlife can thrive away from the influences in the productive landscape. Rewilding now has a strong representation with the new charity Rewilding Britain, and one of its aims is to support the establishment of large areas for wildlife. Information on some of the large-scale projects taking shape can be seen on Rewilding Britain’s website.3 For those of us who are used to heavily managed and heavily grazed nature reserves, areas of wildland might look messy, even ugly perhaps. But this type of landscape is very beneficial to wildlife, and personally I see great beauty in its chaos and shifting structures.

NEIL BENNETT

We have plenty of land for this. We currently waste about half of the food produced, and this figure applies to UK and globally: if we stop the wastage, whether in the fields, the distribution centres, the shops or in the home, we could reserve more of the land area for the wild without reducing food supplies. Even 5% would be a good start, amounting to 1.2 million hectares. If poor countries like Costa Rica (25%) and Peru (15%) can reserve significant proportions of their land area, the UK is certainly capable of giving more land to wildlife.

There also has to be some real action on resolving the problem with the rest of the landscape, applicable to commercial farming and forestry. This must be through legislation and subsidy conditions, in order to have an effect over the whole landscape. Two policies I would like to see are reducing pesticide use and establishing buffer strips along watercourses.

Research is needed to identify the worst pesticides and find replacements, and also to develop methods applicable to commercial farming and forestry that can replace chemical treatments against pests. The idea of buffer strips is to protect fresh water from pollution and soil run-off, and at the same time provide wildlife corridors throughout the landscape. Width of buffers could be related to the size of the watercourse, with large rivers having 50 meter buffers on each bank for example, and small streams perhaps 10 meters.

Government currently lacks the political will to protect and restore wildlife. Worse, government is susceptible to the lobbying power of the farm unions, whose vision for farming is restricted to the short-sighted goals of higher subsidies and less regulation. In comparison, the organisations that care about the wellbeing of the countryside have been ineffective.

The consortium of charities that commissioned the State of Nature report has only begun the task with the publication. The next stage must be to deal with the problems identified in the report. There is a case here for campaigning bodies such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and 38 Degrees joining forces with the nature charities. A strong voice is essential, to influence and represent public opinion and hold politicians to account.

name of farming as much as for wildlife. If a negotiated joint position could be reached with the farming industry, the necessary government action would be assured. The environment has to be the overarching consideration in all policy decisions in recognition of reality, instead of being a side issue, low down on the list of priorities. A good start will be to follow the example of Bolivia and have the rights of nature enshrined in law.

References and notes 1. ‘Halting the loss of biodiversity’ is a target that appears in several international agreements and government policies, e.g. the EU Biodiversity Strategy adopted in 2011 includes “an ambitious new strategy to halt the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the EU by 2020” http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/biodiversity/comm2006/2020.htm 2. For news report on a global study see www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0714/240714_invertebrate-numbers 3. www.rewildingbritain.org.uk

Simon Ayres is a forestry consultant, chair of Wales Wild Land Foundation, and is on the steering group of Rewilding Britain. simonfhayres@gmail.com

In an effort to avoid an ugly battle, it is important to have dialogue with the farm unions to persuade them of the importance of this issue for the viability and good 20

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Evidence-based or evidence-blind?

Priorities for revitalising conservation

Extinction rates – will rewilding help or hinder?

As conservationists pursue their goals of defending and managing the natural world, too often they stick to their prejudices. This article asks for greater realisation of the types of bias which can influence decisions and attitudes of conservation managers.

Rewilding will cause regional extinctions amongst commensal species of grassland, heathland, moorland and coppice. Yet a brutal use of evidence shows that declines in farmland birds or heat-loving species such as blue and fritillary butterflies can indicate conservation success as habitats recover from exploitation or the impacts of invasive species.1 The small pearl-bordered fritillary, allegedly in desperate need of coppice, is actually one of the world’s commonest butterflies - so aliens might prefer to replace them (or large blues) with rainforest lichens.

CLIVE HAMBLER Thinking like an alien If alien conservationists were advising Earth, what would they deduce and do?

It would be clear to them that the dominant species here does not demonstrate effective respect for other beings. Humans advocate ‘evidence based conservation’, yet evidence is wilfully or subconsciously ignored because of human biases.

Even in Britain, despite a long history of conservation and legally binding conventions, the rate of loss of species is stable or rising (Figure 1). The rate of extinction in England is probably about one species a month, possibly double that.

An alien might investigate why this evidence contradicts ecomodernists, who correctly argue development could reduce extinction by decoupling exploitation from nature. However, ecomodernists downplay concerns over human population growth, despite it fuelling developments which destroy habitats and which demand water. Some environmentalists embrace invasive species and ‘novel ecosystems’ alike, hoping (despite evidence) they will remain stable. Another key to the problem is that dogma dominates conservation management, not ecological evidence.

Extinction rate (% per century)

Figure 1. Recent and projected extinction rates in Britain (methods in Hambler et al.1).

4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0

Extinct plus endangered Extinct

Many claim that ‘neglect’ or ‘under-management’ leads to dull woodlands of little wildlife value. Some argue it’s too late to get benefits from rewilding, or that bringing species back will harm others (with which they co-exist elsewhere!). Some defy evidence from subfossil beetles and pollen2 and believe rewilding should create herbivore-regulated parkland, not carnivore-regulated high forest. They ignore evidence that forests have been improving as trees age: the horned leafhopper, light orange underwing and internationally important Lobarion communities occur in former coppice.

Enabling succession, allowing for neglect…

In a ‘neglected’ landscape, with minimal intervention against invasive species, succession is generating greater habitat diversity, complexity and extent. Key microhabitats recover, including dead wood and detritus, damp microclimates, low windspeeds and diverse structures for mosses, lichens, ferns and spiders to hang on. The darkest canopies are the richest in Britain. Rewilding will liberate many species currently fizzling out in relict habitat patches that have fortuitously retained these elements of naturalness. Such species are identifiable in the lists of threatened species (Figure 2). The old paradigm of ‘letting in the light’ destroys habitat, reduces habitat diversity, and indicates widespread unawareness of how energy moves through the food web. Neglect favours many neglected taxa.1, 3

Carbon, climate and the biomass blunder

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We know the causes of many of the recorded global extinctions in the last 400 years: habitat loss, invasive species and exploitation. Britain is no different, with many species surviving much of the Holocene, so long as natural habitats were expansive.

The safest bet as to how to reduce extinction is to reduce these threats, and that leads to a natural conclusion: ‘rewilding’. Rewilding covers many approaches to land management using a greater degree of natural processes. One of the main models of rewilding is simply the rebranded and widely recognised practice of restoration management. This has no dogmatic emotional focus on traditional cultural landscapes such as semi-natural habitats. Debates about the merits of rewilding, and cultural relativist suggestions that it is just another subjective choice, ignore the central, rational reason for rewilding: reducing extinction rates.

20th Century

21st Century

Yet Britain is reversing some 70 years of recovery in its woodland habitats. This results in part from a drive to biomass fuel - in habitat-burning devices of many sizes. Ignoring the evidence that biomass burning wiped out many species of mature forests, some opportunists advocate it as a route to the aesthetic goal of abundant 23

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% using habitat

Figure 2. Butterflies do not indicate where many threatened species are or what they need.

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BUTTERFLIES, 18 species

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LICHENS, 88 species

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Why? Is it the charisma of big beasts or the intrigue of trophic cascades? Did people finally use evidence? Ecologists have identified where problems and vulnerable species are. They have demonstrated that the majority of species decline in tandem with the relatively easily monitored birds and fish. They know how to manage for many species (and ‘services’). There are new conservation flagships to learn from including the Alladale Wilderness Reserve, Trees for Life, the Atlantic Hazelwoods protected from re-coppicing,4 restoration of Otmoor’s wetland, and eradication of damaging invasive species on the wildlife rich Overseas Territories.

Scanning ahead, conservationists need open minds. They need to observe developing concepts and influences with caution, including ‘natural capital’, ‘sustainability’, ‘resilience’, ‘biodiversity mitigation’ and pathogens. Most of all they need to think more like an alien.

50 25 0 100

References

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1.

2.

3.

4)

SPIDERS, 76 species

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tundra

Carrion

Wetland (other)

Coastal wetland

Coastal other

Bare patches

Farmland

Upland or moorland

Heathland

Grassland

Scrub

Dead wood

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Woodland (total)

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Hambler, C. et al. (2011) Biological Conservation 144, 713-721.

Robinson, M. (2014) Environmental Archaeology 19, 291-297.

National Ecosystem Assessment (2011) Technical Report. Chapter 4, p. 87.

Plantlife (2010) Lichens and bryophytes of Atlantic woodland in Scotland: an introduction to their ecology and management. Back from the Brink Management Series.

Clive Hambler is an ecologist in the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford. clive.hambler@zoo.ox.ac.uk

Lobaria pulmonaria. This species of lichen could spread if more of the Lake District were rewilded.

Photo: Bernd Haynold. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons

flowers, beautiful butterflies and a relatively few threatened species of structurally impoverished mid-successional habitats. Aspen fuelwood is being extracted from wildlife sites such as Wappenbury Wood. A look through threatened species lists would rapidly reveal the folly, with many species benefitting from old aspen.

Why is Britain getting worse at conservation, such as rediscovering a destructive woodland industry and threatening top priority sites such as the river Severn with tidal energy development? Strangely, some still fear climate change to be the greater threat to wildlife. Some conservation practitioners ignore the survival of many species through the turbulent temperatures of the Holocene, and ignore the fact that ‘basic physics’ proved inadequate to model an ecosphere with negative biological feedbacks.

Dogmatists promoting alarm messages on climate change ignore evidence of cooling (such as the return of cold-water species to the Bristol Channel), and evidence of how to mitigate change. Just as aliens could appreciate that many species survived despite traditional management, not because of it, they could understand that 20th Century warming may be despite CO2, not because of it. CO2 may be boosting plankton which generate cooling clouds. Ironically, the removal of forest canopy releases CO2 and destroys a buffer against climate changes.

Fortunately, whilst British conservationists are still erring, they have been learning.

Rewilding is capturing minds and energizing in a way restoration ecology failed.

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Managing for nature A farmer’s view on wildlife schemes This article gives a farmer’s perspective of working with agri-environment schemes.

Experience to date has been positive, with a track record of helping wildlife flourish on the farm. But farmers are wary of cumbersome processes, hence the jury is out on the new Countryside Stewardship scheme.

MARTIN HOLE The holy grail of Countryside Stewardship (CS) is a viable farm burgeoning with wildlife. From a farmer’s perspective I want an agreement that is simple to administer, practical to undertake and flexible enough to function in our diverse countryside. As Defra is at the helm of one of the most progressive schemes known, I hoped the new approach to CS would be a major advance in nature conservation.

High yields for nature At Montague in East Sussex, we have delivered agri-environment for 25 years. We are a 320ha all-grass organic beef and sheep farm, three quarters of which falls within the Pevensey Levels SSSI. Our results are measurable, going from 0 to 40 pairs of Lapwing, 1 to 10 fields containing green-winged orchids and recording 19 different dragonfly species. Hence our surprise at having been inspected 3 times in the past decade for our Higher Level Scheme (HLS) – though one of these was an inspection of the inspector.

ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 records of process, simply to make our annual payment claim. So complex is this that non-compliance seems inevitable, even though our lapwing, whom we are being paid to conserve, may be cavorting merrily. This represents serious financial risk and, for other farmers, a fundamental barrier to entry.

To the credit of the Natural England hierarchy, harrowed responses to the new CS have been noted and some alterations to the regime have been made, but the crushing principle of remote inspection with no regard to wildlife conservation assessment remains. Blending the new prescriptions together in our proposal, we have discovered that small option changes have had a large impact on farm viability.

Austerity has bitten hard. About one fifth of the farm has been removed from the agreement and payment levels are less than they were 10 years ago. In tune with other businesses and most public services, we will be doing more for less. We are, though, grateful not to be facing the moral predicament of African farmers forced to tolerate rampant elephants, or hungry lions, with zero compensation.

Capital works have to be completed within 2 years of the agreement start, which runs counter to the guidance in the manual for our ditch and pond work. Disproportionate inspection criteria have diluted the ecology and practicality that should lie at the heart of CS. If we are unable to amend details now, it will be a backward step from previous schemes. There is real danger of conservation becoming a paper industry.

Someone must re-assert the vitality of science-based action.

Shelduck on Montague mud, Pevensey Levels.

Photo: Martin Hole

Montague was the first farm to enter the HLS 10 years ago, when the buzz was on “outcome” and “indicators of success”. Understanding “yield”, many farming colleagues were wryly content with these concepts. We hope to enter the new CS, in January 2016, so are among the first to be grappling with the new application process, relying heavily on our outstanding Natural England (NE) adviser. It has been a cold shower for us both. “Outcome focus” has been replaced by the throttling Jabberwocky of “mandatory evidential requirement”. Ecology, flexibility and collaborative commitment are being rinsed from the system, and replaced with the dead hand of grimly-reaping European Inspectors.

New bureaucracy, endless distraction Our first sight of the nesting wader prescriptions revealed a compulsory stipulation to gather up to 17 pieces of evidence, per field per year. These contain no mention of “bird”, let alone “fledging success”. Instead, having many small fields, we face taking hundreds of photographs of grass, water and trees, and keeping multiple 26

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ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 lead to positive outcomes, or even to a financial bonus. Such procedures should be done with the local Natural England office, pooling expertise, to generate team play and environmental gain, not petty conflict and confused isolation. Penal pillorying of the farmer is an emotive brake on the imagination and a wrecker of incentive, and breeds suspicious rather than trusting relationships.

If Countryside Stewardship cannot promote information about real returns, it will be hard to defend against further government cuts. It will be hard, also, to defend against swingeing regulation. Wildlife, as well as farmers, will suffer. CS is the most potent weapon in the conservation armoury, and it must roar. We at Montague Farm remain passionate advocates of voluntary agri-environment systems, but we must be scrutinised for the right reasons, to enable us and Natural England to trumpet success and identify challenge. And, lest we forget, for the owl to keep dining on snipe.

Martin Hole farms at Montague Farm, East Sussex. He is Chairman of Sussex Campaign for the Farmed Environment. montaguefarm@btinternet.com

Part of Montague Farm at Pevensey, in condition for its Countryside Stewardship agreement.

Photo: Martin Hole

Indicators of a healthy ecosystem We have fields where owls can be found hunting snipe. An ecologist may glean from this behaviour proof of high water levels (snipe) as well as a mix of grass sward heights (owls) in the same field (owls catching snipe). For the fiscal auditor, it satisfies the demand to know how taxes are spent and whether that expenditure is achieving the desired outcome. The man on the Clapham omni-bus (the electorate) enjoys the owls more than he might value the dusty accrual of incomprehensibly detailed grazing records.

One reason for fixating on nesting waders, other than their worrying decline, is that they sit at the top of an ecological pyramid. The ecosystem must be humming ‘beamishly’ and determined predator deterrence must be in place before these ground nesting birds can succeed. Like the owl, waders reproducing on the farm are proof of suitable management and biological health. Their quantification, much like weighing a crop, should be the mandatory main method of policing CS. Gathering the data through actual wildlife observation gives critical first hand involvement with target species, as well as a crucial measure of their thrift. It could be collaborative and constructive in ways which the potentially hostile inspection that farms already endure, through the Rural Payments Agency and other organisations, are not.

Working for nature, against the odds The application process itself is labyrinthine, and could be rationalised to produce specific baseline information which could then be actively monitored. We can provide useful information annually at option level, especially if the process were to Fen raft spider at Montague Farm, East Sussex.

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Photo: Martin Hole

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Where next for landscapescale conservation in England?

It’s been over three years since Nature Improvement Areas (NIAs) started, as a first step towards putting the Lawton vision of ‘bigger, better, more and joined’ landscapes for nature into practice. Here’s a perspective on the highs and lows of landscape-scale conservation in England since that time – and some ideas on how to keep the vision active.

LISA SCHNEIDAU In 2012, I wrote for ECOS about the start of the first twelve NIAs in England, all excited about the opportunity to create real change and develop the landscapescale agenda across a number of communities and disciplines.1 Looking back, those seem like heady days: so we had only achieved 12 areas to start with, but they were valued by government and part of a new programme which gave us some hope about the future.

Successes and constraints Three years on, and the Northern Devon NIA has been a great success so far. Working with local landowners and communities has achieved over 1500ha of restored wildlife habitat and 81ha of new habitat, significant interventions to improve water quality, over 150 events, 52 school habitat visits and two arts projects. So far we have advised on management of 21% of the land in the river Torridge catchment.

We enjoy a strong and diverse partnership under the auspices of the North Devon Biosphere Reserve. You can read more about our results and learning so far at http://www.northerndevonnia.org/news/38/nia-impact-revealed Similar work has been underway across England – progress for all twelve original NIAs has been impressive. The third year report for the NIA programme, with all data collected through the complex NIA Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, is still in draft and due to be published in January 2016.

The outlook for landscape-scale approaches The original 12 NIAs and hundreds of other landscape-scale initiatives continue across the UK, quietly doing excellent work, and almost all (in rural areas) continuing to be reliant on HLF, landfill tax and agri-environment schemes to achieve meaningful change. But our funding and staffing foundations are often shaky and alarmingly short-term. Many schemes rely on a strong lead partner to underwrite and fundraise for the staff time required for project management, partnership co-ordination and scheme development that all landscape-scale approaches require.

In their ‘phase 2’ projects, landscape-scale initiatives have a challenge to overcome the difficult ‘second album syndrome’, particularly in times of austerity where the 30

ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 minds of partner organisations are being pulled back to core functions. We have already seen some excellent initiatives with ambitious visions fizzling out after three years, with little to follow. At a recent conference I was told by a colleague from another conservation charity: “We’re not doing landscape-scale projects any more: our funding ran out, so we are focusing on something else.”

Our challenge, then, is to work with the short-term project funding which is a curse and a blessing for our sector, and for local partnerships to maintain, promote and uphold our landscape-scale visions. The tricky part is not being diverted from our vision by short-term project funding priorities – or a reduction in government commitment.

The nature of our times NIAs were originally meant to be ‘pilots’ for a much wider landscape-scale programme across England, but in September 2014 all twelve original NIAs were told to go away and carry on the good work with no further Defra funding. The original ambition of the Natural Environment White Paper quietly slipped away as all the boxes of the original Defra programme were ticked. There has been little word of the role of Local Nature Partnerships (LNPs) in identifying further ‘local NIAs’ since criteria were published in 2013. Although NIAs and LNPs are still within the remit of Defra, leadership from central government on landscape-scale conservation is sorely needed.

Since the return of the Conservative government in May, negative change in environmental policy and environmental funding has accelerated, and this is inevitably denting the confidence of nature conservation bodies. When the very foundations of our legal protection for internationally important sites have come into question, a quarter of staff in the statutory organisations have been lost, and the rhetoric of ‘environment being a barrier to business’, which we know to be unsubstantiated, is becoming ever louder, it is difficult to assert the positive benefits of landscape-scale conservation. Many Local Nature Partnerships have found it impossible to secure interest or funding from their Local Enterprise Partnerships, and again there is little leadership from government to encourage this.

Some other initiatives are worth noting in a landscape-scale context. Defra’s response to the continuation of landscape-scale work in England has been the Countryside Stewardship (CS) Facilitation Fund. This has the same level of funding, £7.5m, as the original twelve NIAs enjoyed, although it’s not from Treasury but from CAP coffers.

Defra’s aim is to spread this over a much larger number of projects. The scheme has potential to increase farmer confidence, skills and ownership of environmental outcomes in defined areas, linked to the Mid Tier of CS, with real positive potential.

However, NFU lobbying for a ‘farmer-led’ approach has led to a scheme which favours land agents and consultants, and is in danger of devaluing the significant skills, expertise and relationships built between farmers and conservation organisations.

It seems to have become fashionable to be negative about agri-environment schemes, and I find this unhelpful and counter-productive. Yes, we want farming to be so green it doesn’t need extra funding as a sticking-plaster for its lack of space for nature. But that time is a long way away, and much of the agricultural 31

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sector seems determined to reduce its environmental sustainability even further. In the meantime, and in the absence of meaningful environmental regulation, agrienvironment schemes are essential, and I believe that we should value and promote them. After all, they are simply taxpayers’ money paying for ecosystem services.

Another development is the ‘rewilding’ agenda, which gives an exciting boost to the renewal of truly wild ecosystems. The application of this approach on a crowded island is challenging, although initiatives such as the beaver project on the river Otter in Devon are inspiring. However, this approach must not detract from the importance of semi-natural landscapes for wildlife across much of England, particularly the lowlands. I believe we must avoid the development of an agenda which draws too sharp a contrast between ‘wild’ landscapes and intensive agriculture. Landscape-scale conservation deals with the tenacious and complex work of integrating more nature into all landscapes. The notion that it is acceptable for some landscapes to be devoid of nature altogether, because of the dominance of one unsustainable industry, if other landscapes elsewhere are ‘re-wilded’, is a dangerous one for a number of reasons.

The ecosystem services agenda, swiftly developing into ‘natural capital’, is another area which can be developed and delivered through landscape-scale approaches.

I believe this can bring significant learning and integration of the environmental agenda with the needs of wider society. One example is the use of Culm grassland to help manage flood risk in north Devon. But the concept of ecosystem services is not the answer to everything. Let’s not lose our holistic vision, intrinsic environmental values, or the heart of nature conservation, in the process.

Lastly, the NIA programme, and the conservation sector as a whole, has become more fluent and confident in recent years with the health and wellbeing agenda, leading to new and exciting connections between nature and people. Our challenge now is to develop our inspiring health and wellbeing projects and integrate them into everyday delivery structures, to make these connections last beyond timelimited funding.

Looking forward: courage and leadership If we allow landscape-scale conservation to be considered a luxury, only about 10 years after it first started finding its roots, then I believe we will have failed as a sector. For if we lose our vision and scale back our ambitions, we will lose ground.

When we set ourselves 20, 30, 50 year local visions, did we really mean it? Austerity is testing our resolve.

In considering the future of landscape-scale conservation, the nature conservation sector has a choice. If the landscape-scale agenda is left to wither, we will end up with our big-picture visions fading into the past, and a dwindling number of disconnected, time-limited projects simply muddling through in the wider countryside.

The other option is to promote strong national leadership from within the conservation sector, and maintain a vision for landscape-scale conservation which is 32

A hedge management workshop for landowners in the North Devon NIA. Photo: Devon Wildlife Trust

nationally visible, and fast-moving and adaptable in its local implementation. If this vision is not going to be provided by government, then the third sector organisations will need to collectively provide this leadership under a united banner. The promotion of a Health and Wellbeing Act by the environmental NGOs continues. At an English policy level, I suggest that our faith in continuing to realise the Lawton vision of expanded conservation and connectivity rests firmly in this camp.

Environmental charities still enjoy a large membership and a great deal of potential for activism. The landscape-scale agenda is a shared agenda by its very nature, and therefore a sustained level of activism at local and national levels is needed that makes nature tangible, compelling and personally relevant in the national mindset.

In the meantime, after significant development work the Northern Devon NIA continues, with four active projects, a further two in the wings, and detailed plans through to 2020. What will the climate for landscape-scale conservation be like by that time? Much of that is up to us.

Reference 1. Schneidau, L. (2012) ‘Landscape-scale conservation in the South West. Notes from the frontline’ ECOS 33(3/4) 50-55

Lisa Schneidau is the manager of the Northern Devon Nature Improvement Area, working for Devon Wildlife Trust; she also runs her own business as an environmental storyteller. The views expressed here are her own. lschneidau@devonwildlifetrust.org

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Rewilding gathers pace in the conservation mind fields Two wildernistas, Peter Taylor and Alison Parfitt, take stock of developments as everyone starts talking of rewilding...

PETER TAYLOR The September, 2015 Wild Thing conference, hosted by Professor Ian Rotherham at Sheffield Hallam University, followed on from a similar Wild by Design gathering in May 2014 – both of which I attended and gave presentations to. In just one year, it is evident to me that there is a rapid evolution taking place – a growing acceptance of rewilding themes amongst practitioners, associated with the work of BANC.1,2

Full spectrum rewilding?

In the first conference, I had the opportunity to present the full spectrum and scales of UK rewilding programmes, encompassing a variety of models. Many conservation professionals had not then appreciated the history and scope of the rewilding movement in Britain and held some unfounded prejudices based upon mediacoverage and the output of vociferous proponents, some of which had created a sense of impending conflict with traditional conservation objectives and values. I expected some resistance in 2014, but felt that most such melted away in the face of relevant facts and open discourse. For example, most rewilding practitioners are familiar with traditional conservation values relating to cultural landscapes, domestic grazing regimes, designated sites and all manner of managerial interventions, and have sought to rewild areas that do not engender conflict with traditional practices.

The approach has not been either/or, rather it has been and/and......according to site characteristics, histories, ownership and opportunity. At that first conference, data was presented for example on the value of ungrazed limestone pavement against the prevailing wisdom that grazing enhances wildlife value (by Steve Carver at Wildland Research Institute) , but this does not necessarily translate into a policy that would push for one above the other where both regimes can be maintained.

In our 2005 recommendations for national wildland core areas – one each for Wales, Scotland and England1, we showed that such large core areas of 400+ square kilometres could co-exist with traditional conservation zones (e.g. Rynogydd in North Wales, Ennerdale in the Lake District, and Glen Affric in the Highlands of Scotland). The concept of a large-area wildland zone embraced values of scale and natural process, e.g. wild river regimes, wind-throw in forest zones, fire etc.; the introduction of wild herbivores and diversification of the herbivore guild, and in Scotland at least, predators such as lynx and wolf. In such regimes, the microecology of plant species structure, ‘ biodiversity’ (meaning species diversity, with little sense of what that metric means in ecological terms) and subsequent knock34

ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 on effects on BAP target species would be of less importance than the values attached to scale, naturalness and iconic re-introduced species, but we made it clear that traditional targets could be maintained in buffer zones to core-areas, as well, of course, in large tracts of more intensely managed grazing, burning and shooting regimes. Of course, rewilding rapidly became a broad church – which BANC welcomed, that would necessarily include proponents of large-scale land-use change with concomitant economic as well as ecological consequences.3 At the 2014 gathering, there was a palpable scepticism and reluctance to embrace rewilding as a paradigmatic shift, but a clear softening of opposition when its scope and variety of methods was more fully appreciated. At this recent gathering, the speakers and audience were drawn more broadly, with a stronger international presence (Frans Vera, Mario Agnoletti, Kenneth Olwig) and some representation from agencies which had been missing in the previous gathering. Further, since 2014, a Rewilding Britain working group has set up an organisation, with some of the advisory group attending the conference. I was struck by how other agencies were openly taking on board a clear shift in paradigm and seeking to showcase their own ‘rewilding’ ideas and nascent schemes (e.g. Forestry Commission, National Trust).

The wild man is missing from the ecosystem!

In such a receptive environment, I was tempted to reprise the previous presentation – as some foreign delegates would be unaware of the work in the UK, but felt instead to push the rewilding envelope and test the water for my personal concerns that relate to ‘rewilding the human’ and the capacity for a paradigm shift in our relation to ‘conservation’ to affect broader environmental and personal consciousness. I thus focussed upon recent human evolution and elements of shamanic consciousness – arguing that we should learn from indigenous cultures that had a better conservation record in remaining wild areas than our own extractive development model. I talked about the need to redress the mind’s hemispheric imbalance in a patriarchal and consumerist society and for new models of education to balance the feminine receptive and intuitive forms of knowledge.

The first wild human, I proferred, was a shapeshifter, gathering the animal power of lion into his heart and walking not just upright, but with pride and confidence as the latest predator on the block. An ivory sculpture from a German cave carbondated to 40,000 BP is the oldest known human figurative art.4 The transformational Kundlini serpent came a bit later – and had its more positive origins in the Himalayas rather than the gardens and deserts of Juda.5 Surprisingly, what was described as somewhat ‘challenging’ material was nevertheless welcomed with at least some comments that it was good to be challenged.

Going beyond ecotourist models of a wilder economy My overall perception was thus of rapid progress over a relatively short period of time. I was also encouraged that my further concerns that rewilding might grow too far from its community roots were met with positive responses, especially from those concerned with the biocultural elements of landscape. One future challenge will be 35

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to integrate new forms of rural community and economy in or around wildland areas – forms that go beyond the current models of ‘ecotourism’ toward new modes of settlement and co-existence with wild nature, and which do not need to compromise core-area philosophies, rather support them.

health and wellbeing agendas – how can we nurture ourselves without nurturing our place? Health and wellbeing has to be about us as a part of all nature, a nature with vitality.

References

Elsewhere in this issue, Sophie Lake, representing VINE, says that connection is a great starting point, but it needs to lead on to ecological literacy – the ability to understand how nature sustains life and how to live accordingly. I see that as including embracing the wild, the dynamics of nature and ourselves. Also including, as Peter says: “the need to redress the mind’s hemispheric imbalance in a patriarchal and consumerist society and for new models of education to balance the feminine receptive and intuitive forms of knowledge”. There has to be change, has anyone come up with a better starting point than wilding? My own first wilding steps have included branching out into improvised performance, clowning, as a means of dialogue with folk beyond where discussion usually takes us.

1. Taylor, P. (2005) Beyond Conservation, Earthscan, London.

2. Taylor, P. ed. (2011) Rewilding: ECOS writing on conservaiton and wildland values 3. Monbiot, G. (2013) Feral: searching for enchantment on the frontiers of rewilding. Penguin.

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-man 5. Cozort, D. (1986) Highest Yoga Tantra, Snow Lion Publications

Peter Taylor peter.taylor@ethos-uk.com

Rewildling place and person ALISON PARFITT I too, see my passion for wilding being about rewilding the human as much as rewilding land. The one is integral with the other as I see it. So I am heartened by the appointment of Helen Meech as the first Director of the new organisation Rewilding Britain. Helen has been leading the National Trust’s public engagement work on outdoors and nature, including the award-winning 50 Things to do before you’re 11 3/4 campaign, Great British Walk and Project Wild Thing.

Does more engagement lead to our transformation?

You might now be saying, … “could this lead towards the paradigm shift in our relation to ‘conservation’ to affect broader environmental and personal consciousness…?” that Peter Taylor speaks of. Of course it is not to be assumed. But it feels like a good next step, to draw upon Helen’s experience of connecting people to the outdoors and nature as a way towards accepting and loving real, visceral wild and more of nature as it is (rather than as we humankind attempt to contrive it). After all, it is nearly two decades that ECOS has been showcasing the many rewilding, ecological restoration projects in Britain, and these very different projects are growing to show us a great deal about how land and nature can flourish. So now it seems very appropriate to consider how we, humankind, fit with that nature, or not? Book after book and blog after blog say that we cannot go on as we are.1

Ecological literacy and clowning

I and many others have been saying these things a long time. Nonetheless, both our increasing appreciation of the potentials of rewilding and the incontestable sense of the health and wellbeing agenda open up possibilities towards the paradigm shift and change of consciousness that are needed.

Rewilding Britain The new organisation Rewilding Britain3 has said that rewilding is the liberation of natural processes, including the return of keystone species, to large core areas of nature-led land and sea through non-intervention, for the benefit of nature, people and livelihoods. More detail, principles and values, and what we can do first will all emerge soon. How radical Rewilding Britain will be, how much of a change in consciousness will we aim for eventually I cannot foresee. Nonetheless, now I do see that wilding of place and people will have to come together, it is the same thing ultimately and I relish it.

References 1 http://thinkinglikeahuman.com/ 2 A summary on BANC website https://www.banc.org.uk/plotting-in-the-woods-banc-agm-and-eventseptember-2015/ 3 http://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/

Alison Parfitt alisonparfitt@phonecoop.coop

Nature’s vitality is our vitality The same understanding emerged at the BANC Plotting in the Woods event in September.2 Discussing questions within BANC’s revitalising conservation campaign, participants flagged up the familiar horrors of unwanted effects of globalisation, economic growth and the like. They also said be risk aware, not risk-averse, and linked this to a need for greater focus on resilience, in all areas of society and the environment. This will involve embracing change, including invasive species and climate change as well as the unexpected. Clear links were also made to the 36

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Revitalising conservation: the fountain of youth

ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 and many of the Wildlife Trusts across the UK. There are young people ready to get involved in conservation across the world and we must welcome their contributions.

The answer to that confident student from South-East London, who as it turns out is far from a lone wolf, should be, ‘help us, help us increase our relevance, help us empower others, join us in this movement’.

The forgotten years This article explores how we can engage young people in conservation. Drawing on their work with Action for Conservation, the authors explore lessons from other disciplines which highlight the importance of collaboration across organisations, sectors and communities. They suggest that, above all, we must recognise young people as the revitalising tonic that they are and that conservation so desperately needs.

HENDRIKUS VAN HENSBERGEN & KATE HUGGETT Clarifying conservation Imagine this: you walk into a room of thirty fourteen year olds from a school in South-East London. You ask them ‘what do you think conservation is?’

Silence. Some shuffling. Then a few tentative voices start to explore the question: ‘zoos’, ‘building national parks’, ‘err…lions’, ‘protecting habitats’. You nod encouragingly, and then one confident voice pipes up above the rest - ‘but what can we actually do, you know, ourselves?’ Quite!

The question ‘what is conservation?’ doesn’t only baffle 14 year olds; it poses problems for those who have worked in the field for years. As Emily Adams points out, conservation is complex ‘part vocation, part crusade, part crisis-driven and often ideological and self-righteous’.1 Now divisions between those who believe that nature should be protected for its own sake and those who believe it has a more instrumental value threaten to derail progress2 and reading the last issue of ECOS it is clear that there are many working in conservation who worry about its future; who believe, like David Blake, that conservation today is in the doldrums, drifting listlessly with no energy or courage to break new ground.3 These are symptoms of a broader identity crisis within the field that must be countered through innovation, collaboration and the creation of new narratives that make conservation relevant to new groups of people who will revitalise the field through their involvement. It was with this in mind that we set up Action for Conservation (AFC) as a charity in 2014. We are a group of young conservation professionals with a vision that every young person (aged 11 to 18) in the UK should be moved and empowered to protect the natural world, and we hope to achieve this by bringing the magic of nature into UK schools, inspiring a youth movement committed to conservation and to the earth. We initially saw an opportunity to visit schools and inspire an age group who are underrepresented and wrongly perceived as ‘largely uninterested’4 in some conservation circles. It is now clear that we can also reinvigorate our field with their insights, by offering work experience opportunities locally through our partner conservation organisations, such as the National Trust 38

Reports by organisations such as the National Trust and the RSPB tell a story of increasing childhood disconnection from nature and the result, ‘nature deficit disorder’.5,6 It is concerning that ‘acorn’ and ‘bluebell’, considered no longer relevant to children’s lives, have been replaced in the Oxford Children’s Dictionary by ‘hashtag’ and ‘tweet’7 and that children are missing out on the improved mental well-being, resilience, confidence and achievement that learning in nature provides.8,9 However, through the increasing popularity of programmes for primary school children such as the Forest Schools movement10, and a huge number of other projects set up to redress this balance, many of which are active members of the burgeoning ‘Wild Network’,11 children are taught to love and connect with the rest of the natural world early on. For those navigating the wilds of secondary school, however, a lack of widespread and ongoing engagement threatens to dismantle the solid foundation we have built with our children. A huge proportion of young people in the UK haven’t considered conservation as a field of work, have no links within the sector and would be unsure about how to help the natural world. For example, although environmental volunteering in the UK is thriving, with nearly 80 per cent of all those who volunteer on a regular basis engaged in projects that focus on conservation, the environment or heritage,12 the number of young people giving their time to such projects remains low. Lack of confidence in capabilities, unfamiliar formal structures and organisational attitudes towards young people are just some of the reasons,13 and we have found that a lack of inspiration and understanding are also often barriers to engagement. This represents a failure to engage young people in the right way, not a lack of interest within this age group - one reason why being present in schools to inspire students face-to-face and answer questions about placements and opportunities is so valuable.

This isn’t to say that organisations across the UK aren’t doing fantastic work in this area – they are. The National Trust, Wildlife Trusts and Trees for Life are already working hard to engage groups of young people and overcome barriers within their own organisations. A Focus on Nature helps connect young people already interested in conservation and the Conservation Volunteers and our partners Froglife are making vital efforts to engage young offenders and those outside mainstream education using practical conservation work.14 There are also examples of successful collaborations with youth work organisations outside of the conservation sector, for example, the North Wales Wildlife Trust and their efforts to improve levels of youth involvement by teaming up with the young volunteering network Gwirvol15 and the National Trust providing silver and gold Duke of Edinburgh award participants16 with volunteering opportunities. At AFC our work would be impossible without the support of a number of conservation organisations and individual conservationists who give up their time to lead workshops and inspire young people, but the 39

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benefits of collaboration flow both ways. Our volunteer workshop leaders are able to promote their work whilst learning new methods of engagement through training we provide, ultimately returning to their place of work with new skills to share. Our partnerships allow us to offer work experience placements to young people from diverse backgrounds. In turn, partners create an extra layer of outreach at no cost, as we demonstrate the work that they do when offering placements to school groups. During work experience placements themselves, young people experience conservation and gain valuable skills, but they can also revitalise and imbue our partner organisations with their freshness of thought and optimism. As a community we should celebrate all of our successes, but we must also look to identify and share successful collaborative approaches. It is only through working together in a more coordinated fashion that we will achieve the scale necessary to tackle this problem.

Students participating in a warm up activity in a school in Wales, just before they debate the reintroduction of Lynx into the UK .

An ecology of mind Over the last five years conservation has suffered, Lisa Schneidau suggests in the last issue of ECOS, from too much emphasis being placed on eco-system services based arguments. Arguments that lose traction,17 if they ignore powerful narratives around the majesty of the natural world and fail to leave space for grassroots action, human diversity and creativity. Valuable lessons can be drawn from the broader environmental movement. In the last 10 years, environmentalism worldwide has experienced a grassroots renaissance, visible in the explosion of the divestment movement;18 the growth of permaculture and agroecological methods; the development of community energy programmes and the rise of everything eco-friendly. Youth activist group Earth Guardians, and its charismatic figurehead, 14-year-old Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez, is just one stunning example of how young people have been empowered to take action for the planet, in this case by challenging the fossil fuel industry.19 COP21 was a key theme of this year’s Friends of the Earth UK ‘basecamp’, that AFC attended. A feeling that climate talks in Copenhagen had been disastrous because too much faith had been placed in politicians pervaded the weekend. The consensus was that Friends of the Earth needed urgently to engage with the grassroots and other conservation organisations must recognise this too. An emerging environmentalism sees the natural world not as a resource, but a delicate web of which we are just one part, and which deserves our utmost respect and care. A line of argument that is particularly appealing to young people. This philosophy is not a new one – it’s found in countless indigenous cosmologies and as early as 1972 Gregory Bateson called for a movement ‘towards an ecology of mind’, warning against the human folly of believing that we are separate from nature, but, as our Trustee, Robert Macfarlane, described in a recent article for the New Statesman, ‘it is distinctive in its contemporary intensity’.20 It is a diverse, progressive and exuberant movement, championing community, localism and democracy. It is identifiable in the building of transition towns; Forest Schools and the explosion of nature writing; the nationwide battle for allotment space21 and the rise of ecological therapy.

Conservation urgently needs to establish its position within this conversation and not apart from it. If we are to be revitalised we need to re-engage the masses, we need to embrace an ‘ecology of mind’.

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Photo: Sally Jones

The ‘ACT’ in action Science is of paramount importance to conservation, but to build this ‘ecology of mind’ we must draw on a broad field of disciplines. All too often we hear students say that they can’t get involved in conservation because they are not good at science or because they prefer English. As a community we urgently need to change this perception. Initiatives such as the New Networks for Nature22 or Synchronicity Earth’s collaboration with the artist Louis Masai23 and upcoming campaign on coral,24 among countless others, bring the power and potential for inspiration within other disciplines into sharp focus and we should make the most of new spaces such as the Cambridge Conservation Initiative25 to experiment and share.

Using the arts has hugely improved our effectiveness; we now use games and activities developed by drama practitioners: tables and chairs are moved to the walls and students are thrown into the drama of conservation, impersonating a lynx; debating rewilding or whether we should ever eat meat. Present a group of students with the statement ‘some animals are more important to save than others’, ask them to stand on an ‘opinion continuum’ and justify their decision and the discussions that follow will be fiery, insightful and you’ll have trouble getting a word in edgeways. The results speak for themselves, in one term of operation we have engaged almost 1000 young people and over 97% feel they better understand conservation and why it is important and over 85% feel they understand what a career in conservation looks like and feel excited and empowered by the role they could play. Compare this with the lowered gazes and reluctant answers that we received in response to our first trial workshops using PowerPoint presentations and it is clear, there is no going back! Though we haven’t yet gone as far as Østerskov Efterskole, a boarding school in Denmark, which uses a form of ‘Live Action RolePlay’ to teach its students all subjects,26 we draw inspiration from their commitment to immersion through drama. Its benefits are widely recognised, role-play has been proven to help develop sociality in children with developmental disorders such as Asperger’s Syndrome27 and Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed28 has been 41

ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 using re-enactment for years to tackle social oppression. Other conservationists are making steps in this direction too; Eco-drama29 in Scotland are using theatre to educate primary students about green issues and following the huge success of one of its students in the baffling ‘dance your PhD competition’30 the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, led by the Chair of our Trustees, David Macdonald, is undertaking research in this area. Of course we are not suggesting that all conservationists take to the stage or that drama is the only answer, engaging communication must be complemented with opportunities for young people to add their voices to the debate in a meaningful way, but if drama helps us inspire engagement, then play on.

Positive vibes Another lesson we have drawn from our work is how vital positivity can be. In 2009 the government released a television advert to inform people about climate change and inspire them to act. A father read his daughter a bedtime story about how the human race is destroying the planet and at the end the little girl plaintively asks; ‘will there be a happy ending?’. Did it work? No. Apart from the madness of creating an advert that presented climate change as a fairytale,31 the problem was that it simply told us a depressing story. It received 200 complaints from viewers for scaremongering about the effects of climate change. Rather than empower people to act, it threatened its viewers and contributed to what some see as mass melancholia in response to climate change.32 This is a familiar trap for anyone who has tried to communicate about the need to take action for the environment. More often than not, young people feel oppressed and disempowered by what seem like insurmountable global problems. We often see it when we first meet young people in our workshops, and it comes through loud and clear in the question put forward by that student from South-East London, ‘what can we actually do?’. However, whilst positive communication is difficult when the news is all too often bad, it is not impossible. Last year the Climate Outreach Project asked young people aged 18-25 what they thought about the communication of climate change. Whilst the results didn’t reflect well on past approaches, what is far more interesting are the solutions that these young people offered in return.33 We should all take note and build the kinds of communication narratives that will inspire them. Buried somewhere between the volumes of scientific papers, political jargon and the bad news, there is an exciting story of change and empowerment. Every young conservationist who volunteers to deliver one of our school workshops is doing such inspiring work, that it merely falls to us to provide a magnifying glass to a group of young people who sit waiting, like a coiled spring, full of positive potential.

Yes conservation needs revitalising, but there are signs that this is occurring and exciting momentum to build upon. Across the UK and beyond, people from diverse backgrounds are taking all sorts of actions to rebalance their relationship with the environment in their own communities. Conservation needs to work with them, from the ground up, to create sustainable change. Young people are the future of this field and its lifeblood. In every classroom and school hall we encounter young people passionate about the environment and desperate to learn how to protect it. When they leave school, they should feel empowered to work for the benefit 42

ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 of the natural world and receive support from a community of likeminded peers.

Action for Conservation is one chapter of many; as we connect young people to opportunities and to each other through our workshops and with time, we hope, through developing an online community, we must reach out and collaborate with other organisations and disciplines. As a movement we must traverse diverse fields and frontiers to develop that ‘ecology of mind’, remembering that whilst we all have a different focus, the lessons we learn are valuable for everyone and, above all, that we have the most wonderful common cause to fight for.

References 1. https://www.banc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ECOS-36-1-2-Re-freshing-conservation.pdf 2. http://www.nature.com/news/working-together-a-call-for-inclusive-conservation-1.16260 3. https://www.banc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ECOS-36-1-2-Re-freshing-conservation.pdf 4. http://markavery.info/2014/04/04/heptinstall/ 5. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/document-1355766991839/ 6. http://www.rspb.org.uk/forprofessionals/policy/education/research/connection-to-nature.aspx 7. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/13/oxford-junior-dictionary-replacement-natural-words 8. http://www.mind.org.uk/media/336359/Feel-better-outside-feel-better-inside-report.pdf 9. https://www.academia.edu/13182036/Impacts_of_Long_Term_Forest_School_Programmes_on_Children_s_ Resilience_Confidence_and_Wellbeing 10. http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/apr/21/outdoor-learning-forest-school-revolution 11. http://www.thewildnetwork.com/thewildnetwork 12. (Low et al. 2007), 13. (Ferrier, Roos and Long, 2004).

14. http://www.froglife.org/what-we-do/fact/ 15. http://www.gwirvol.org/ 16. http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/article-1356394757218/ 17. http://e360.yale.edu/feature/ecosystem_services_whats_wrong_with_putting_a_price_on_nature/2583/ 18. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-22/fossil-fuel-divestment-movement-exceeds-2-6-trillion 19. http://www.earthguardians.org/ 20. http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/nature/2015/09/robert-macfarlane-why-we-need-nature-writing 21. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/demand-for-allotments-soars-in-quest-for-organicfood-799872.html 22. http://www.newnetworksfornature.org.uk/ 23. http://londoncallingblog.net/2015/09/19/new-louis-masai-mural-for-synchronicity-earth-in-shoreditch/ 24. http://www.synchronicityearth.org/campaigns 25. http://www.conservation.cam.ac.uk/cambridge-conservation-initiative-cci 26. http://www.vice.com/read/at-this-danish-school-larping-is-the-future-of-education-482 27. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2719548/ 28. https://brechtforum.org/abouttop 29. http://www.teachingscotland.org.uk/education-in-scotland/primary-teaching/exclusive-eco-drama-2015.aspx 30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LMa3Nh2SuQ 31. George Marshall, ‘Don’t even think about it: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change, 2014 32. http://earthtechling.com/2012/05/melancholia-the-psychology-of-climate-change-awareness/ 33. http://climateoutreach.org/research-reveals-current-climate-engagement-strategies-are-failing-to-reachyoung-people/

Hendrikus van Hensbergen is the Founding Director of Action for Conservation and Kate Huggett coordinates the Action for Conservation workshop programme. hendrikus@actionforconservation.org

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Iran’s greenest government ever On 17 November 2015, the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a 15 point list of policy directives to address the country’s wide ranging environmental challenges.1 This article looks at the secular and religious background to this unprecedented announcement.

JANET MACKINNON Iran’s unique natural heritage and political ecology may be unfamiliar, but actually hosts many species of environmentalist found in the West. Eco-modernists promoting nuclear power and technology-led development vie with more traditional nature conservationists, as well as a green lifestyle movement advocating renewables, ethical consumption and the circular economy. Despite recent political isolation, the Iranian state-led environmental agenda is well-integrated with global and transnational conventions, and the country has taken a lead in tackling some of the key sustainability challenges of the Middle East and West Asia. To understand why the Islamic Republic really does have its greenest government ever, one must look within Iran, at the Iranian diaspora of scientists, intellectuals and environmental activists, at the work of international agencies, and also to a worldwide ecological discourse amongst Muslim scholars.

Muslim eco-theology Notwithstanding its highly charged negative associations for non-Muslims, the term “Jihad” is increasingly used to describe the global struggle to conserve the environment.2 In a 2013 article entitled ‘The Call to Eco-Jihad’, Monika Zbidi describes the development of Islamic environmental theology since the 1960s.3 The overall aim of this, she says, has been to examine green principles such as sustainability, environmental protection, animal welfare, and biodiversity in terms of their compatibility with Islam. Zbidi identifies the founding father of Muslim eco-theology as the Iranian-born philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr, author of the 1967 book Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man. According to Islamic environmental ethics conserving nature and creation is one of a Muslim’s most important obligations. Water plays a very important role in Islam because it is considered to be the source and foundation of life.

Environmental ethics Last year, Iran hosted an international forum on environmental ethics for countries from the Middle East and West Asia. This was opened by Massoumeh Ebtekar, influential Vice President and head of the country’s environment department, life scientist and student spokeswoman for the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Her contribution highlighted the moral imperative of nature conservation and sustainable 44

The endangered Persian leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor), now subject to more monitoring programmes and public awareness campaigns in Iran.

Photo: Tamar Asaf, Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain.

development, as well as the scientific case for these. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Fifth National Report to the Convention on Biological Diversity (April 2015) is a comprehensive and surprisingly readable account of the state of Iranian natural heritage.4 This emphasises that environmental issues are a priority for President Hassan Rouhani, and that Vice President Ebtekar and her department have ensured successful integration of the “environmental aspects of development” throughout the work of the reformist government which came to power in 2013.

The Western narrative However, if official government reporting on the environment of Iran endeavours to strike a note of optimism, it also recognises the enormous challenges facing the country and wider region. These problems tend to dominate the external narrative, as evidenced in 2014 at a symposium hosted by London’s Royal Geographical Society.5 Organised by the UK-based Iran Heritage Foundation in association with the USbased Persian Wildlife Foundation, this event included a keynote speech from the United Nations Resident Coordinator in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Gary Lewis. He described the condition of some Iranian ecosystems as “apocalyptic”, emphasising that water is the biggest resource constraint, followed by land degradation arising from desertification and deforestation. Wildlife loss was also highlighted by the veteran environmentalist Eskander Firouz, author of The Complete Fauna of Iran who said that wildlife has declined by 85% in recent years.6 Continuing this narrative, the fate of Lake Urmia, once one of the world’s largest salt lakes, provided the focus for a conference at the European Parliament in late 2015.7 45

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Conservation in context One of the more objective accounts of the state of the Iranian environment is to be found in the biennial Yale global Environmental Performance Index. Overall, Iran was ranked 83rd in 2014, up from 114th in 2012, but down from 40th in 2006.8 The index suggests that economic sanctions have had a strongly negative impact upon the environment, something corroborated by a 2014 article in The Guardian newspaper.9 This reported that unique Iranian wildlife at the crossroads of Africa, Asia, and Europe was being lost at an alarming rate. “The Asiatic cheetahs, Asiatic black bear, goitered gazelle, and Persian wild ass are among the species pushed to extinction through irreversible man-made processes.” The 2014 Yale Index placed Iran in 128th position for wildlife and habitat conservation.

International comparisons By comparison, the UK and Ireland were in 70th and 150th respectively for their nature conservation performance, despite having much higher environmental rankings overall (12th and 19th). These composite rankings tend to reflect national economic development levels, with the UK and Ireland sharing a similar annual GDP per capita of around $38,500, compared to Iran’s $4,500 according to the 2014 Yale EPI. The British Isles has also enjoyed 70 years of peace, whereas Iran was at war with Iraq for most of the 1980s, and then beset by the Middle East conflict zone during the 21st century. Given the circumstances, one might conclude that Iranian ‘environmental performance’, and the apparent determination of the present administration to tackle the country’s very real problems in conjunction with neighbouring countries, really does reflect the spirit of so-called ‘Eco-Jihad’.

War and the environment In 2001, the United Nations declared 6 November of each year as the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict.

This occasion obviously has a particular resonance for Iran, and the country’s high profile foreign secretary Mohammad Javad Zarif was a key speaker at a “Conference on Destructive Impacts of War on the Environment” in Tehran in 2015 to mark the UN event. It is not without sad irony, therefore, that one of the major legacies of Iran’s war with Iraq – landmines – are now regarded as an important aid to nature conservation. As an article in National Geographic described last year: “Land mines keep people out of the Persian leopard’s last habitats, creating a conundrum— removing the hazards leaves the cats more vulnerable”.10

Persian wildlife heritage Yet it would be wrong to overplay what might be described as “extreme conservation” in a war-blighted region, just as the Western narrative of Iranian environmental dystopia is an over-simplification. Iran has its greenest government ever partly due to these challenges but also because Persian cultural heritage has traditionally ascribed great importance to the natural world. It was probably for this reason that a Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation was established in 2008 “to help protect biodiversity in Iran.” The PWHF “is active in wildlife research, conservation, and educational programmes designed to raise public awareness about the state of the wildlife and environment in Iran”.11 Although nominally an 46

ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 NGO, it is more similar to the hybrid charitable organisations set up by recent British governments to promote sustainable development. The PWHF works closely with the UN Development Programme in Iran.12

More positive outlook The protection of iconic wildlife such as the leopard and, in particular, the Asiatic cheetah, has been a vital motivating force for the Iranian government, international conservation efforts focussed on Iran, and also non-government organisations working in the country. There is no doubt that an energetic and committed environmental movement exists in the Islamic Republic, and that it also operates in very difficult circumstances. These include a shortage of financial resources to ensure that laws to conserve wildlife are observed and ecological restoration works are implemented. The unique difficulties of operating in Iran, not just for foreigners and local groups working outside official channels, but even for high level government officials and reformist politicians should also not be underestimated.

Nevertheless, as the UN’s Resident Coordinator in the Islamic Republic told participants at the event ‘Iran’s Natural Heritage: A Catalyst Symposium to Spark Measurable Change’ in 2014: “We have a long road ahead. But I believe that we are now – quite literally – operating in a positive environment”.5 On the basis of official statements from the Government, and most recently from the Supreme Leader, Iran’s political ecology seems to have improved beyond expectations in 2015.13 Moreover, a new environmental consciousness is also increasingly evidenced in neighbouring countries, and this is surely a welcome good news story from what is generally viewed as a profoundly troubled region of the world.

References 1. http://ebtekarm.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/supreme-leader-submits-general-policies.html 2. http://www.eurasiareview.com/04112015-islams-moderate-wasatiyah-vision-and-jihad-through-service-tothe-environment-analysis/ 3. https://en.qantara.de/content/islamic-environmentalism-the-call-to-eco-jihad 4. https://www.cbd.int/doc/world/ir/ir-nr-05-en.pdf 5. http://www.iranheritage.org/Ecology/ 6. http://www.worldcat.org/title/complete-fauna-of-iran/oclc/57484234 7. http://unpo.org/article/18729 8. http://epi.yale.edu/epi/country-profile/iran 9. http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2014/nov/21/iran-environmental-consequences-of-sanctions 10. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141219-persian-leopard-iran-iraq-land-mine/ 11. http://persianwildlife.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/PWN.No_.10-Final-en-small.pdf https://www. facebook.com/PersianWildlifeHeritage/ https://instagram.com/pwhf/ 12. http://www.undp.org/content/iran/en/home/ourwork/Environment_sustainable_development/overview.html 13. http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2015/mar/18/irans-leaders-react-to-the-nations-massiveenvironmental-challenge

Janet Mackinnon has been thinking globally and acting locally on a range of environmental issues since the late 1970s. She has spent much of the past 30 years engaged in the prevention and promotion of (in)appropriate and (un)sustainable development. janet.mackinnon@outlook.com

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Nature and two legs Exploring, understanding, and enthusing about nature require both art and science.

MARTIN SPRAY Something missing?

I was never artistic. Schooling that required specialisation in either arts and humanities or science helped my transition from naturalist to ecologist in both senses. Later, I left a botany research lab and began work teaching would-be landscape architects in a College of Art & Design, and soon realised that until then I had spent most of my life standing on one leg.

I’d missed something. Not the doing of art; I mean I had not appreciated how much ‘art’ is a way of communicating, and a means of gaining knowledge of the world. It offers a variety of ways of communicating in which I had (and still have) little practice: without words. While I tried to demonstrate an understanding of ecology in the conventionally neutral prose of science, some others showed theirs by drawing it, or in their poetry, music, or designs.

Science, art and emotion Of course, the understandings only partly coincide. Each interprets a part of the truth (if there is such a thing) - or rather each is a kind of truth. Neither by itself is sufficient. I realise representing society as just two camps is simplistic, and that the characterisations are in shorthand; but I mean ‘science’ to signify a rational, thinking understanding of things from which one is – theoretically - detached, and I mean ‘art’ to signify an emotional, sensory, understanding. An attitude of objective indifference is inherent in the ‘standard’ western scientific method. The Code of ethics of the Institute of Biology, 2005, for instance, tells us that “Objectivity is the state of mind which has regard to all conclusions relevant to the task in hand, and no other.” Modern science is, if you like, an attempt to look at nature with aloofness.

The attempt probably does not usually succeed. An acceptance of involvement – of participation, even being-one-with - seems to come with artistic experience. By ‘art’, I mean more than something done by ‘artists’ - thus probably not done by the rest of us. What I meant at the start of this piece is that I am not artistically skilled.

Two legs My art college revelation generated many questions. Two in particular recur when I think about environmental issues, conservation, and what environmental artists are doing:

ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 Except to suggest that the ‘partnership’ really needs to be within each of us, I don’t have a ‘how to’ prescription. However, I may be mistaken but I believe they (1 above) can, and (2) probably can. I am not making a call for us to be irrational, or to treat serious matters lightly, but am suggesting that a mixing of rational, ‘scientific’, interpretations of the world with more ‘creative’ approaches can be more insightful than just one alone. Walking on two legs is usually better than hopping along on one.

Ways of looking at nature ‘Nature’ is still often seen as the wellspring of artistic endeavour. Our endeavours admire, praise, and mimic, the so-called natural world; but also our endeavours denigrate it, and proclaim our desire to over-rule it. Whatever the motivation, ‘artists’ can be hugely helpful to the systematic study of nature, not only in recording and visualising data, but also by offering alternative ways of observing or even conceptualising things – because in part they are looking for different things. ‘Art’ itself may benefit, not least by appreciating that the world is more complex than most people – artists included - think, and that anything is interesting when you’ve been properly introduced to it. A classic example of both is the structure and beauty of snowflakes seen microscopically. And art benefits also by increasing its audience.

Art conveys feelings of awe and sentimentality, and of fear, for the world and its content. Now, it is increasingly appreciated as a means (there are others) of expressing our frustration and anger, and fear, at the overuse of what we call ‘resources’ - and of demonstrating a commitment to doing something about it.

Mainstream science (there are heresies) doesn’t do this. I imply no denigration, but I doubt if cold science by itself can ever ‘save the world’. Nor could art. I don’t pretend that more than very little of it is done with this intention - but where it is, a symbiosis of rational investigation with ‘artistic activity’ as interpreter surely enhances the chance of success.

Science gives us (temporary and shifting) explanations of things, including environmental problems. Without human warmth, this understanding remains ‘objective’, too easily not seen as personally relevant, and almost always sidelined.

Warmth draws in the understanding to become something we feel - surely a more animal response, and more powerful for that. Understanding through experience may also be pro tem., as moods and perceptions vary, yet it seems more likely to make us get up and do something.

How can one tell?

It may be the ‘wrong’ thing, of course. A difficulty with art, as T.S. Eliot put it, is that often its meaning is communicated before it is understood intellectually. We get the message, but can’t say what it is. We need it interpreted - into words. The gallery’s catalogue raisonné accompanying an exhibition is a nice example. It is all too easy to grasp firmly the wrong end of the stick.

1. (How) can a partnership of arts and sciences help us better understand the world?

2. (How) can such a partnership help us towards a better relationship with the world?

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If an artist has made an ‘artwork’ – an object or event or performance – because of wanting us to “do something about” forest felling, groundwater pollution, the plight of polar bears, or whatever, (how) can one tell? And (how) does one know 49

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ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 moorland is precious and our nearest thing to wild country, yet concurring with the opinion that it is degraded land, and much should be re-clothed in native forest.

Science knows both to be interesting; art shows each to be beautiful; and yes - each response is partly subjective.

I have recently been reminded of a question I often chew on: Is there such a thing as an ugly butterfly? “No!” Is this not subjectively correct? An artist may say so, and paint them. A nature conservationist may say so – and perhaps bring sheep onto a piece of overgrown grassland that a second ‘beyond’ conservationist (after Peter Taylor) wants to develop into woodland, and that a third Green sees as ideal for a wind turbine… Is there such a thing as a beautiful slug – and when did you last see a painting of one for sale?

A tale to tell

CHRISTINE SMYTH

The creative act is perhaps firstly a vehicle for sorting out one’s own feelings - like the child who, asked what she was thinking about, replied that she didn’t know, because she hadn’t said it yet. Such is the tyranny of words, that we tend to think we can’t think without them!

what to do? Take a hypothetical example (Figure): Jo is worried by what she has been told about the survival of polar bears. Wanting to use her talent as an artist, to influence people to her point of view, that we must ‘save’ these animals, she paints a picture. But Jo is confused; she can’t decide what the future holds for them. Then, no sooner is her picture displayed than she reads about revised predictions of the collapse of Greenland’s ice-sheet, and can’t sleep for worry. She starts another painting….

Disturbing ugly butterflies Of course, there are complications. Science and art can both serve all parties and points of view. Art may, as Georges Braques believed, be intended to disturb us, and show us new things to think about in new ways; but my thinking may not be to your liking, and there is seldom a single point-of-view. Moreover, I frequently find myself in a quandary, for example agreeing with the opinion that Britain’s open 50

Of course, words are as often as not - though their users may not think of it this way – used ‘artistically’, or at least not literally and rationally. “Places become meaningful when there is a story”, says environmental scholar Jules Pretty, and in Ecologies of the heart E.N. Anderson discusses the roles of myths and folktales in the transmission of environmental information, noting that in both Australia and California these “function as, among other things, devices to teach the young about the environment. [Native Australian] children learn myths that include the travels of culture heroes around the water-holes in the territory. For these desert people, [...] a list of water holes is a great deal easier to memorize if it is embedded in a racy story with lots of sex, violence, and religion.” Putting story and word together, philosopher and historian Ananda K. Coomaraswamy concluded that “Myth embodies the nearest approach to absolute truth that can be stated in words.”

Places become meaningful when there is a story – and the story may be a concerto, an abstract sculpture, or a dance. Both science and art can communicate much without words. Indeed, ‘hard’ sciences strive for mathematical expression. Most ‘art’ experience is non-verbal - or is poetic. Mathematics is a language not widely understood; but art offers vernacular alternatives to word-language - especially scientific and ‘report’ prose - and the potential to deal with questions and issues, and to come to conclusions, that words can’t reach.

Heart and mind Picasso called art “the lie that reveals the truth”. Important support science offers art is to be the means of structuring a rationale that bridges from (to use poetic expressions as shorthand) heart-understanding to mind-understanding. I suspect that in making these bridges, we are all a little like the mathematician Gauss, who once explained that he had had his results for a long time, but still wasn’t sure how to reach them. As well as anyone, the environmentalist knows this step is essential to 51

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success: as acceptance of environmental problems spreads, the scientists’ message will need to be grasped by more and more lay persons. It will probably usually be grasped in translation. Its logical structures, quantification, and other features can underpin the “fast and loose” making of art (and Jo’s “doom and gloom” reaction), and it offers reassurance that we share the same reasons for feeling as we do. And yet – witness ECOS – words are crucial. We are interpreters, we are translators, and we should struggle to use appropriate ones; and they should flow like water.

One source – let’s for the moment call it mind-understanding – is our knowledge and the intellectual processes by which we categorise and think through to an understanding of what we know about something new to us, so that we can pigeonhole it, and tell others about it – though the paradigm you accept may not be able to accommodate it.

Another source – let’s call it heart-understanding – is our feelings, and the ‘flashes’ in which we recognize something new to us, and out of which come the story, the picture, the experience we want to give to you – though (as Jo now knows) you may be tuned to a different wavelength.

“Never till Time is done / Will the fire of the heart and the fire of the mind be one” claims English poet Edith Sitwell. Well – maybe, or maybe not. But we keep warmer from having both. And whether it’s answers or questions, truth or belief, we’re looking for, the search ought to be easier if we can walk on two legs, not hop on one - whichever one that is.

Martin Spray is at spraypludds@hotmail.com This article is adapted from an earlier version published at Greenmuseum.

Flood resilience in Cumbria? Woody debris along the River Liza in the rewilding valley of Ennerdale. This area escaped the severe December 2015 floods, but the natural and unconstrained course of the River Liza has been able to help buffer the effects of previous flood episodes.

Photo: Rachel Oakley

Plotting in the Woods Revitalising conservation was at the heart of debate at the BANC annual event in October 2015. This article reviews the main conclusions from the day and looks ahead to BANC’s next steps on the topic.

EMILY ADAMS BANC’s meetings are typically held at unconventional venues. In 2015, we visited the community-owned Neroche Woodlanders site in Somerset (http://www. youngwood.org.uk/), complete with musical installations, a round house, fire pits and, luckily, lots of sunshine. Around 30 people participated, including nonmembers, from many different backgrounds in conservation. The intention was to ‘start a conversation’ about three things: • Celebrating what the conservation sector has achieved; • Reflecting on what we need to change as we move forwards with nature conservation; and • Ideals about the future of conservation, and of our society more broadly.

The focus of the event was on looking to the positive aspects of conservation as a counterpoint to the current gloomy situation of ongoing cuts and low morale. We wanted to think broadly, to spark ideas for ECOS and for future events, and to help refine BANC’s role in conservation activity. The main conclusions are summarised under four headings below.

Conservation successes

The professionalisation of conservation, and its consequent recognition by others.

Raising awareness of the natural world and how we as a society interact with it. This is an achievement to be proud of but there is more to be done.

The creation of legislation targeting nature and co-existence with other land uses (e.g. in farmland) has been a huge success both nationally and internationally.

A big part of this is also the creation of protected areas, particularly the SSSI network which helps maintain high-quality habitats while surrounding areas have been degraded.

Improved access opportunities including long-distance paths, National Trails, cycle networks, open access, increased coastal access, and the Countryside and Rights of Way Act.

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What we should leave behind

The low political profile of nature: The decline in political support for environmental protection in the last decade is a major concern. This trend needs to be reversed if we are to see any future gains in wildlife protection, funding or political support for conservation actions.

Negative and doom-laden language. We should focus more on the positives that come from nature conservation.

Simple assumptions of public or private land management. The increasing interest in community land projects and sustainable land use models suggests an appetite for communal approaches to caring for nature and managing land.

The growth goal: The idea that continual growth is either realistic or desirable in a world of finite resources.

Globalisation and the out-sourcing of environmental damage from the UK to other countries. Linked to this is the need to reduce consumerism, notably around products such as bottled water and clothing which have high hidden environmental costs; Complex bureaucracy, both within and outside conservation, that obscures the need for a society-wide, joined up approach to protecting and using the environment and its natural resources.

Short-termism in funding, management plans, policies and other areas – which do not match the long time-scales of many environmental processes.

What the future should include

Greater communication and collaboration between the diverse range of people and groups encompassed by ‘conservation’.

Less active management and less tidiness, where nature is left to manage itself to a greater extent.

Strong regulation and use of environmental legislation.

Be risk aware, not risk-averse. Linked to this is a need for greater focus on resilience – in all areas of society and the environment. This will involve embracing change e.g. being flexible in considering alien species and in considering the possible effects of climate change.

Moving away from a dependency on grants to enterprising activity that allow organisations to make a surplus (not necessarily profit) which in turn drives viability and creates momentum.

Emily Adams is BANC’s Development Officer. emilyadams13@gmail.com

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Book Reviews

INGLORIOUS Conflict in the Uplands Mark Avery Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015, 304 pages £16.99 Hbk ISBN 978-1-4729-1741-6 In May 2015 BBC Wildlife Magazine listed naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham as the second most influential figure in its ‘Wildlife Power List’ of ‘Britain’s Top 50 Conservation Heroes’.

In September in the same magazine, Packham accused Britain’s major conservation charities of a “shameful” silence on the issues of fox hunting, the badger cull and the illegal persecution 56

ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 of raptors. The charities, he states, are guilty of selectivity over which species they chose to protect, being “hamstrung by outdated liaisons with the ‘nasty brigade’ and the risk of upsetting old friends” in the rural shooting and landowning communities. In response, Tim Bonner, Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance, which lobbies to promote certain rural interests and traditions, said this was just the latest example of Packham using the position granted to him by a public service broadcaster to pursue an “obsessive crusade” of unbalanced ‘animal rights’ propaganda. The BBC, therefore, should consider removing Packham from its future programming. The magazine, produced under licence from the BBC by Immediate Media and obliged to follow BBC editorial guidelines, defended Packham strongly. For editor Matt Swaine: “The column was highlighting criminal activity. It was not controversial.

He was saying that we all need to do more on the illegal killing of wildlife and that no one should be standing by when criminal acts [are taking place].

Packham was doing something of real value”. An online petition calling on the BBC not to sack Packham attracted over 80,000 supporters within its first month. Packham issued a video message to thank his supporters. He urged them to support the e-petition to UK Government and Parliament to ban driven grouse shooting led by Mark Avery, former Conservation Director of the RSPB, and to read Inglorious, Avery’s book. Inglorious explains the context, political history and scientific bases for this position, as presented by Avery. The petition reads: “Grouse shooting for ‘sport’ depends on intensive habitat management which damages protected wildlife sites,

increases water pollution, increases flood risk, increases greenhouse gas emissions and too often leads to the illegal killing of protected wildlife such as Hen Harriers”. In October Avery’s petition, launched in July alongside the publication of Inglorious, attracted its first 20,000 signatures.

Inglorious is essential reading for those engaged by these issues and events, and particularly by the current ecological state of the UK uplands and the persistence of seemingly systematic wildlife crime in pursuit of economic interests. The book has many strengths - scholarship, readability, wit and candor – and one major flaw, its focus on the ‘single-issue’ politics of driven grouse shooting. The author adopts this focus to drive home his call to ban a long-standing ‘country pursuit’; one which has friends, participants and stakeholders in high places of a different kind. In challenging powerful interests one must marshal all one’s evidence and Inglorious is a well-researched and avowedly campaigning text. The book offers a depth and breadth of insight on its topic that its author is probably uniquely positioned to present.

Nonetheless, in setting out his stall on driven grouse shooting Avery is left with little space in this book to explore what form of upland ecology might replace the ‘grouse moors’. His main approach is to endorse the National Trust’s 50-year vision for its High Peak land holdings in the Peak District National Park; a vision which implies, although does not specify, a future without intensive management for red grouse. Broader visions are important, as his ‘shooting interest’ opponents point to the ‘conservation values’ of their own work, such as the support

of much loved ground-nesting wader populations (curlew, lapwing, golden plover etc.) through gamekeepers’ active (legal) control of predators.

They also often own the land and control its management; although, as Avery explains, agricultural subsidies, financed by general taxation, help to support the entrenched ‘grouse economy’. George Monbiot’s account, in his book Feral, of “sheep wrecked hills” and the “green desert” of upland Wales (where there is little grouse shooting and many more hen harriers!) seems an obvious reading companion to Inglorious.1 Assuming driven grouse shooting does soon pass into history, alongside other dubious Victorian pastimes, such as sending children up chimneys, the uplands will still require management by someone, in pursuit of some vision (optimistically perhaps, some synthesis of that outlined by Avery and Monbiot).

In his penultimate Chapter, Avery presents an amusing, if (strangely) regionally prejudiced, account of ‘Terry’, a former Peak District gamekeeper turned wildlife warden, looking back from the year 2046 on three decades of changing upland management.

Herein lies the central problematic for Avery’s campaign. Much of the uplands that are not intensively managed for grouse shooting are currently (over-) grazed by sheep, or drained for conifer plantation. With or without tweedjacketed interventions to enhance the annual red grouse crop, they are typically wildlife-poor. A ban on grouse shooting alone will not fill the hills with birdsong, enhance ecological services and encourage tourism. The National Trust has a vision for its corner of the Peak District. What about the UK’s many other silent square miles?

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First and foremost, Avery offers a strong argument and convincing conclusions.

Convincing enough, perhaps, for this book and its associated campaign to nudge further conservation charities, government agencies, and landowners (including utility companies) into action.

This conflict in the uplands has moved far from its origins in opposing views on the morality of ‘blood sports’ and the provenance of game meat. The next logical step would be for government to support change by replacing agricultural subsidies for a system of payments for ‘ecological services’ in the uplands. This might prompt the more progressive and publically/client-accountable land managers to adopt broader-based, sustainable and equitable visions for their work in the hills. At the same time, one can imagine the prestige appeal of the ‘sport’ for participants beginning to wane, with a change toward more informed (less tolerant) public attitudes in the countryside as well as the towns.

Mark Avery’s book is an essential contribution to what was an evolving debate on the future of the uplands and is now, for good reason, an outright battle of wills between the supporters of progress and the defenders of ‘tradition’.

1. As indeed, is James Rebanks’ valiant defence of upland sheep farming in his book, A Shepherd’s Life.

Phil Hadfield COUNTING SHEEP A celebration of the pastoral heritage of Britain Philip Walling Profile Books, London, 2014 & 2015 Pbk, £8.99 ISBN 978-1846685057 Finding this book Waterstones wasn’t 58

in my local easy; it had

mistakenly been shelved under ‘Nature’ rather than ‘History’. The plaudits on the cover are pleasantly effusive. Horatio Clare in the Daily Telegraph describes it as “Delightful” and deserving a “place on the bookshelf of any lover of the countryside” while Angela Huth describes the book as “Fascinating” and then goes as far to say “he’s up there with Robert MacFarlane.” Praise indeed!

On taking the book to the sales counter I can’t resist a joke: “I’ve been having trouble getting to sleep on a night...”

I tell the bored-looking sales assistant.

She looks up from her mobile and I add “...perhaps this might help?” I hand the book over to be scanned. She raises a quizzical eyebrow and permits herself a laugh when she reads the title.

On the train after a busy day I start to read and the title doesn’t disappoint.

Like Ronseal it “does exactly what it says on the tin”. Here I find a detailed

and seemingly well researched and authoritative history of the origins and evolution of the 60 odd sheep breeds found in Britain. This is spread across several chapters covering ancient Viking and Celtic breeds, Longwool breeds (which the Romans brought with them) and then a long list covering sheep breeds you are more likely to encounter on today’s hills and pastures including such favourites as the Swaledale and Herdwick. I was disappointed that the delightfully named Lonk doesn’t make an appearance1 but I trudged on through all the way to chapter 12 on sheep dogs. The central argument of the author is that Britain has always been sheep country and in the book he tells the “story of how we and our versatile, compliant companions made our landscape in the great endeavour of taming the wilderness. For man and his sheep stand in partnership outside wild nature, on the side of the civilised world, transforming its vegetation for human benefit”. While he labours this point, Walling makes much of the so called Sheep Pyramid, “our unique national system of cross-breeding which uses the innate genetic potential of hill sheep to extend their productive lives and produce more lamb for the national larder”.

The penultimate chapter heats things up a little in analysing the combined effects of foot and mouth and the rise in demand for Halal meat on the British sheep industry with its associated concerns over animal welfare. In the concluding chapter Walling bleats on about a variety of perceived enemies of sheep farming: from environmentalism and EU regulations through to government interference and dependence on subsidies, and on to the global markets and the buying power of the supermarket giants. Rewilding is the target of particular venom, but unlike

the rest of the book is largely born out of a fear of the unknown, prejudice and ignorance, and tends towards scaremongering and sensationalism.

Nowhere does Walling acknowledge the widespread ecological simplification of our ecosystems that has resulted from many years of intensive sheep grazing, nor does he recognise the long list of many other ills such as soil compaction, increased runoff and resulting soil erosion and downstream flood risks. Nowhere is there an acknowledgement of the cultural impacts of the “woolly maggot” such as the Highland Clearances, and nowhere is there an acceptance that with the farm subsidies that keep most upland hill farms viable comes responsibility to provide more than just sheep and a living to those that farm them.

In the final analysis, this book represents a good dose of agricultural fundamentalism. It fails to accept that, despite their importance in shaping our historical landscape and economy, the times they are a changing and things are going to look very different for sheep in the future.

1. For Philip’s information a Lonk is a strong boned and well wooled hardy mountain breed originating in the Yorkshire and Lancashire Pennines.

Steve Carver A LESS GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND: Our Threatened Wildlife Norman Maclean Cambridge University Press, 2015, 409 pages Pbk, £16.99 ISBN 9781107673236 This book reviews modern day nature conservation’s successes and failures.

It is a sort of ‘life, the universe and 59

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ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 concisely and in a more accessible format’. Even so it runs to more than 400 pages.

To start with there is a brief look at the evolution of life, followed by consideration of the agents of change, such as agriculture, climate, introduced species and human population growth. Then there is a look at current conservation activity and the relationship between field sports and wildlife. The second part, labelled ‘So how is our wildlife faring?’, catalogues the status of the main groups of wildlife, such as mammals, birds and plants. The last two chapters are first a brief, subjective and superfluous list of what the author considers to be top wildlife sites in Britain and Ireland, and second a stab at what the future holds.

everything’ ramble through what we know of the natural world in Britain and Ireland, including its current state and what we are doing about it. The publishers describe it as ‘a Domesday book’ of the countryside. It is obviously a labour of love on the author’s part, but alas it is also a labour to read.

There are many diversions, repetitions (although there is an apology for these in the Introduction) and irrelevancies: frequently I found myself thinking ‘why am I reading about this?’ before the book got back on track.

This maybe because it is linked to another book which I have not seen: Silent Summer, described in the Introduction to this one as ‘an indepth audit of wildlife in Britain and Ireland over the last 50 years’. This work ‘aims to carry the same message but to present the information more 60

There are a lot of short sections on big subjects as varied as species extinctions and world food prices.

I doubt these will add much to the general knowledge of what I guess will be a well-informed readership.

The style is curious, perhaps best described as chatty academic. For example the author says that he ‘believes there are over 200 species of syrphids’ in this country. A few minutes research reveals that there are about 270 species, belief does not have to come into it.

This sort of thing, with generalisations and subjective assertions, is mixed with hard science including long tables and reporting of research. Inconsistencies abound as in ‘... we probably do have too many badgers’. I have never known what ‘too many’ means. This comes after mentioning that badgers eat hedgehogs, but ignores the fact that hedgehogs raid nests, something for which the book castigates other species.

In the same vein the writing displays the usual, and very conventional, inconsistencies towards introduced species. So, some are ‘welcome’ such as Snake’s-head Fritillary, but it is ‘sad’ that grey squirrels cannot be eradicated. As for Spanish bluebells, apparently their main crime is that they are ‘less elegant’ than native bluebells. And if bluebell hybridisation is bad, why is orchid hybridisation good?

The most twisted logic of all comes in relation to cormorants. Apparently the spread inland of the mainly Dutch subspecies Phalocrocorax carbo sinensis is undesirable, not for nature conservation but for trout fisheries. Maclean says that if it could be accorded specific rank “… we might well dub the incomers as undesirable invasive species although they have come here of their own accord”. The implication is that we could then eliminate them with a clear conscience. My mind is still boggling at this, but I hope it is a tongue-in cheek comment.

The editing, indexing and referencing are very poor. The Wildlife Trusts for instance, one of the main players in this drama, who are mentioned briefly enough compared to other NGOs, are not indexed. As for editing, within three pages these two statements are made: “Basking shark are increasing in Scottish waters” and “in Scottish waters these large fish are in decline by over 50%”.

Many of the reference are to Wikipedia entries. This is laziness on someone’s part: all Wikipedia entries have to have, and include, a background source and reference, and it is those that should be listed. In summary, if you want another doom and gloom volume with the message that ‘wildlife is a countryside issue, and exotic species should not be here except

the ones we like’ then put this on your shelf. If you want innovative thinking, crisp logic and sharp insights, look elsewhere.

Peter Shirley

LEARNING WITH NATURE A how-to guide to inspiring children through outdoor games and activities Marina Robb, Victoria Mew & Anna Richardson 2015, Green Books, 208 pages Pbk £17.99, ISBN 978-0-85784-239-8 As noted in the book’s introduction, a typical British primary-school-age child's 'roaming radius' has all but vanished: from 6 miles in the 1920s, down to 1 mile in the 1950s, then to 700 yards in 2007. Our children are close to being obligate domestics.

The three authors' first task is to show us how to entice youngsters outside - sans virtual reality. This is not easy, when many of the parents are also indoors people. I'm not sure that they make an argument for going outside that will convince sceptical youngsters, and that will lead to them being enthusiasts for things 'natural'. However, 61

ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 Learning with Nature is a cornucopia of ideas tested on children and adults, in families, schools, and social groups. And the activities are set in the real world. The book's main sections are Games, Naturalist activities, Seasonal activities, and Survival skills. These aren't clear-edged categories, but serve both to structure the book and to foster serendipity in it.

It is good to see such 'survival' skills as fire-lighting, the making of shelters, and finding sources of water, in a book concerned with young children.

However, some naturalists might point out that such things as making bird feeders from pine-cones and jewellery from discs of wood aren't activities usually associated with natural history.

This, though, is a minor point: it is three or four other things that worry me.

First: on most pages, 'nature' consists of plants or trees, and birds or ‘animals’ - essentially mammals, but, for instance, sometimes including 'bugs'. This is an old-fashioned classification, and does not seem a good foundation for natural history, or indeed any other understanding of life. Second: non-living things and processes of nature are sparsely scattered through the book, but mostly on later pages, where we find fire, shelter and water. Their importance and interest come over as very much secondary.

My third concern is more complex. The underlying principle of the authors' attitude to nature is, it seems, that we are its caretakers; that is, we have responsibility to see that it is cared for.

The 'Looking after nature' page that follows the introduction, I found difficult.

Certainly, "human interaction with natural resources often involves manipulation of nature for our benefit". And in that we 62

ECOS 36(3/4) 2015 are no different from pigeons, mice, and the Ebola virus. Certainly, many of our contemporaries "exploit natural resources in unsustainable ways", but can you think of many major cultures that didn't?

Modern humanity's "hunter-gatherer ancestors", it is stated, "understood the interplay between nature and people".

As a statement of fact, this is not wholly convincing, and anyway, this sort of language is a little askew if one believes that humankind is indivisibly part of nature: not apart from it, and certainly not aloof from it as a special creation.

In the words of environmental psychologist Roger Hart, an influential writer in the 80s and 90s, "paramount among the conceptual issues" is the implied assumption, so often made, that children are "closer to nature", more natural than adults. Maybe, yet there appears to be little evidence of this.

Now, I know the book is focused on the encouragement of young children to go out and have 'contact with nature', to appreciate nature and begin to (objectively) understand it, and want to share its wonder with others. And I know that a strongly 'scientific' view of the world is inappropriate, indeed counterproductive, for youngsters - and many adults. But a repeated invocation of the supernatural, as something existing alongside the natural, and alongside scientific understanding, needs careful handling.

Have fun with Flower Fairies, and Gnomes, and (of course) Tree Spirits, by all means. However, I'm with Gary Snyder, thinking that people with myths of the super-natural "do not take them literally, [though] they hold the stories very dear". There is more sentimentality than cultural myth about Flower Fairies.

Learning with Nature's activities generally look worthwhile, and are not simply ends in themselves. For example, 'Elder pencils' leads to invisible learning about a fire's need for oxygen, charcoal making, and the uses of different trees.

Let's look at a couple of examples.

A game to "create a connection to a specific species in seconds" is 'Nature names'. Animals' and or plants' names are put in a bowl, and the children take one each. Each child finds out "something about that name", such as where and how long it lives, and if it is edible, to share with the group. Each is asked to draw their species. For variety, animals' movements and sounds can be explored. And the children can make their own lists. Besides providing a direct way to engage with and remember aspects of the environment, "before you know it you know a lot more about your surroundings and [its] species".

A seasonal activity (some years!) is making 'Snow shelters'. With a spade and e.g. ice-cream tubs for forming snow bricks, following a detailed 'how to' should result in a sort of igloo.

Alternatively, hollow out a large pile of snow. This introduces the idea of shelters and something of their structure, and is a good example of collaborative working.

Roger Hart, I suspect, would have looked for more opportunities for a child to show initiative, to experiment (and often fail), and to follow unanticipated lines of investigation. And to have more say in what happened ... In Children's participation. The theory and practice of involving young citizens in community development and environmental care (London, Earthscan for UNICEF, 1997), for a readership different from Learning with Nature's, he examines worldwide

cases of action where young children are (relatively) freer to initiate, run, conclude, and perhaps evaluate, projects.

"Regrettably", he relates, " ... children will either carry out [their] projects secretly or will be intimidated from even beginning them because they fear that adults will not understand their desire or capacity to carry them out."

This is deliberate, purposeful, action.

The activities in Learning with Nature are also purposeful - the purpose being an adult's. A different sort of activity, thought to be a necessary component for a fully developed person, is play: activity with no obvious fixed aim except absorption and pleasure. And out of this much may grow….

It is important to remember that children play, and used to play 'in nature', outdoors. To some extent they still do, but probably not nearly enough.

We inhibit their explorations, creativity, and self-testing. Real play needs no instruction manual.

Martin Spray Learning with Nature is discouted to £12.59 with free delivery in the UK, visit www.greenbooks.co.uk/learning-withnature and enter our special voucher code ECOS16 in the cart. Offer valid to 31st March 2016.

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ECOS 36(3/4) 2015

Can you help?

BANC Trustee with Fundraising Expertise BANC, like many other organisations, is facing challenging financial times. Our journal ECOS is central to our mission and like many publishing organisations we find the cost of delivering a printed journal ever increasing, whilst at the same time the enthusiasm for paying for information dwindles. This has meant financial losses for the last few years and the Trustees have worked to cut costs and deliver the same quality of information and opportunities for discussion in a more financially efficient format. We want to expand our reach and engage more people in key debates about the natural world but we cannot do this without greater resources. We are looking for someone to help us diversify our income sources and enable us to deliver larger and more accessible events.

What are we looking for?

• A proven track record in supporting organisations through grant writing or other fundraising.

• A willingness to roll up your sleeves and get involved – we are a small charity with no employees so we are looking for people who are prepared to share in the leg work.

• An interest in UK nature conservation, though not essential, would be a distinct advantage.

As Trustees are located across the UK, we hold monthly meetings by Skype (usually a weekday evening) with additional progress via email. We meet face to face at least once a year. The role is unpaid but all reasonable expenses for meeting attendance can be met.

For further information or to express interest please contact us via email to enquiries@ banc.org.uk. Potential Trustees are welcome to chat with one or more of the present Trustees and to attend a meeting before making a decision.

BANC 2016 - Revitalising and Radically Wild

We look forward to seeing you for volume 37 of ECOS. This will include debate on flood management, the impact of conservation cuts, more pointers to revitalising conservation, and follow up to themes identified in our Plotting in the Woods event.

2016 will see an exciting BANC event: ‘Radically Wild - Celebrating the new roots of action for Nature’. A new bi-annual BANC conference, bringing together innovative, community-led nature conservation projects from around the country. Lessons will be swapped and key messages written up in the following ECOS. Thanks to all members for your support in 2015.

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Editorial 1. Loving the Greenwood. Geoffrey Wain Feature articles 2. In search of Nature’s renaissance people. Gavin Saunders 2015 issue 36(3/4) www.banc.org.uk

7. Grounded thinking to grounded action – Steps to revitalising conservation. Sophie Lake & Members of VINE 11. Conservation wisdom. Looking back to look forward.

David Blake 15. Nature Conservation: barking up the wrong tree?

Miles King 18. Revitalising conservation – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Simon Ayres 22. Evidence-based or evidence-blind? Priorities for revitalising conservation. Clive Hambler 26. Managing for nature. A farmer’s view on wildlife schemes.

Martin Hole 30. Where next for landscape-scale conservation in England?

Lisa Schneidau 34. Rewilding gathers pace in the conservation mind fields.

Peter Taylor, Alison Parfitt 38. Revitalising conservation: the fountain of youth.

Hendrikus Van Hensbergen & Kate Huggett 44. Iran’s greenest government ever. Janet Mackinnon 48. Nature and two legs. Martin Spray 53. Plotting in the Woods. Emily Adams

56. Book Reviews Inglorious Counting Sheep A Less Green and Pleasant Land Learning with Nature

2015 British Association of Nature Conservationists.

ISSN 0143-9073.

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