Ecos vol 29 no 2 full issue

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Volume 29

Issue No 2

ecos a review of conservation

Discovering nature’s tonic

ecos a review

www.banc.org.uk

ecos@easynet.co.uk

of conservation

Managing Editor: Rick Minter Tel: 01452-739142 e-mail: ecos@easynet.co.uk

ECOS is the quarterly journal of the British Association of Nature Conservationists

Assistant Editor: Martin Spray Hillside, Aston Bridge Road, Pludds, Ruardean, Glos. GL17 9TZ Tel: 01594-861404

cos

Acknowledgements This issue was edited by Rick Minter and Martin Spray.

Main cover photo by Martin Maudsley.

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The opinions expressed in ECOS are not necessarily those of BANC Council or of the Editors ECOS may not be reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, in whole or in part, in English or other languages, without the prior written consent of the publisher, BANC.

Vice-Presidents: Marion Shoard, John Bowers, Duncan Poore, Adrian Phillips

Chair: Diana Pound Secretary: Graeme Duckworth Treasurer: Derek Bensley

BANC is a non profit making company limited by guarantee, registered in England No. 2136042. Registered charity No. 327595.

ECOS is printed by Severnprint on Evolution Paper and Board which has a 75% recycled content (and 50% post consumer waste). The electricity used during printing is sourced from Ecotricity which is electricity generated from renewable sources. The magazine is printed under the SylvaPack environmental print route using a waste reducing production system, reusable boxes for delivery and a donation is made to Tree Aid to support tree planting schemes in sub-Saharan Africa.

ECOS 29(2) 2008 Editorial

Get Lost!

My local football team shares a problem with many small clubs throughout the land – a struggle to get enough bums on seats. On cold Tuesday nights when I’m caught up with the passion of a local match along with 3,000 other hardy soles, millions more are tucked up at home watching the elite clubs on telly - marvelling at the best and wealthiest teams in Europe. Cameras at all angles and instant punditry makes it all the more vivid – supposedly. It’s the same with TV nature – my neighbours are keen to chat about Springwatch or Autumnwatch, to share laughs about the spectacular, charming and intimate cameos of nature brought to their screens from cliff edges, meadows, marshes and nest boxes across Britain.

Viewers feel they’ve lived the moment and been real nature detectives, immersed in scenes served up by the intrepid camera crews.

Meanwhile I’ve missed it all. Outside, beyond the lush colours on telly, I’ve been absorbed by the dusk-flitting bats, the screechy little owls, and then, if I’m lucky the silent, awesome barn owl, quartering the fields just a few minutes away. Just like the local football, the real wildlife is close to home, with flashes of pure excitement, and the wind in your face, if we can be bothered. But the virtual experience is the bigger draw for people – it seems so tangible and so immediate.

We are heading to the sanitised world of Disney-Pixar’s film WALL E. A future where messy stuff like rust and soil has been banished, and where immobile blobby people grab their instant comforts and thrills, but inwardly yearn for something deeper and richer amongst their safe and controlled surroundings.

Nearly four million people watch Springwatch, yet according to a recent survey by the National Trust, one in three children cannot identify a magpie, one of the UK’s most common birds, while half can’t distinguish a bee and a wasp. Children spend so little time outdoors that much of Britain’s common wildlife is alien to them, concluded the Trust, as it launched a summer campaign to promote family visits to the outdoors. But a recent survey by TeleBid found that 67% of University students used to dread summer-time trips with families, with “nature parks” featuring in their top 10 dislikes, along with museums and model villages. With entertainment systems and portable consoles to contend with, is the appeal of sandcastles and nature trails on the wane?

So, are we falling out of love with nature – in its live form at least? Official figures suggest a dip in our desire to get out: there were 3.6 billion leisure trips in England in 2005, down from 5.4 billion in 2002/03, (see Natural England’s web site for the detail) and there’s been a downward trend in visits to the countryside since 1998. The detail of this may soon change - the economic downturn may prompt more holidays at home in Britain, increased camping and simpler holidays, and more people may potter in their local outdoors as fuel prices bite, or they might watch more TV and play more Nintendo…

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 That nature is good for our soul and our well-being is obvious, but the message needs substantiating. This edition offers examples to demonstrate nature’s own health service. The health agenda in conservation is long overdue – it brings new funds and new allies, and it gives new opportunities to create green space in people’s backyards to enrich their lives, amongst the buildings and services they use. Existing green places have a big role too. Wildlife sites and reserves, and indeed farms, are being turned to for their health and therapeutic benefits. This issue looks at nature reserves as a resource for the rehabilitation of offenders, keeping fit and active, and the location for learning crafts. Harnessing reserves for their human potential is a crucial step in conservation’s progress. We need more outreach – well beyond the role of reserves for science, and for the use of anoraks like us.

Maybe we can avoid the stupefied society depicted in WALL E – there are signs we’ve woken up to what needs doing. For instance, children’s play is on lots of agendas. From Play England’s play strategy, to Persil’s ‘dirt is good’ adverts, and web campaigns like Rewilding Childhood, real, instinctive play, especially in natural environments, is being rediscovered and promoted. This edition looks at what’s driven the concern about ‘nature deficit disorder’ and its links with play.

The conservation sector has a strong tradition in offering nature-discovery to kids, but maybe we can be a bit expert and earnest at times. Sometimes the best way to help people find their feral side, is to suggest they go and get lost…

NEIL BENNETT

Geoffrey Wain

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Natural wonders and well-being The case for getting closer to nature “Just living is not enough... One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”

Hans Christian Anderson

MIKE TOWNSEND Nature deficit disorder When Richard Louv coined ‘Nature Deficit Disorder’ (NDD) in his book, Last Child in the Woods1, he was not describing a new medical condition. He used the phrase to encapsulate a range of maladies he believes result from a lack of connection and direct experience by children of nature: a generation of children spending less time outdoors and less time with nature, resulting in health and behavioral problems.

Louv, a columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune, is the author of seven books about family, nature and the community, and chair of the Children and Nature Network.2 Last Child in the Woods was the result of 10 years interviewing parents and children, in rural and urban areas of the USA, about their experiences of nature.

According to Louv, NDD results from parental fears in response to sensationalist media coverage of risks to children, restricted access to natural areas, an increasingly litigious culture and the rise of electronic media as entertainment for children. The result - a preference for indoor play and organized sport, and a loss of unsupervised outdoor adventure and discovery. Louv’s belief is that the effects of a lack of contact with nature can be seen not just in children, but in adults and collectively in families, communities and society.

He defines ‘nature’ as natural wildness: “biodiversity, abundance - related loose parts in a backyard or a rugged mountain ridge. Most of all, nature is reflected in our capacity to wonder. Nasci. To be born”. His definition rejects including everything as nature and natural, but also resists restricting it to virgin forest and wilderness.

He believes contact with nature: • improves physical health - including reduction in obesity • improves mental health - conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)1

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 • improves social behaviour - including reductions in crime rates • at an early age leads to a care for the environment later in life.

The argument is intuitively appealing against the backdrop of the environmental problems we face. I wonder where we went wrong, how could we have created a society so out of touch that we systematically over-exploit or destroy the substance that supports us?

Just an American bad dream?

Louv’s narrative is drawn from an American tradition of the wild. It is a reflection on 21st century childhood in the USA, seen from the perspective of an American born in the middle of the last century. American society has a foundational psyche in relation to the outdoors which is different from our own - frontiersman, opening of the west, conquest of nature.

An appeal to parents in the USA to take their children hunting is not something which easily translates for most in the UK. The suburbs and countryside of the USA are substantially different from the largely urban experience of most UK children. This doesn’t negate the concept. The essence of the American experience reflects our own. At least one in 20 schoolchildren in England and Wales has ADHD. Prescriptions for Ritalin, the drug used as treatment, also known as ‘the chemical cosh’, have more than doubled in recent years.3 Almost 2 million children in the UK, around 25% of girls and 20% of boys, are overweight. Between 1995 and 2005, of 11 to 15 year olds in England, obesity increased from 13.5% to 20.5% among boys and from 15.4% to 20.6% among girls.4 Is parental paranoia reducing the ability of children to play unsupervised outdoors? A report by OPENspace identified perceptions of risk amongst both parents and young people, as one of the main reasons restricting young people’s opportunities for experiencing ‘wilderness’ and the outdoors generally.5 In addition, poor environmental quality – unattractive, litter and graffiti-marred open spaces are turning young people away from the outdoors. If that were not enough, adults’ view of young people as a ‘threat’ and a ‘problem’ is leading to mistrust and exclusion from public open spaces, particularly in urban areas. These issues fall disproportionately on lower social classes.

Fear of litigation amongst educators is also highlighted in the OPENspace report as limiting the willingness to take children out of the classroom and into the wild.

Some risks to those children who venture outdoors have increased, such as from road traffic, the abuse of alcohol and availability of drugs, while others may not have significantly changed, such as ‘stranger danger’.6

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 One in four, 8 to 10 year-olds never play outside without an adult. Even amongst 8 to 15 year-olds, a third are not allowed to play outside the house or garden without adult supervision.7 According to children’s Minister Kevin Brennan, we are raising a generation of ‘battery children’, shielded from perceived risks and therefore, in the long term, more vulnerable through inexperienced in dealing with risk.

Perceptions of risk8 are complex and rarely statistically rational.

A report by the Scouts association based on a survey of parents and children aged 7 to 18 years old showed more sedate activity replacing outdoor played in an increasingly penned-in generation9. All children within the survey watched television for longer than 30 minutes on a daily or weekly basis. It also suggested that 42% said their time outdoors was limited by school revision or course work. This figure increased amongst 16 to 18 year olds, who were also more involved in part time jobs and helping round the home.

What is true of children in America is, it seems, also true in the UK.

Impact on health and behaviour Although Louv’s conclusions frequently require strong inference from the available evidence, there is good research to suggest that contact with nature can affect health and behaviour in positive ways.

From the frequently quoted 1984 study of cholecystectomy patients, where a view of a natural setting speeded recovery times,10 to more recent studies of the beneficial effects on children with ADHD 11, the evidence is that natural surroundings can promote physical and mental health.

Urban areas with more green space are also shown to have lower crime rates, including violent crime, contrary to the notion that landscaped areas harbour criminal activity. The affect on crime rates appears to be as much to do with the impact of green space on the behaviour of general citizenry, as on that of criminals. People spend more time outdoors and take an interest in their surroundings, which increases vigilance, and reduces crime.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 Much of this is not new. Two reports sponsored by RSPB published in 200412 and 2007 13 outlined the benefits to physical and mental health arising from contact with the natural environment. These included the reductions in obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, stress, ADHD, aggression and criminal activity, amongst others.

We feel drawn to the concept of NDD, because it reflects what many of us say and do in our work with children. To that extent Robert Louv’s concept supports what we already believe and what many of us as individuals have experienced: that direct involvement with nature from an early age is important. Not the occasional trip to the zoo to see the penguins, but the everyday experience of being in the outdoors.

Promoting pro-environmental behaviour Evidence that contact with nature necessarily results in pro-environmental behaviours is more difficult to discern. Reflections on a utopian past where people lived in perfect harmony with nature are avoided in Louv’s book. Such a world existed, it seems to me, only to the extent that pre-modern man was constrained in his destructive power by the limits of technology.

Limiting humankind’s destructive power now is both an exercise in restraint and a careful use of resources - a rational response - and achieving change in behaviour with which society can feel at ease - a social and emotional response.

It is easy to slip into the view that things were ‘different in our day’ and that we who work for nature conservation are living proof that contact with nature shapes future behaviour. We are probably atypical.

I am of the generation born in the 1950s. Despite having had less constrained, more outdoor childhoods, without the lure of the internet and ‘Playstation’, most of our generation have not grown up with any great veneration for the environment. We have witnessed the rise of anthropogenic climate change, the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain, collapse of fishing stocks, deforestation and an acceleration of species extinctions, to name but a few environmental calamities.

Not a great record for a generation who were apparently closer to the wild.

Holding pro-environmental attitudes does not necessarily result in proenvironmental behaviour. Behaviour14 is complex, affected by a range of wider social factors, linked to people’s perception of their place within society and within their peer groups. Consumption defines us: consciously or otherwise we consume in ways which construct our identity. Few, if any, are immune to this.

It feels as if more time spent with nature should make us behave in a way that makes us more careful about its future and our own. Unfortunately the evidence is thin.

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NEIL BENNETT

ECOS 29(2) 2008

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Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? 15 In a technocratic society obsessed with targets for curative medicine and punitive measures to control behaviour, the idea that something as indeterminate as contact with nature can provide a positive, life enhancing experience, can seem alien to policy makers. It should not.

We intuitively know, and our grannies told us, that children should spend more time outside, running round and getting up to mischief. This is how we learn.

Structured education provides some of the information from which we build knowledge, but achieving wisdom requires a rounded world view.

Last Child in the Woods contains hard evidence of the role of nature for children and society, and an appeal to our intuitive sense of its importance. It supports a case for getting people, and children in particular, into the natural world as a way of promoting health and well being. But schools inspectors at OFSTED have identified that few schools are making the environment central to their curriculum – too often it is piecemeal and pushed into extracurricular activities and special events.16 When education and skills secretary Alan Johnson launched the ‘Learning Outside the classroom’ manifesto in 2006, he said “Learning outside the classroom should be at the heart of every school’s curriculum and ethos”.17 Learning outside the classroom should not be a bolt on extra, a nuisance and distraction from completing the real work of school. It should be a central part of learning and development – the touchstone by which a rounded education is defined.18 Ninety five percent of 7 to 11 year-olds said they would like to go on more trips out of the classroom to nature areas. They believe this is where they learn most about nature.19 Government must stick to its commitment to make outdoor learning a core theme in developing understanding of the world. Outdoor learning must be given a credible place in teachers’ training and continuing professional development and a valued part of OFSTED inspections.

Making contact with nature a reality Some things are happening. Forest Schools exemplify the approach and recognise the way in which nature can help a child’s development. Through regular activity in woodland, children can learn about the natural environment, how to handle risk, use their initiative, work with others and develop emotional and social intelligence.

A study of the original Forest Schools programme in Sweden showed reduced aggression, better concentration, reduced stress and 25% fewer days absent from school amongst those children who took part in the programme.20 Eco-schools also offer the opportunity for children to go beyond the curriculum and take part in caring for the environment.21 Whilst the emphasis is on broad 8

ECOS 29(2) 2008 sustainability issues, active involvement in wildlife conservation and experiencing nature can be part of the programme. Conservation and environmental charities can work with the programme. Groundwork, RSPB and WWF already contribute with advice and support.

The Real World Learning campaign, a partnership between the Field Studies Council,22 RSPB, National Trust, PGL, the Wildlife Trusts and the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, promotes out of classroom learning and calls for its proper recognition as an essential part of a child’s education and development. Crucially, this campaign calls for identifying and removing some of the barriers caused by safety concerns and perceived risks of litigation.

The Woodland Trust’s ‘Tree For All’ campaign offers thousands of schoolchildren the chance to get out of the classroom and into the open. Since 2003 the Trust has involved more than 75,000 children in schools’ tree planting events. Although supported by curriculum linked learning resources, the emphasis is on childcentred learning and play.

As well as being able to plant trees, and get their hands into the soil - a first for many - schools invariably find that this is the route to other activity. Wigmore School, an Eco-school in north Herefordshire, began tree planting with trees and advice from the Woodland Trust. With help and funding from local businesses, they have gone on to extend existing woodland, erect bird and bat boxes, and plan to plant native flora alongside a stream which cuts through the school grounds.

Tomorrow’s society?

We have the society that we collectively created. At a time when more than ever, we need to understand our relationship with nature, we are limiting children’s access and experience of it. What does climate change mean to a child who barely notices the passing seasons? How can you regret the loss of something you never knew existed, or cherish the experience of a world you are told is hostile and dangerous?

A survey by the Woodland Trust identified that although seeing animals and plants was an important reason for children wanting to go to natural areas, the main category cited was fun and play.15 Every child should be able to go into the woods. To have fun, to run, to be with friends, to sit alone, to sometimes be scared, to experience first hand. Not the vicarious thrill and adrenaline pulse generated by computer graphics, but actual parts of the natural world, felt for real experience and real emotions.

For most children in the UK, nature and wildness is an urban wildness – Louv’s related loose parts in a backyard. The places near to where they live. Not the heady stuff of upland moors redolent with wolves and eagles, but the overgrown sycamore wood and disused railway track. These are the everyday wild places where children can experience nature and its life-enhancing powers. We should give value to these places.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 As a society we need to change the way we value nature. Such a fundamental change must surely begin with children. Children’s involvement with nature should not just be about becoming tomorrow’s conservationists. It’s great to develop a passion for nature, a skill at observation and recording, knowledge for the way that ecosystems work and species live. And we need a new generation of naturalists.

But it’s good also, just to be able to spend time in nature, to ride your bike through the woods, to build camps, to dam streams, to lie in the grass, and just to wander. And wonder.

References and notes 1.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – ADHD - was formerly known as Attention Deficit Disorder – ADD.

1.

Louv, R (2005) Last Child in the Woods – saving our children from nature deficit disorder, North Carolina, Alonquin Books

2.

www.cnaturenet.org

3.

Dr Mark Porter, Radio 4 ‘Case notes’ 25th November 2003, downloaded at:http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/casenotes_20031125.shtml

4.

Statistics on Obesity, Physical Activity and Diet: England, 2006, NHS, downloaded at: http://www.ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/publications/opan06/OPAN%20bulletin%20finalv2.pdf

5.

Wild adventure space for young people, OPENspace, downloaded at: http://www.openspace.eca.ac.uk/pdf/WASYP1LitRevSurvey220906.pdf

6.

Boseley, S. (2007) ‘British children: poorer, at greater risk and more insecure’, Guardian online, 14 February 2007 downloaded at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/feb/14/childrensservices.politics

7.

Anushka, A. and Revill, J., (2008) ’Is it time to let children play outdoors once more? Guardian online, March 30 2008, downloaded at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/mar/30/children.health

8.

Curtis, P. (2008) ‘Parents risk raising 'battery farm' children, Guardian online, February 6 2008, downloaded at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/feb/06/schools.politics

9.

‘Children must play more’ – Scouts, downloaded at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7231930.stm

10. Ulrich, R.S (1984) View through a window may influence recovery from surgery, Science 27 April, pp 420-421 11. Taylor, AF et al (2001) ‘Coping with ADD, The Surprising Connection to Green Play Setting’, Environment and Behaviour, Vol. 33, January 2001, pp 54-77 12. Bird, W (2004) Natural Fit, RSPB, downloaded at: http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/natural_fit_full_version_tcm9-133055.pdf 13. Bird, W (2007) Natural Thinking, RSPB, downloaded at: http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/naturalthinking_tcm9-161856.pdf

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 14. Darnton, A. et al (2004) Promoting pro-environmental behaviour: existing evidence to inform better policy making, a study for DEFRA by the Centre for Sustainable Development university of Westminster London, downloaded at: http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=SD14002_3822_FRP.pdf 15. T.S Elliot 16. ‘Most schools not going green’, BBC News online, 21st May 2008, downloaded at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7412477.stm 17. http://www.dfes.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2006_0175 18. http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/teachingandlearning/resourcematerials/outsideclassroom/ 19. The Woodland Trust telephone survey 2006, undertaken by Carrick James market research, London 20. Forest schools website, download at: http://www.forestschools.com/history-of-forest-schools.php 21. http://www.eco-schools.org.uk/ 22. http://www.field-studies-council.org/campaigns/rwl/index.aspx

Mike Townsend is a Senior Advisor on evidence and policy development at the Woodland Trust. The views expressed in this article are his own. miketownsend@woodlandtrust.org.uk Children experiencing the machair coastal environment of the Hebrides.

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Playing naturally “Playing is what children do. It doesn’t hurt the flowers, it won’t harm the children and some of them might even take up a lasting interest. Stop them, and none of them will”. 1

MARTIN MAUDSLEY Needs and desires In 2006, Stuart Lester and I undertook a comprehensive review of children’s natural play 2 for National Playday. Amongst the detailed findings of the review, we made two broad conclusions: • Firstly, that natural environments are particularly attractive, inspiring and satisfying to children as settings that supremely meet their play needs and desires.

• Secondly, that play is a primary mechanism through which children engage, interact and connect with the natural world.

These conclusions advocate that, in order to meet both their stated desires and developmental needs, children of all ages require regular access to natural environments for free play. The barriers to children playing outside are manifold and well documented in the review, and the implications of ‘nature deficiency disorder’ are covered elsewhere in this issue of ECOS. In this article I present ideas and examples that may help to bridge barriers and illustrate ways in which children can be supported to play naturally.

Childhood memories Our own childhood is the natural starting point. Recalling memories of playing outside, presuming we are lucky enough to have them, provides inspiration throughout adulthood and helps us keep a child-centred perspective when planning children’s outdoor play provision. Adults often quote playful experiences in natural settings as the strongest, most powerful memories of childhood.3 Recently, Tim Gill successfully used such childhood memories to help the Forestry Commission to engage more fully in developing its potential capacity for supporting children’s free play.4 Personally, I can remember encountering and playing with insects in the garden at a very early age. Twenty years or so later I completed a PhD in entomology.

Whilst this may not be a direct causal association, it was certainly one of a mosaic of experiences that led me to an enduring fascination with the natural world and that provides an ongoing motivation for working to support today’s children to have similar experiences. Many others who work in ecology, conservation and 12

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Nature’s loose parts offer the building blocks of play…

environmental management, as well as in children’s work, draw on similar influential memories of playing with nature in outdoor spaces.5 Through examining the autobiographical memories of successful creative professionals, Edith Cobb6 also highlighted the link between imaginative childhood experiences in natural environments and creativity in adulthood.

Childhood memories are often emotional and intuitive rather than cognitive and may not easily be articulated through rational language, but nevertheless are hugely influential. Louise Chawla, quoting Shakespeare, refers to “spots of time” as unforgettable experiences where children “do not yet differentiate themselves from their surroundings”.7

Wild spaces = play places Whilst some of the habitats from our childhood memories may have disappeared or are no longer accessible to children, there are both old solutions and new approaches to providing wild play spaces that deserve to be acknowledged and highlighted. Through the Wildspace! project 8, a grant scheme administered through English Nature, many new Local Nature Reserves were designated that now provide accessible natural areas for diverse community use including children’s play. Around the same time the Big Lottery Fund’s Better Play programme provided a funding stream for many existing and new environmental play projects. A key and ongoing outcome from this programme was the development of working relationships between environmental organisations, such as county Wildlife Trusts, and local play providers. City farms and community gardens9 have provided accessible green spaces, mainly in urban areas, for more than 30 years and often provide a community focal point as well as a setting for children and families to be outdoors. Many of them also run holiday playschemes, adventure playgrounds or play ranger programmes which extend children’s outdoor play opportunities.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 As mentioned above, the Forestry Commission has recently reviewed its play strategy including constructive guidelines for forest rangers on dens, rope swings and tree houses, and new design guidance for play spaces within FC sites which encourage interactions with the natural environment.10 Many local authorities across the UK are also beginning to incorporate natural design, such as fallen trees, rocks and sand, within their statutory children’s play areas. These new play spaces, drawing on inspiration from other parts of Europe, are recognised as having greater play value for children and are often cheaper to install and maintain.

In order to meet and develop children’s aspirations for free play in wild spaces we need a wide-ranging approach: “For children everywhere we should be providing regular opportunities for the everyday enjoyment of natural environments close to home – wild commonlands, gardens, ponds, city farms, school grounds etc”.11 In planning, providing and facilitating children’s opportunities to play in natural settings, two theoretical concepts may be useful: ‘affordance’ and ‘field of free action’.

Affordances – natural invitations to play The concept of ‘affordance’ refers to the perception of what the environment provides for the individual organism.12 A hungry animal will perceive the environment in terms of what food resources are available; a cold animal will perceive opportunities for shelter. Affordances are therefore the potential behaviours that arise from the interaction between the physical properties of the environment and the ideas and intent of the individual.13 In terms of children’s play, the concept of affordance relates to what play possibilities are afforded by the environment. Play affordances may be thought of as invitations to play that arise when a child encounters any physical space, but with natural environments arguably providing the most varied and vivid invitations. The concept of affordance provides a number of useful insights in relation to facilitating children’s play in natural environments: • Affordances are not static but highly dynamic - different environments afford different play experiences for different children on different occasions.

• The number of affordances increases with complexity of the environment, with diverse natural spaces providing almost limitless potential play affordances.

• Through interacting with, manipulating and changing physical environments during their play, children create and detect new play affordances.

• Natural spaces afford plentiful opportunities to play with feelings and emotions. Through playing with nature children can encounter and experience fear, disgust, disappointment and anger as well as delight, fascination, satisfaction and a sense of wonder.

• Children are naturally good at discovering play affordances - they are ‘affordance connoisseurs’ - and seek to maximise the play potential of outdoor environments.

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Children’s field of free action Although outdoor, natural settings offer high potential for varied play experiences, in order to actualise such affordances children need independence to move and act freely - a ‘field of free action’.14 Children’s field of free action in outdoor spaces can be mediated by adults in different ways: 1.Physical access, management and design of outdoor spaces.

2.Cultural, societal and community attitudes towards children outdoors.

3.Direct interventions by parents, playworkers, teachers and other adults who interact with children in outdoor settings.

With a maximal field of free action, children are mobile across extensive outdoor environments and are empowered and enabled to independently discover their own play affordances. Adults’ stated childhood memories of outdoor play often provide examples of a wide field of free action: unaccompanied, away from home and over long periods of time. The inscrutable qualities of such free play experiences are neatly summarised in the title of Robert Smith’s autobiographical account of childhood: 'Where Did You Go?'- 'Out'. 'What Did You Do?'- 'Nothing'.15 At the opposite end of this spectrum is the “field of constrained action”, whereby children are restricted in their abilities to access and act freely within outdoor environments. In terms of ranging away from home, children’s independent mobility has drastically diminished in the last generation or so 16, to the point where a significant proportion of today’s children have never been outdoors on their own.17 Similarly, children’s freedom and confidence to engage in immersive, hands-on play in outdoor settings have become further restricted by adult society.

Reclaiming the muddy ground In order to fulfil their natural play drives, children need opportunities to fully interact with outdoor environments. Natural ‘loose parts’18 such as leaves, sticks, stones, seeds and berries are the building blocks of play - to be touched, picked up, pulled, squeezed, moved, bent, tied, buried etc. Flexible natural elements such as earth, air, fire and water also provide valuable opportunities for children to sense, change, transform and master the physical world through explorative play. Real contact with real wildlife through play kindles fascination, wonder and wellbeing in children.

Persil’s recent advertising campaign Dirt is Good 19, despite its commercial perspective, invoked a welcome contrast to contemporary sanitised childhoods where clean clothes are valued more highly than formative experiences. Stuart Lester 20 has suggested that evidence of successful outdoor play, such as muddy shoes, grass stains, snagged clothing, hair smelling of fire smoke and pockets full of 15

ECOS 29(2) 2008 useless stuff, should be re-branded as ‘badges of honour’ in order to help turn the tide. Similarly the Rewilding Childhood project21 uses evocative audio-visual media to help highlight the case for children’s self-directed connections with wild nature: “Children discovering nature. For themselves.” The project is currently collating documentary evidence of best practice case studies from across Europe to help promote changing attitudes towards children being allowed to engage with nature.

Fiona Danks and Jo Schofield, mothers themselves, exhort other parents in their recent book on natural play: “Mud is just good clean soil, easily washed off and harmless, yet many parents shudder at the thought of their precious children becoming mudlarks”.22

Natural play ethics?

Although well intentioned, adult environmental awareness agendas aimed at children can often result in fear, anxiety and disconnection from nature.23 Overt communication of environmental ethics and values may also clash with children’s instinctive playful interactions in natural environments.24 Widespread evidence suggests that the strongest environmental sensibilities in adulthood stem from childhood experiences of unstructured play in natural environments, including hands-on and superficially destructive activities.

Recently I went for a walk across a grass meadow with a group of children who were directed by the attendant adults not to pick flowers or other plant parts. It was like watching children walk into a sweet shop and being told they couldn’t have anything. There was so much to interact with, so many potential play affordances; yet the field of action was highly constrained. Later that same day, I walked with one boy and showed him how to suck nectar from red clover flowers, something I remember doing myself many times as a child. We tried a few flowers, and although we were unsure as to whether we could taste any nectar, he was hooked. I caught up with him later walking with his hand outstretched and making a repetitive beeping noise. Apparently, he had become a ‘red clover detector’ – sure enough when a patch of the flowers came into view his beeping increased. When we left, he came and thanked me effusively for introducing him to the idea. That day perhaps a few clover flowers heads perished prematurely, but one child had made an emotive connection with another wild species.

Playful encounters with nature are important for both children and, in the long term, the fortunes of the natural world, as people develop strong positive affiliations through such experiences.25 The onus therefore is on adults to enable children to experience free play in natural environments without anxiety or conflicting emotions. Practical approaches might involve using extensive natural areas for play where localised damage will recover naturally and resilient habitats that can withstand intensive play activities.26 I recently came across a map of the Mendip Hills 27 that actively highlights good places for children to find sticks, build dens and run down slopes. Perhaps we should be more proactive in marking the location of natural play spaces in particular areas, whether rural or urban, and letting children know they are welcome to play there?

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Rewilding Childhood: Interacting with the natural world can use a variety of senses! www.RewildingChildhood.com is an on-line meeting point for anyone interested in getting their children outside to play. Rewilding Childhood’s 100 Ways initiative wants to hear ideas for encouraging children away from computers and other indoor diversions.

Photo: www.imagesfromtheedge.com

Adult roles Although children want and need opportunities to play freely outdoors away from adult supervision, it does not necessarily follow that adult presence equates to adulteration of children’s play experiences. Skilful and sensitive adults can support, facilitate and encourage children’s freely chosen, self-directed play experiences in natural environments. Adults who work with children can extend potential play affordances – gently offering skills, knowledge and resources for children to enhance the play possibilities of the setting.

The growing Forest Schools movement in England28 is both directly providing children in nurseries and primary schools with immersive, playful experiences in woodland settings, as well as offering accredited training programmes for adults incorporating practical forest skills and a structured ethos of building children’s confidence and self-esteem. My own organisation, Playwork Partnerships,29 has recently produced two new professional development training courses specially designed for those who work to support children’s outdoor play in a range of settings. The overall aim is that all adults who work with children are given training and support to feel confident and enthusiastic about supporting them to play outdoors with natural elements on a regular basis.

In one of our training courses, ‘Playing with the Elements’, we use the symbolism of the four elements to help categorise different approaches for adult intervention styles: 17

ECOS 29(2) 2008 • Earth (environmental)– managing and manipulating the physical environment to help enhance and create new play affordances for children to discover.

• Fire (active)– taking a pro-active role in providing children with activities, ideas or skills as springboards for open-ended play.

• Water (fluid) – responding to playful invitations and requests from children themselves.

• Air (invisible) – no direct interventions; ‘holding the space’ whilst allowing children to largely organise and develop their own play.

A combination of approaches will be needed at different times, and adults need to be sensitive to both the play potential of the environment and the value of children’s self-directed play. Perhaps the best way for adults who work with children outdoors to be prepared is to experience playful activities in natural environments for themselves. Dangling from a branch of a tree, or peering out of a self-made den, provides an inimitable perspective from which to assess and plan children’s outdoor play.

Dragon spotting There are an increasing number of successful projects that are creating genuinely exciting and innovative opportunities for children to play naturally.30 Two contrasting examples are briefly described here.

The Woodland Play Centre31 in Somerset, run by Louise Kennedy, offers holiday playschemes for children and young people aged 8 - 16 years old. It provides “an alternative environment for children to enjoy the outdoors where they can explore, climb, get wet, muddy and dirty, allowing them to get close to nature, acquire new skills, play freely in wild spaces and appreciate the natural environment.” Access to private woodland is arranged through positive relationships with local landowners. Children stay out in the woods all day, cooking their own food on campfires and often finding or building their own dens and secret bases away from the main camp. The project demonstrates the inherent freedom of action that children feel and express through play when taken into a stimulating, high affordance environment.

Children’s play provision in the UK is increasingly employing play rangers: mobile teams of playworkers who facilitate open-access play in parks and other public open spaces. The Community Play Rangers32 run by Wansdyke Play Association, for example, work and play with children and young people in the outdoor spaces near their homes. By being present in the park the Community Play Rangers help maintain children’s safety yet at the same time provide opportunities for them to be challenged, take risks and have fun outdoors throughout the year and in all weathers. Once trusting relationships have been developed, the spaces are gradually being changed - adding more diverse natural 18

ECOS 29(2) 2008 features through a genuine child-led process. Such play ranger projects highlight the value of increasing children’s field of free action to play outdoors in their neighbourhoods and then working to enhance the quality of the environment.

Whilst there are a number of other inspiring examples across the UK, the message and motivation needs to grow in order to foster a widespread ‘rewilding’ of childhood. In a recent factsheet for the Children’s Play and Information Service, I offered a few (hopefully) useful approaches for supporting children’s natural play33, including mapping local wild spaces, encouraging ‘natural scruffiness’ in public green spaces and adding natural loose parts such as den building materials.

The complexity of issues affecting children’s ability to play naturally will undoubtedly require multi-faceted, localised solutions but the underlying principles are clear-cut: children are the experts in play and natural environments are unsurpassed as playgrounds. I’m reminded of an astute statement by a seven year old boy I recently shared a few hours playing in the woods with34: “Some people think that nature is boring. But it’s not, because you can see dragons in tree trunks...”

Seems like all the potential is still there, as long as we can ensure children have the freedom required for getting outside and playing naturally.

References and notes 1.

Marren, P. (2004). Review of ‘A Child’s Guide to Wild Flowers’. British Wildlife 15 (5), 376-377.

2.

Lester, S. and Maudsley, M. (2007). Play, Naturally. London: Play England.

3.

Cobb, E. (1977). The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood. New York: Columbia University Press.

4.

Gill, T. (2006). Growing Adventure: Final Report to the Forestry Commission. Available online: www.forestry.gov.uk/england-play.

5.

Simpson, A. (2005). Get out and dirty – learn about nature the real way. ECOS 26 (1), 33-37.

6.

Cobb (1977), cited above.

7.

Chawla, L. (2002) Spots of Time: Manifold Ways of Being in Nature in Childhood. In: Kahn, P. and Kellert, S (Eds.) Children and Nature. Cambridge: MIT Press.

8.

www.english-nature.org.uk/special/lnr/lnr_projects.asp

9.

www.farmgarden.org.uk

10. www.forestry.gov.uk/england-play 11. Hart, R. (1997). Children’s Participation in Sustainable Development. Earthscan.

12. Gibson, J. J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. New Jersey: Laurence Erlbaum.

13. Kytta, M. (2002). Affordances of Children’s Environments in the Context of Cities, Small Towns, Suburbs and Rural Villages in Finland and Belarus. Journal of Environmental Psychology 22, 109 – 123.

Kytta, M. (2004). The Extent of Children’s Independent mobility and the Number of Actualized Affordances as Criteria for Child-Friendly Environments. Journal of Environmental Psychology 24, 179 – 198.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 14. Kytta (2004), cited above.

15. Smith R. P. (1957). "Where Did You Go?" "Out" "What Did You Do?" "Nothing". New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

16. Hillman, M., Adams, J. and Whitelegg, J. (1990) One False Move: a Study of Children’s Independent Mobility. London: Policy Studies Institute.

17. The Guardian, 09/06/07. Available online: www.guardian.co.uk/family/story/0,,2097858,00.html.

18. Nicholson, S. (1971). How NOT to cheat children - the theory of loose parts. Landscape Architecture 62 (1) 30-34.

19. www.dirtisgood.co.uk.

20. In: Playing Out, a Level 3 module on the BA (Hons) Playwork programme at the University of Gloucestershire.

21. www.rewildingchildhood.com.

22. Danks, F. and Schofield, J. (2005). Natures Playground. London: Frances Lincoln Publishers.

23. Sobel, D. (1999) Beyond Ecophobia. Yes! magazine. Available online: www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=803.

24. Lester & Maudsley (2007), cited above.

25. Lester and Maudsley (2007), cited above.

26. Maudsley, M. (Ed.) (2005). Playing on the Wildside. Cheltenham: Playwork Partnerships.

27. The Mendip Hills Alternative Guide, www.mendiphillsaonb.org.uk.

28. www.foresteducation.org/forest_schools.php.

29. www.playwork.co.uk.

30. Maudsley (2005); Lester and Maudsley (2007), cited above.

31. www.woodlandplaycentre.co.uk.

32. www.playrangers.net.

33. Maudsley, M. (2007). Children’s Play in Natural Environments. CPIS. Available online: www.ncb.org.uk/dotpdf/open_access_2/factsheets_naturalplay_141107.pdf.

34. During an ‘Explorer Day’ run by Swainswick Explorers: www.playingoutdoors.co.uk

Martin Maudsley is the Outdoor Play Development Officer for Playwork Partnerships, and a freelance trainer and environmental playworker. mmaudsley@glos.ac.uk

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Nature Deficit Disorder Just a relapse or a worrying trend?

A new understanding of health care is emerging – one which recognises that engaging with nature is fundamental to our health and wellbeing.

WILLIAM BIRD It would be a surprise to anyone living 150 years ago, I suggest, that people should now question whether nature is good for our health. Despite the race for technology in past eras, urban parks were enthusiastically being built specifically for the health of the people who lived nearby. Enter the gate at Victoria Park, Bethnal Green and you see that this park was not led by an environmental campaign to protect wildlife and save trees. It was in fact recommended by the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages who in a 1839 report recorded a mortality rate in Bethnal Green higher than the rest of London brought about by massive overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and polluted air. He wrote: “a Park in the East End of London would probably diminish the annual deaths by several thousands... and add several years to the lives of the entire population".

Queen Victoria agreed (with the help of 30,000 signatures) and job done, a brand new park opened in 1850.

And down the road in St Thomas’s Hospital Florence Nightingale was saying: “ …I mention from experience as quite perceptible in promoting recovery, the being able to see out of the window, instead of looking against a dead wall; the bright colours of flowers” Even 1000 years ago St Bernard wrote about his new Hospice: “Within this enclosure many and various trees…make a veritable grove…The sick man sits upon the green lawn…he is secure, hidden, shaded from the heat of the day.

For the comfort of his pain all kinds of grass are fragrant in his nostrils. The lovely green of herb and tree nourishes his eyes… the choir of painted birds caresses his ears… the earth breathes with fruitfulness.”

So why do nurses not pick up Florence Nightingale’s request and have all patients looking out of the window onto gardens? Why don’t we build new parks for the health of the population or even invest heavily in old ones to improve standards? There are two possible answers. Either society has moved on from this 21

ECOS 29(2) 2008 old fashioned thinking disproved by science, or distractions have allowed the health benefits of the natural environment to have been erased from our collective memory: a temporary amnesia.

I believe that it has been the success of medicine in the past 50 years that has distorted our understanding of health and wellbeing. There are three reasons why the health benefits of nature have been so hard to disseminate.

First there is the confusion between health and happiness, second the issue of evidence, and lastly the lack of any leadership to take this agenda forward.

Health, wellbeing and happiness We should all celebrate the advances in treatment of cancer and that infectious diseases such as TB and Scarlet Fever and heart disease continue to decline. But these are diseases. The well known WHO definition of health reminds us that health is not just about disease: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. But perhaps it is this definition embedded in the WHO constitution that is partly responsible for the demise of natural therapy. This is because complete physical mental and social wellbeing also defines happiness and could therefore imply that happiness can only be achieved through becoming healthier. A learned Professor writing in the British Medical Journal recently says that not only are health and happiness distinct experiences but their relationship is neither fixed or constant”.1 Sigmund Freud was told to stop smoking his cigar for health reasons and commented: “I learned that health was to be had at a certain cost… thus I am better than I was but not happier.” How many people taking 12 prescription tablets a day may concur with him? It appears that the health professionals, which I belong to, have been allowed to add wellbeing and happiness and proceeded to medicalise them both.

Wellbeing is a state which embraces: • Fulfilling our desires.

• Reaching our potential.

• Pleasure and happiness.

• How we think and feel about our life.

Health, wellbeing and happiness are therefore related but separate. Without wellbeing, good health is vulnerable, and without good health wellbeing fails to thrive.

Good health can make you happy but happiness is not guaranteed by good health.

If you are confused then so is a whole generation who have looked for happiness at the doctor’s surgery. Happiness, wellbeing and health have all been lumped together and given to the NHS whose remit is dominated by its interest in treating 22

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Wildsong at Dawn: In September 2007 sound-recordist Chris Watson launched a programme with Liverpool’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital to bring the therapeutic experience of the dawn chorus into hospital wards and medical centres in the city.

The dawn chorus is believed to be a cathartic process, the combination of sound and the transformation of dark to light providing hope and inspiration. Via a series of recordings in Springfield Park, adjacent to Alder Hey Hospital, Chris Watson has created a work to contribute to the treatment of young patients and their families.

Collaborating with staff and patients at the hospital, Chris spent a number of early mornings in Springfield Park, adjacent to the hospital site, recording the birdsong. The recordings have been re-mastered, and combined with light, for an installation with the hospital to re-create the dawn chorus.

Dr Andrew Curran, a consultant in paediatric neurology at Alder Hey is leading a team to investigate the issue of sound within a healthcare environment and its potential impact on healing and recovery. The programme adds a new dimension to the hospital’s neurological research and the evaluation will be disseminated nationally.

Photo: Foundation for Art and Creative Technology.

‘disease’ rather than ‘disease prevention’ and virtually no priority is given to wellbeing and happiness. So when evidence appears that the natural environment makes people happy and increases their wellbeing, the NHS is unimpressed.

The wrong kind of evidence So what about the evidence that Green Exercise can reduce depression, blood pressure and help treat coronary heart disease and diabetes? This is the second problem as the NHS requires evidence of causation and the hypothesis is therefore reduced into parts. Why does it work? What neurotransmitter is affected? Isn’t it just being outdoors? What do you mean by green? How long is the exposure? This reductionist approach misses the point that the experience needs to be holistic to benefit our health not a sum of parts. A child playing in a stream cannot be compared to a laboratory setting in which the temperature and flow rate of a stream of water is varied against the stress levels of the child. Albert Einstein pointed out that “what counts cannot always be counted but what can be counted doesn’t always count.”

Leaderless The third problem is that exposure to nature has no advocates. It is not in the armoury of the NHS. Not a drug, not a procedure, no company promotes it, no professional 23

ECOS 29(2) 2008 body calls for it and no patient asks for it. The natural environment is a massive health resource that waits to be rediscovered and its leader is yet to bring it back. This is in fact something which Natural England is actively working on, calling for standards for access to natural greenspace, re-invigorating the Outdoor Health Forum to increase networking between the health and environment sectors and calling for every child to have the right to experience the natural environment close to their homes, to aid their social development and their physical and mental wellbeing.

The four winds of change But there has been a wind of change. Four winds in fact. The recent interest in the relationship with the natural environment is due to four forces aligning together.

From being in the doldrums for 50 years the sails are now filled with the winds of climate change, obesity, health inequalities and wellbeing discussed below.

Climate change The health service and its 1.3 million employees can contribute to halting climate change by significantly reducing their carbon footprint. Roof gardens are being investigated on the flat roofs of hospital buildings to maintain constant temperatures in winter and summer but also for patients to look out on to.

Courtyards will be cultivated to provide views for staff and patients and reduce rainwater run off. An NHS forest is being considered; starting with one tree for each 1.3 million employees but being added to by grateful patients and relatives. Each year 1.3 million trees remove 69,000 tons of carbon dioxide, 253 tons of pollutants from the air and catch 7 billion tons of rainwater. They will provide shade from UV light and if they contribute to an increase in 10% greenery they will reduce the urban heat island effect by nearly 7 degrees Celsius so saving lives during heat waves. Of course we know that there is good evidence that trees reduce stress, improve people’s concentration, strengthen communities and increase physical activity.

Obesity The Foresight report published by the Government Office for Science2 painted a bleak picture for 2050 in which 60% of men and 50% of women will be obese. For 6-10 year olds, 50% of boys and 20% of girls will be obese. Calorie intake has not increased since the 1970s but physical activity has fallen, leading to an imbalance. The push for more sport, more gyms and exercise referral to the local leisure centre is being slowly abandoned in favour of everyday exercise in good quality open space and active travel instead of car use. Patients in need of more activity will be signposted to Health Walks, Green Gyms, gardening, horticultural therapy as well as the swimming pool and the leisure centre. NICE said in its review of how the environment can increase activity that: “public open spaces and public paths are maintained to a high standard. They should be safe, attractive and welcoming to everyone�.3 A large European study showed that when accounting for all other factors local greenery increased physical activity and reduced obesity.4 Active neighbourhoods surrounded by greenery will become the new objective.

The NHS may start to twin its hospitals and GP practices with greenspace to promote the importance of the natural environment and we could even see 24

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investment by the NHS in green infrastructure. This change has occurred not from within the NHS but because constituents complained to their MPs about childhood obesity and this was pushed onto the NHS through the democratic process.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 Health inequalities Health inequality has widened in the last 10 years. The poorest are the most unhealthy. But there is new research that could put the natural environment straight back into the NHS role. Here is the key turning point which may explain why in 50 years from now we will be puzzled about our questioning of the health benefits of nature. People in deprived areas live with constant stress. This stress causes inflammation in the body that can be measured in the blood. This chronic inflammation contributes to all the major diseases including heart disease, diabetes, stroke and depression, causing people to die earlier. The evidence suggests that the natural environment has a strong impact on reducing stress. If we can prove that the natural environment can reduce chronic inflammation in those living in the poorest areas then we will have created the link between happiness wellbeing and disease. A green environment will become a human right because it will be associated with universal delivery of healthcare.

Wellbeing Finally wellbeing has become a target for local authorities having been prised away from health. Local authorities being elected bodies are probably better at delivering wellbeing compared to the NHS which is better at disease management.

The natural environment has a major contribution to wellbeing and local authorities are sensitive to this. The key turning point will be when the NHS sees wellbeing as an essential part of patient care - then we will see some of the huge health budget of ÂŁ100 billion being used to improve our environment.

So the answer to the original question is not that nature and health are old fashioned bedfellows that science has disproved. Society has been distracted by the false notion that new drugs and techniques to treat disease will make us happy.

Our relation with the natural environment is one of the main pillars of our happiness and wellbeing and we will soon remember (as did the registrar of births deaths and marriages in 1839) that it is a foundation of our health. This will be the start of a new Natural Health Service or rather just a continuation of what we forgot 60 years ago.

Actions and the future A range of environmental bodies are taking action alongside the NHS to try to reconnect people and the natural environment. Natural England is trying to coordinate efforts, but we are only one of a wide range of players.

NE is working on Green Infrastructure strategies together with local authorities, to increase the spaces available for communities to take green exercise. The Accessible Natural Greenspace Standard states that: • No person should live more than 300m from their nearest area of natural greenspace of at least 2 ha in size • There should be a least one accessible 20 ha site within 2 km form home 26

ECOS 29(2) 2008 • There should be one accessible 100 ha site within 5 km • There should be one accessible 500 ha site within 10 km • Provision of at least 1 ha of Local Nature Reserve per 1,000 population.

This standard is being reviewed and several local authority areas are investigating how well they are doing against this standard and whether it meets the needs of their local populations.

Natural England has published a manifesto calling on government to ensure that the schools, hospitals, office and housing developments of the future include high quality natural greenspace to better connect people and nature. The manifesto also urges local authorities to deliver on their published strategies to improve rights of way and connect people to their natural environment.

The British Trust for Conservation Volunteers has recently celebrated 10 years of its ‘Green Gym’ initiative: a success story about using practical nature conservation and wildlife management as a path to good health (see page 28). There is widespread interest from large landowners like the National Trust and the RSPB in reaching out to disadvantaged groups in society to increase wellbeing as well as generating interest in the natural environment. Care Farming and wildlife gardening are being used alongside the developing city farms and allotment gardening initiatives across the country, helping deliver increased wellbeing as well as contributing to disease treatment and prevention.

So the future looks anything but bleak and with all of this effort, I hope my speculation at the beginning of this article will come to reality quickly and that we will look back on our ‘blip’ of lost connectivity between people and nature as a strange anomaly.

References 1. Saracci R “The World Health Organisation needs to reconsider its definition of Health . BMJ 1997;314: 1409.

2. Foresight: Tackling Obesities: Future Choices (2007) HMSO. 3. NICE Physical activity and the environment 2008. www.nice.org.uk 4. A Ellaway, S Macintyre. Is greenery associated with obesity? BMJ 2005;331;611-2

William Bird is Strategic Health Advisor to Natural England and is a GP. william.bird@naturalengland.org.uk Thanks are due to Huw Davies of Natural England for support in producing this article.

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BTCV Green Gyms – the health benefits of Green Gyms have been evaluated by the School of Health and Social Care at Oxford Brookes University. A summary is available at: www2.btcv.org.uk/gg_summary.pdf Key findings of the evaluation report, based on 538 Green Gym participants include: • 47% are unemployed • 9% are recommended to take part by health services • 64% do not take part in any other voluntary activities • 20% find their daily activities affected by their mental and emotional health The evaluation work demonstrates the mental and physical health benefits of Green Gyms. Those joining a BTCV Green Gym with the poorest physical and mental health show the most improvement. 90% of participants who join with well below average scores for mental and physical health show an improved score over a time period of approximately seven months.

Other messages from evaluation of the health benefits show that: Green Gyms provide moderate physical activity: people who are regularly active at this level are 50% less likely to suffer from a heart attack or stroke than inactive people Taking part in a Green Gym improves muscle strength, which is particularly important for older people, helping to maintain independence in later life Almost a third more calories can be burnt in an hour of some Green Gym activities than in doing a step aerobics class Photo: BTCV

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Conservation therapy hands-on examples from National Nature Reserves Using conservation activities on National Nature Reserves is an important component of substance misuse therapy.

BEN LE BAS and JON HALL The Phoenix Futures Conservation Therapy Programme has been operating for over 12 years and, since 2001, as a partnership with Natural England or its founding bodies. The programme contributes to the therapeutic rehabilitation of individuals with substance misuse problems through their active involvement in conservation projects on National Nature Reserves (NNRs).

Opportunities offered at three NNRs Three such programmes currently exist, in County Durham, the Peak District and on the South Downs. Once a week, groups of Phoenix Futures clients from residential care units travel to a nearby NNR to undertake a variety of work to a near-professional standard including habitat management, boundary construction and footpath repairs. They are supervised by professionals who can offer both the practical expertise and the social skills necessary. After 10 weeks on the programme, and subject to their completing risk assessments, task reports and learning logs, clients are presented with a certificate.

The programme’s fundamental principle is that participation will act as a catalyst for raising self-esteem and encouraging a sense of empowerment and self-motivation through the medium of one or more of its three component parts: the activity itself, communication within the group, and the natural environment it takes place in (for an analysis of how such factors fit therapeutic theories, see Hall (2004)).1 Qualitative assessment of the programme indicates that the self-esteem, confidence and physical well-being of participants is enhanced. Furthermore, the programme is proven to contribute to the retention of clients in the early stages of their treatment programme, which is a key measure of success used by the Home Office.

The conservation tasks undertaken are physically demanding. Drystone walling is the bread-and-butter work of the project in the Peak District, and can be used to illustrate most of the characteristics common to the various types of work that the clients successfully undertake. A metre of wall requires about a tonne of stone; 29

ECOS 29(2) 2008 small groups of Phoenix clients are completing several metres each day. It’s hard on the hands, on the back and on the biceps. And it’s not only the lifting, the carrying and the careful placing of the stones that makes demands: Phoenix groups have rarely cancelled their tasks when the Peak District’s weather closes in, as it does all too frequently.

All in it together The principle of deferred gratification is a key driver in the therapy of substance misusers, who, typically, live for the moment. The slow but steady creation of something tangible and long lasting is a significant achievement. Not only does walling take time – daily progress is measured by the metre – but, with just a little occasional maintenance, a well-built wall can stand for a lifetime. Of course, the construction is not simply an end in itself: most walls have a purpose as grazing boundaries, enclosing or excluding stock. It’s the maintenance - or the improvement - of the habitats concerned that underpins the requirement for most boundary work on nature reserves, and qualitative data indicates that if this longer term gain from their input is adequately explained by the supervisors, there is often an additional positive impact on clients.

What of communication? Drystone walling is a social task. It doesn’t involve conversation-inhibiting machinery noise; neither is it exhausting to the point of speechlessness, though after some hours a somewhat hypnotic rhythm is often reached when the chink of stone and the odd word is all that breaks the silence. In a small group, individuals often build from each side of the wall, working face-toface for hours on end; the next pair will be working a few metres down the wall line. It’s not a job for anyone who wants to spend time on their own. However, walling in a group is more than a sociable exercise. Each individual’s output, in terms of both quality and quantity, is closely tied to their team mates around them.

Build one side badly and the opposite face falls in; build slowly and the opposite face can’t progress. The task is loaded with metaphors for the process of recovery: the building of solid foundations, the hunt for the right stone for the right place, the mutual dependence of each component part.

Why the natural environment for therapy?

Walling, and other such tasks – quiet, physical, creative, with results gained in the long term – could be gained in a number of scenarios, not only the environmental industries. No doubt excellent and successful therapeutic programmes do exist elsewhere. But does the natural environment itself have a part to play – and does the quality of that natural environment have any correlation to the effectiveness of the therapeutic intervention? Does the client gain from observing hares sparring on a March morning, colour-clashing cowslips and early purple orchids in May, wheatears chatting on drystone walls or seeing a stoat bringing down a rabbit after a dramatic chase? Such sights impress many, if not most, people, but how much more do they mean to those individuals who have generally come from backgrounds with a paucity of contact with the natural environment? Anecdotal 30

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Clients of the Phoenix Futures Conservation Therapy Programme tackle a dry stone wall in the Peak District.

Photo: Phoenix Futures

evidence suggests that clients respond positively to such stimuli, and some recent studies have indicated that contact with the natural environment does indeed play a very significant role in the individual’s therapy.2 It also has significance in terms of developing skills and enhancing employability in the field of environmental management. Several graduates of the Conservation Therapy Programme have found jobs in the industry, including one who has set up his own drystone walling business.

Conservation therapy - the evidence Do England’s 223 NNRs therefore have something special to offer? Not all NNRs, but those many that combine physical beauty and tranquillity with appropriate work. NNRs don’t have the monopoly on such qualities, of course, but the majority are rural sites, which brings a certain element of separation, real and psychological, from the urban environments where most clients will have spent much of their lives.

Is there evidence that conservation therapy works? One might imagine that the obvious statistic is whether clients who partake in the programme do not re-enter the world of substance misuse once they have completed their time. This is, however, not a straightforward statistic to obtain. Phoenix Futures’ clients are 31

ECOS 29(2) 2008 ‘clean’ when they enter the programme, though many are on prescribed medication. The great test for them is as they leave the residential part of the programme, passing in stages back to an independent life. But as they move further from the organisation, contact with them is usually lost, and it proves impossible to amass any data in the years that follow.

Though that might be the holy grail of seeking evidence to prove the worth of the programme, Phoenix Futures does possess powerfully persuasive data to verify the efficacy of the Conservation Therapy Programme. The government’s new Alcohol and Drugs Public Service Agreement (http://www.hmtreasury.gov.uk/media/B/1/pbr_csr07_psa25.pdf), published in October 2007, sets a series of targets against which to measure its vision of reducing the harms caused by substance misuse. One measurable element is the percentage change of drug users recorded as being in effective treatment; treatment is defined as being effective when clients stay in it for 12 weeks or more. ‘Early retention’ is easily measurable, and Phoenix Futures’ figures look good: for the financial year 20072008, 73.24% of Conservation Therapy Programme attendees stayed in treatment for 12 weeks or more, as opposed to 49.28% of non-participants.

Research in this area is in its infancy, though it has parallels in therapeutic horticulture, wilderness therapy and other strands of ‘ecotherapy’. Whilst organisations find it difficult to rate the success of their programmes at levels other than the individual project, robust evidence providing comparisons with other therapy fields is vital in determining whether conservation therapy is as successful as the positive feedback from clients suggests it is.

Funding the programme has been a little hit-and-miss. According to the Home Office’s Drug Strategy Unit, for every £1 spent on drug treatment, at least £9.50 is saved in health and crime costs (http://drugs.homeoffice.gov.uk/drug-interventionsprogramme/strategy/impact-and-success/). Natural England and its predecessors have struggled to find the funds to support it, though the project has benefited from the support of the John Ellerman Foundation, the Westminster Foundation and other charitable bodies. Yet with its multiple positive outcomes across health, crime, social and environmental agendas, surely it deserves consistent, adequate funding from a government source sufficient to build on its successes?

References 1.

Hall, J. (2004) Phoenix House Therapeutic Conservation Programme: underpinning theory. English Nature Research Report no. 611.

2.

Burl, A. (2007) People and green spaces: promoting public health and mental well-being through ecotherapy. Journal of Public Mental Health Vol. 6 Issue 3

Ben Le Bas is National Nature Reserve Management Co-ordinator for Natural England. ben.le.bas@naturalengland.org.uk John Hall is the commissioning manager at Phoenix Futures. jon.hall@phoenix-futures.org.uk

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ECOS 29(2) 2008

Identity-building in the woods Active hands-on volunteering in woodlands can play an important role in (re-) connecting people with their environment, themselves and society. This article focuses on offenders and other excluded or marginalised groups and the role that this type of engagement can play in improving people’s health and well-being, developing a feeling of self-worth and (re-)integration into society.

CLAUDIA CARTER AND LIZ O’BRIEN Environmental volunteering In the past few years government has promoted all types of volunteering as an important part of active citizenship and has spent millions of pounds on setting up projects to encourage more people to volunteer, particularly young people, older people and black and minority ethnic groups. According to Burns1 “Volunteering is no longer seen as a nice to have optional extra, but as the must have building block of communities and civic society”. A particular focus in policy and research is on the role of volunteering in linking civic responsibility and social inclusion. Thus some schemes specifically involve those who are currently disengaged or excluded, or who are viewed as not contributing to society.

Environmental volunteering can take many forms from practical conservation work through to campaigning, education work and raising awareness. This article focuses on active ‘hands-on’ engagement in woodlands and other green spaces through undertaking conservation work or improving infrastructure such as footpaths or recreation spaces, and how this can play an important role in (re-)connecting people with their natural and social environment and providing them with an opportunity to develop a sense of worth, meaning and satisfaction.

We present two case studies of research that involve volunteering in nature to illustrate the range of benefits that people can gain. We suggest that this type of volunteering in woodlands and green spaces can accommodate a wide range of people (including those who feel or are marginalised in society) and provide diverse benefits that other types of indoor volunteering are unable to do. One case study focuses on specific schemes for offenders (prisoners and probationers) undertaking voluntary work as part of their rehabilitation and as a potential route into future paid employment. The other case study explores more general volunteering in woodlands as a way of enabling those with emotional and behavioural difficulties and with mental health problems to improve their overall well-being. While some participants are ‘referred’ to such schemes, participation is always voluntary and never forced. In fact, some (in our experience, few) participants do not settle into this type of outdoor working and quickly drop out; but from speaking to a range of scheme supervisors and volunteers, most stay and express similar benefits across different environmental volunteering schemes (see 33

ECOS 29(2) 2008 Figure 1). Quotations used to illustrate our two case studies were found to be typical across a wide range of volunteers, though obviously referring to the volunteer’s individual background, context and phrasing.

Fig1: Typical motivations and benefits of engaging in hands-on environmental volunteering schemes (adapted from O’Brien, Townsend and Ebden, 2008).4

Unusual suspects but effective woodland volunteers A range of environmental volunteering schemes across the UK has involved convicted individuals serving either a prison or community sentence. Most such schemes arose out of the necessity of the Prison and Probation Services to find appropriate and meaningful work placements for sentenced individuals, and of nature providers2 to be able to carry out ambitious programmes to improve the biodiversity, access and amenity of their woodlands and green spaces. These initiatives are sometimes collectively referred to as ‘Offenders and Nature Schemes’, or short O&N schemes.3 Those entering O&N schemes during their community sentence often work for one or two days per week on the scheme, whereas those serving a custodial sentence tend to participate full-time in the last 3–6 months of their prison sentence. Prisoners participating in O&N projects are risk-assessed as part of prison rules to ensure that they can be released on temporary licence.

O&N schemes are seen as reparative work with distinct and visible benefits for the public. Work, for example, includes the creation of new pathways and the maintenance of existing access routes that feel ‘safe’ (i.e. improve visibility and open space) and offer a varied and interesting landscape (e.g. a mixture of more open green space and woodland). Many tasks are oriented towards restoring or maintaining specific habitat conditions to encourage biodiversity. For example, 34

ECOS 29(2) 2008 sites overgrown with invasive species such as rhododendron are cleared by probationers (see Figure 1), a task beyond current financial and staff resources to tackle at the required scale.

While environmental and general public benefits are evident in these schemes, maybe the least expected but most dramatic positive impacts observed relate to the participants, especially those who have served a prison sentence, and for whom the scheme provides the first contact again with ‘outside life’. A current A group of probationers working on Forestry pilot study to evaluate the range of Commission land at Bedgebury to remove rhododendron and allow natural vegetation of impacts of some of the Forestry a more diverse ground flora.

Commission’s O&N schemes has started Photo: J. Dormady, FC to collect first-hand accounts and evidence on why physical conservation and forest management work alongside FC staff or contractors are so important and effective.

Health and well-being: “better than the gym” Access to a gym is a privilege only available to some prisoners; access to nature is considerably rarer, even though some prisons have gardens or grounds, including woodlands (the Prison Service is responsible for managing one of the five largest government estates in Britain). Those participating in O&N schemes often comment how good it is to be out in the fresh air, to be physically active throughout the day, and tired after a days’ work. Many observe how they begin to think more clearly and positively and how they develop a sense of purpose and meaning in their life and rebuild their confidence.

“My confidence has grown, it has grown a lot and I have lost weight which is good. I have realised that I enjoy working outside, whereas before I had never worked outside properly; so I enjoy working outside and I just feel healthier in myself; so it has been good. [...] I am not scared of hard work and it helps me sleep at night. I am sleeping a lot better and as I say I think just being out in the fresh air anyway is brilliant...” (Female Prisoner, after

11 weeks on an O&N scheme) Offers of unpaid community work placements differ between prisons. Some provide a wide range of indoor and some outdoor opportunities, others - as in one male prison - relied largely on charity shops for their community placements. In response to being asked what the two interviewed volunteers like best about this work placement, they stated: “Being outside all the time rather than couped in a shop like the other community workers ...” (Male Prisoner A, after 7 weeks on an O&N scheme)

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 “... they work in charity jobs, so... For me, I mean, I work outside for a living anyway, so I wanted the opportunity to get back outside. And obviously there is a bit of hard graft involved and I don’t mind a bit of hard graft and I took it as a way of sort of training myself back up for getting like... when I am released and back into my old job.”

(Male Prisoner B, after three weeks on an O&N scheme)

Rebuilding a sense of self-worth and identity For many, especially those who were in some sort of employment before their conviction, getting back into work is at first challenging, but ultimately highly satisfying and rewarding. Working alongside a qualified craftsperson does not only help volunteers to gain stamina, new knowledge and skills, but also helps them develop a sense of self-worth and feeling part of society, sometimes also offering opportunities to reconnect with family. One volunteer, for example, after having completed a few month’s volunteering and on his release took his father out to the site to show and explain to him the different work he had done in the forest. Another, still on the scheme, replied the following when asked what he liked best about it: “For me personally, I’m enjoying the hard labour;... the physical exercise is good, and ehm [name of FC craftsperson who supervises the scheme] is teaching me about, pointing out different plants and stuff and I’m enjoying learning about the names of different plants and things like that. I never would have thought... I go for walks with my kids in the woods and that and I can walk through there and can say what this is and that is so and so...” (Male Prisoner B)

The conversation between the two volunteers and the two researchers went on and both volunteers elaborated related aspects: “It’s nice feeling part of, ehm, part of society again as well ... instead of being behind a wall or a fence where you are cut off from the rest of the world ... it’s nice to get back out into the world and meet other people” (Male Prisoner B) “I don’t feel any different when we are out [in the forest; i.e. we are treated the same as everyone else]...” (Male Prisoner A)

Trust is a big issue, in the sense that prisoners feel and experience a lack of trust and do not trust many fellow prisoners. In addition, the relationship with prison staff tends to be predominantly one of authority. Towards the end of the interview with the same two volunteers quoted earlier, both started to talk about ‘trust’ in connection to what was the key thing that they were getting out of the O&N volunteering scheme: “... getting the trust back again, you know, a lot of people trusting you again. [...] it’s about being in the public and being trusted; even at the prison to let us out is a trust thing and for [names of FC supervisors and manager] and everybody else here to trust us to do things as well, you know, it gives us confidence to know that people are trusting us again...” (Male Prisoner A)

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 “Being in a prison environment, having a lot of criminals locked together [...] there is not really a great deal of trust in there...”

(Male Prisoner B) Having contact with members of the public is also important: several volunteers observed in the interviews how at first they did not feel comfortable or confident to engage with members of the public.

However, they soon learnt about the work and were able to answer enquiries by passers-by or engage in small-talk with them. Importantly, members of the public saw and experience offenders as pleasant and hard-working people and appreciated the tasks done. This helps to build trust and confidence as well as de-stigmatise the volunteers. The identity of a volunteer doing hands-on work in green space thus helps (re-)connect offenders with Caption: Friends of the Lake District volunteers in mainstream society, drawing on the nurturing qualities of nature, conservation Eskdale thinning trees.

Photo L. O’Brien, FC. work and positive human interactions.

General volunteering in woodlands As part of a broad study on environmental volunteering, Forest Research, in partnership with researchers from Deakin University in Australia, carried out research into the motivations and benefits of volunteering. The researchers spent one day each with ten different groups, in northern England and southern Scotland, who volunteered for a range of organisations, including Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS), Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and Friends of the Lake District (FoLD). Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected; 88 people were interviewed in total as they undertook their day’s volunteering activity. The groups were carrying out a range of practical tasks including footpath creation, planting trees, removing invasive species and thinning woodland. The range of people interviewed was diverse in terms of age, socioeconomic status and physical and cognitive ability.

Involving a range of people with differing abilities The report of the research highlights that practical conservation work is able to accommodate a broad range of people and provide many positive benefits to them.4 For example, a group of volunteers in Cumbria consisted of six people with FoLD (the lead organisation of that group), 10 corporate volunteers from the Environment Agency, and five people from West House (a trust providing 37

ECOS 29(2) 2008 community support for those with learning disabilities). Two of the people from West House were carers and three were residents of the home. The carers rather than the residents were interviewed as part of the research and it became clear that they saw a range of benefits for the residents of getting involved. This included the residents being able to see that they were doing the same work as the other volunteers and this was sometimes something they were experiencing for the first time. They also had to deal with the uneven terrain of the woodland floor and this was challenging and enabled the development of gross motor skills and balance; and they developed confidence and self-esteem through getting involved in the tasks along with everybody else. The following quote illustrates the view of one of the carers: “Well, some of the guys that have been involved, they’re just growing in confidence. It’s just amazing the things they can do. Some of them have never like walked on uneven surfaces before because they’ve been mollycoddled at home. So the fact that they’re not only coming out and experiencing this, but they’re getting a different culture because it’s not just about the shops and what can they buy and what they can get and what other people can do for them. They’re realising in their own right that they can actually do just what everyone else is doing.” (Carer, West House, FoLD, Cumbria)

Benefits to those suffering behavioural difficulties and health problems Getting involved at an RSPB volunteer day in Motherwell was a young boy of 14 who attended a local school for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Many of the children at the school lived in care. The young boy participated in the volunteer activities every week with one of the teachers from the school. Due to his age the young boy was not interviewed as part of the research5; however, the teacher described the difference volunteering made to him.

“Oh yes he’s certainly changed from when he first came into the school. He was a very uncoordinated type of boy. When he was eating, food went all over the place. I think this activity helps him. He looks forward to it every Tuesday, there was one Tuesday we couldn’t come and it was a nightmare for him. He couldn’t accept it at all.”

(Teacher of young boy, RSPB, Motherwell) The teacher went on to describe how the young boy looked up to the RSPB employee, who managed the volunteers, as a role model and followed him around the site asking questions. Another young boy from the same school had volunteered at the site for two years and had recently left school and gained employment at a local garden centre. A young woman also volunteering for the RSPB in Motherwell had been recommended to get involved by her social worker who thought it would provide her with some structure and activity, she had been diagnosed as having a low work ethic and short attention span. During the interview the young woman expressed the view that she had developed new skills since becoming involved in the volunteer work and was committed to coming out each week and actively participating in the activities.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 Among the other volunteers at the RSPB site was a couple who were in their sixties, the husband had suffered from mental health problems for several years.

The couple had become very actively engaged in volunteer work in their local community through attending a barbecue organised for people who volunteered and those who were thinking about getting involved. They had decided to attend and had become committed to volunteering and making a difference in their local area.

RSPB Motherwell volunteers putting in fence posts.

Photo: L. O’Brien, FR

“Health-wise I haven’t been really good and he [her husband] was really depressed because he’s always worked…so having nothing to do was really getting him down. There’s not a lot he can do in his condition, so this is great. It really makes him feel better and me as well.”

(Female, RSPB Motherwell)

FCS has several Project Scotland volunteers 6 carrying out activities in Galloway Forest. Some of the young men involved have been in trouble with the police. A key motivation for getting involved is the opportunity to gain new skills and undertake training that may lead to future employment. One young man talked about some of the difficulties he was facing in terms of staying out of trouble and getting on with his family (see quote below). He got involved in Project Scotland when a friend told him about it and he was keen to undertake as much training as possible. He was able to develop a better relationship with his parents by getting involved in the activities, learning, gaining confidence and taking some responsibility. The volunteers have to show commitment and responsibility before being enrolled on training courses.

“My mum and dad were concerned that I wasn’t going to be doing anything with my life, you know. After a lot of time came some things and they just can have pride in me now you know, I can see that. And I get on a lot better with my dad.” (Young man, FCS, Galloway)

Simple approach – significant change The infrastructure for hands-on volunteering groups is already established in many environmental organisations and bodies. Demonstrating the benefits that contact with nature and wild landscapes can contribute to wider society is an important part of convincing policy-makers and the general public why the natural environment matters. Both ‘social inclusion’ and ‘environmental justice’ are recognised as needing explicit policy attention and financial resources. This follows research that confirms that socio-economic deprivation correlates strongly 39

ECOS 29(2) 2008 with poor environmental quality, including lack of access to natural green space.

This matters for individual and community quality of life and well-being. At the same time, an increasing body of research is confirming the extent of evidence that contact with plants, wildlife and natural places contributes to both physical and mental health,7 reduces stress and anti-social behaviour 8, facilitates social interactions and provides visible and worthwhile achievements (as also demonstrated in the different contributions to this issue of ECOS).

We have provided just a few examples from two separate pieces of research to show the ways in which excluded and marginalised people can gain a sense of selfworth and reconstruct their identity, improving their self-esteem through active hands-on engagement in woodlands and other green spaces. The strength of this type of volunteering lies in the wide range of abilities that can be accommodated and the contact with nature providing restoration benefits for those with mental health problems and other stigma-attachments.

Evidence from existing environmental volunteering schemes has highlighted the involvement as being “enjoyable” and “meaningful” which can bring a feeling to marginalised people that their lives are purposeful, meaningful and worthwhile.

Environmental volunteering can thus provide healing and widens the range of opportunities for activity and employment. Research is on-going to establish whether being and working in woodlands is viewed differently from other green spaces.

Findings to date suggest that while for some trees and mature woodlands are of special importance9, a similar range of benefits can be gained from diverse ‘natural’ habitats and landscapes. Volunteers feel they can develop new skills and positive identities that help open up a broader arena for social enjoyment and involvement. This model can help people to develop a sense of achievement and fosters group cohesion which can be useful in their re-integration in society and in their own social groups.

References and notes 1.

United Nations Volunteers (2003) Volunteers and the millennium development goals. UN Volunteers, Civicus, IAVE, Germany, p.21.

2.

‘Nature Providers’ is used here as a collective term to refer to organisations who own or are charged with managing public or private woodlands, nature reserves and green space, such as the Forestry Commission, Natural England, Wildlife Trusts, Woodland Trust, National Trust and many others.

3.

Carter, C. (2007) Offenders and Nature: Helping People – Helping Nature. Forest Research, Farnham.

4.

O’Brien, E., Townsend, M. and Ebden, M. (In press 2008) ‘I’d like to think when I’m gone I will have left this a better place’: Environmental volunteering: motivations, benefits and barriers. Report to the Scottish Forestry Trust and Forestry Commission, Edinburgh.

5.

We did not have the opportunity to gain parental permission for this to take place.

6.

Project Scotland is a volunteer placement programme for 16-25 year olds. The young people receive a subsistence allowance for undertaking a minimum of 30 hours per week of activity for between three and twelve months.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 7.

E.g. O’Brien, E. (2005) Trees and Woodlands: Nature’s Health Service, Farnham: Forest Research; Pretty, J., J. Peacock, M. Sellens and M. Griffin (2005) ‘The mental and physical health outcomes of green exercise’, International Journal of Environmental Health Research 15(5): 319–337.

8.

E.g. Kuo, F.E. and W.C. Sullivan (2001) ‘Environment and crime in the inner city: does vegetation reduce crime?’ Environment and Behavior 33(3): 343–367.

9.

E.g. O’Brien, E. (2004) A Sort of Magical Place: People’s experiences of woodlands in northwest and southeast England, Farnham: Forest Research.

Claudia Carter and Liz O’Brien are Project Leaders in the Social and Economic Research Group, which is part of the Environmental and Human Sciences Division at Forest Research, the research agency of the Forestry Commission. claudia.carter@forestry.gsi.gov.uk; liz.obrien@forestry.gsi.gov.uk

The Groundwork Green Team is a voluntary training and development programme for unemployed young people to train in outdoor environmental work. Here the Team are working on the Herts & Middlesex Wildlife Trust site, Balls Wood. Over 16 weeks, the trainees learn how to work as a team, gain experience in landscaping, conservation management, personal responsibility for learning, and preparation for employment or further education. The project works in association with Capital Woodlands, a London Biodiversity Partnership project supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Capital Woodlands promotes the understanding of London’s woodlands and helps people participate in woodland events and activities, leading to improved health and well-being.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008

Care farming: bringing together agriculture and health Care faming and other green care approaches can link policy priorities for farming, conservation, countryside and health agencies, and help create healthy places for the general public. This article reports on a recent study of the achievements of care farms and considers the potential of this emerging sector.

RACHEL HINE Multiple services from the land Any area of land can provide many different services at the same time, including environmental, recreational and health services. The agricultural sector has become particularly aware of the multifunctional character of land and although the core aim for agriculture remains the production of food, fibre, oil and other primary products, it also provides other important benefits to society and the environment. These include landscape character and aesthetics, recreation and amenity, water management and supply, nutrient recycling and fixation, wildlife habitats, storm protection and flood control as well as carbon sequestration.1 These public services gained from land have been the focus of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2 and Defra’s approach to ecosystem services.3 However, the health services provided by our greenspaces, countryside and farmland are less widely perceived and are often overlooked by land managers, healthcare providers and the general public alike.

Nature and health There is a growing body of evidence on the positive relationship between exposure to nature (incorporating a variety of outdoor settings, from the open countryside, fields and forests, to street trees, allotments and gardens) and an individual’s health.4 The key message emerging is that contact with nature improves psychological health by reducing pre-existing stress levels, enhancing mood, providing a ‘restorative environment’ and a protective effect from future stresses.5 In addition, recent studies have found that ‘green exercise’ (the synergistic benefits of engaging in physical activities whilst simultaneously being directly exposed to nature) results in significant improvements in self-esteem and mood measures, as well as leading to significant reductions in blood pressure.6 Therapeutic applications of various nature-based approaches, such as facilitated green exercise, therapeutic horticulture, ecotherapy and care farming, have been 42

ECOS 29(2) 2008 effective in the promotion of health and well-being.7 Collectively such naturebased therapeutic approaches have been termed ‘green care’.

Green care approaches typically comprise a therapy or a specific intervention, rather than simply providing a ‘therapeutic’ experience; or are designed for particular participants or a specific group of patients (for vulnerable or excluded people for example). In the UK there is a growing movement towards green care in many different forms and although there is diversity in the approaches used, the common ethos is to use nature to produce health, social or educational benefits.

Figure 1 shows the main distinct nature-based approaches that fall under the umbrella of green care.

The main distinct nature-based approaches that fall under the umbrella of green care are: • Social and therapeutic horticulture • Animal assisted interventions • Care farming • Facilitated green exercise as treatment • Ecotherapy • Wilderness therapy and nature therapy.

Using nature to nurture good health is not a new idea, historically prisons, hospitals, monasteries and churches have been associated with having different outdoor therapeutic spaces. Yet over the past century, with the advancement of modern medicines and healthcare technologies, the importance of nature for our health has tended to be overlooked.

Now however, there is a call for a reconnection to nature, with more public bodies, government departments and voluntary organisations promoting the importance of contact with nature for health and well-being. This increasing interest in various forms of green care in the UK has originated from many sectors including healthcare professionals, social services providers, local authorities, offender management teams, probation services, youth services, education authorities and farmers.

Green Care in agriculture Care farming (also referred to as’ farming for health’, ‘social farming’ or ‘green care in agriculture’), is defined as “the use of commercial farms and agricultural landscapes as a base for promoting mental and physical health, through normal farming activity”.8 It provides health, social or educational benefits through farming activities for a 43

ECOS 29(2) 2008 wide range of people. These may include those with defined medical or social needs (e.g. psychiatric patients, those suffering from mild to moderate depression, people with learning disabilities, those with a drug history, disaffected youth or elderly people) as well as those suffering from the effects of work-related stress or ill-health arising from obesity. Care farming represents a partnership between farmers, health and social care providers and participants. Care farming is a wellestablished movement in many European countries such as the Netherlands and Norway9 and is one of the recent developments gaining popularity in the UK. There is much variety in care farms, with differences in the extent of farming or care that they offer; the context, the client group and the type of farm. All care farms have some degree of ‘farming’ (crops, livestock, woodland etc.) and of ‘care’ (including health care, social rehabilitation, education or work training), but it is the balance of these elements and the focus that differ.

A recent study carried out by the University of Essex 10 examined the range and extent of care farming in the UK and produced case studies of clients of different types of care farm. This work provided empirical data addressing psychological health and well-being effects of spending time on a care farm. The aim of both studies was to help build up a body of evidence to inform health and social care providers (amongst others) and to support the promotion and spread of care farming in the UK.

Extent of care farming in the UK A questionnaire survey was designed and disseminated to known care farms, city farms, therapeutic communities, prison and school farms and other interested parties. Seventy six care farms completed the questionnaire and were then sorted due to differing farm characteristics into three categories: i) city farms, ii) private farms and iii) farms linked to external institutions or charities (including school farms, prison farms, therapeutic communities, hospital farms etc.). Of the care farms that completed the care farm scoping questionnaire, 19 were city farms, 16 independent farms and 41 were farms linked to external institutions or charities.

Care farms which took part in this study were located mainly in England but also in Scotland and Wales.

The survey found that UK care farms vary in size and that most have a mix of crop and livestock enterprises. A total of 355 full-time staff and 302 part-time staff are employed by the 76 care farms in the survey together with 741 volunteers. Care farms in the UK offer many different services including the development of basic skills (87% of farms), of work skills (70%), of social skills (65%) and some accredited training or education (63%).

Although the funding sources for care farms varies extensively both between farms and between categories of care farm, nearly half of the care farms surveyed receive some funding from charitable trusts and 33% receive client fees from the local authority. Thirty eight percent of care farms receive some other funding 44

ECOS 29(2) 2008 sources including LSC, Health Care Trusts, Social Services, Big Lottery Fund and public donations. However the biggest variation seen in the care farms surveyed was seen in the fees charged by farms for green care services. These fees vary widely, both in terms of amount and by how they are charged (i.e. per person, per day, per group, for farm facilities etc.). Some care farms are providing services for no charge at all, whilst fees on others range from £25–£100 per day.

The total number of care farm users in the UK is 5,869 per week. However, there is much variation between the levels of usage at different types of care farm. More people (230) attend each city farm per week, an average of 46 clients per week are seen at farms linked to external institutions or charities and an average of 29 users per week attend privately-run farms. There is also much variety in the client groups attending care farms in the UK (over 19 different groups) and most care farms provide services for a mix of client groups rather than for just one. Most (83%) care farms cater for people with learning difficulties, over half (51%) provide a service for disaffected young people and 49% of farms cater for people with mental health needs.

The majority of care farms have clients referred to them by a range of different sources simultaneously including social services, self-referral or from other sources such as Connexions, private care providers, the prison service, Youth Offending Teams, PCTs, community drug teams, individuals on Direct Payments and the voluntary sector. Nearly a half of farms receive clients through education authorities or other education service providers (including Further Education colleges, Pupil Referral Units, Behavioural Support Units etc.).

Care farmers reported that the physical benefits experienced by clients include improvements to physical health and farming skills. Mental health benefits consist of improved self-esteem, improved well-being and improvement of mood with other benefits including an increase in self-confidence, enhanced trust in other people and calmness. Examples of social benefits reported by care farmers are independence, the formation of a work habit and the development of social skills and personal responsibility.

Care farmers were also asked about the key successes of their care farms and although these varied widely between individual care farms, three broad themes emerged: • Seeing the effects of care farming on people, making a difference to people’s lives; • Helping the excluded become included into society and/or work; • Positive feedback from participants, families and referring bodies, Examples of the some of the comments received from farmers, outlining the successes of their care farms are shown in Box 1 on the following page.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008

Box 1 Some successes of UK care farms “Providing excluded members of society with the opportunity to work with others in a caring environment where they can benefit from the therapeutic environment of working with plants and animals. We have had many individual successes with clients who have had their lives changed by their involvement on our farm.”

“This success is now being noted by local care managers and community nurses who are starting to send us new clients.”

“To see others benefit from our lovely farm that we ourselves so enjoy. It is a privilege to see the progress created in others’ lives, simply by sharing the farm livestock and environment with them.”

“Getting groups of different service users to support each other.”

“Several hundred young people and adults who were disadvantaged in some way have been given the opportunity to fulfil their potential and escape the day centre or failing mainstream education trap. A by product is that we have brought over £1 million over the last 7 years to the local rural economy and given over 25 people jobs.”

“Successful rehabilitation of long term addicts/alcoholics.”

“Our work in an inner city community setting has always focused on disadvantaged individuals. Using animals and plants has been a worthwhile tool for engaging and providing therapeutic support.”

UK care farm health benefit study For the in-depth health benefit study, a mixed method design incorporating both quantitative data and qualitative narrative was used to collect health benefit data using a composite questionnaire. The questionnaires included i) qualitative questions for detailed narrative and information on farm activities; and ii) internationally recognised, standardised tools which measure participants’ levels of self-esteem and mood. These were chosen as the scoping study revealed that participation in care farming significantly enhanced self-esteem and mood. The questionnaires were administered immediately before and immediately after participants spent time on the care farm, to enable comparisons to be made and to allow identification of any changes in health parameters as a direct result of exposure to the care farm environment.

Seventy two participants from seven care farms around the country took part in the in-depth health benefit survey and participants included people with mental health needs, those who were unemployed, homeless or vulnerably housed, disaffected young people, those recovering from drug and alcohol misuse, older people, offenders, ex-offenders and people recovering from accident or illness.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 Figure 2. Changes is Self-esteem after spending time on a care farm.

Figure 3. Changes in all mood factors after spending time on care farm

Results from the Rosenberg Self-esteem tests showed there was a significant increase in participantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; self-esteem after spending time on the care farm (p<0.01), with 64% of participants experiencing an improvement in their selfesteem (Figure 2). The Profile of Mood States results indicated that there were statistically significant improvements in all six mood factors (p< 0.01 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; p<0.001) (Figure 6) and the Total Mood Disturbance (TMD) scores (which provide an indicator of overall mood) also revealed a highly significant increase (p<0.001), with the majority of participants (88%) experiencing improvements in their overall mood.

In addition to the standardised questions, participants in the survey were also asked what they enjoyed most about spending time on the care farm. Responses were rich and varied but largely centred around the enjoyment of being out in the fresh air, having contact with farm animals, spending time with other people and feeling confident as a result of learning new skills. Some of these comments are highlighted in Box 2.

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Box 2. What participants enjoy most about being on a care farm “Spending time with people and animals - I think it makes me feel better about myself.”

“I enjoy being part of the running of the farm on a day to day basis. I enjoy all aspects of training, working and living on the farm as part of the experience and as a way of life.”

“I enjoy spending time on the farm because it is a really nice family environment.”

“Making new friends, learning new skills.”

“I like looking at the animals, like the surroundings, meeting and talking with people - helps me with getting back into work, to gear myself up again. Feeling stronger and physically fitter because of it - especially after my breakdown.”

“I like the safeness of the farm, the fresh air and I like the work.”

“A sense of achievement from doing something on my own.”

The findings from this snapshot study clearly show that spending time participating in care farm activities is effective in enhancing mood and improving self-esteem. Working on a care farm can significantly increase self-esteem and reduce feelings of anger, confusion, depression, tension and fatigue, whilst also enabling participants to feel more active and energetic. Care farming can therefore offer an ideal way of helping a wide variety of people to feel better.

Key issues for care farming In the UK there is much pressure on health and social care providers, the prison and probation services and on education providers to supply successful solutions for a range of current health and social challenges such as obesity, depression, prison overcrowding, re-offending rates, disconnection from nature and the increase in number of disaffected young people. The agricultural sector in the UK has also been fraught with difficulties and set backs such as BSE, foot and Mouth and bluetongue as well as fluctuations in markets, late subsidy payments and adverse climatic conditions such as flooding resulting in threats to the economic viability of farms.

Evidence both from continental Europe11 and from the two UK studies, suggests that care farming could address some of these emergent health and social issues and offer a chance to combine care of people with the care of the land. Care farming could also present a cost-effective option in areas of social rehabilitation and could keep farmers farming by using agricultural landscapes to provide health and well-being benefits.

Already there are at least 5,000 people attending care farms across the UK every week. People who are vulnerable or excluded from society; those suffering from mental ill-health or recovering from alcohol or drug addiction, children, adults and many others are benefiting from contact with a farm environment.

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Organised work keeps young people fit and focused on a care farm.

Photo: NCFI

In the UK care farms exist largely in spite of government policy rather than because of it and for the promotion of care farming to be successful, several key issues which could be ameliorated by policy support in future (such as funding structures, recognition of legitimacy and a recognised referral procedure) need to be addressed.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 Whilst care farming has important policy implications for a wide range of sectors and is relevant for a variety of different government departments, NGOs, the private and voluntary sectors, in the health and social care sector, care farming has great potential. However, there is still limited acceptance from healthcare and social service providers, of the role that care farming and other green care approaches can play in health. Whilst the full extent of the range of different health benefits from care faming needs to be better researched and more effectively communicated, the health sector needs to consider the contribution that care farming can make to both individual health and public well-being, and stress the therapeutic value of the outdoors (both rural and urban) for delivering physical and mental health and well-being.

Care faming and other green care approaches could link policy priorities for farming, conservation, countryside and health agencies, and help create healthy places for the general public. Care farming represents an additional choice for health and social care in the UK. Successful care farming initiatives in Europe and the UK rely on an ethos of tailor-making the treatment options to the individual rather than one programme of care for all clients, thus fitting in to the concept of personalised healthcare advocated by the NHS. Health and social care professionals and policy-makers are therefore urged to promote the idea that nature can help people feel better.

References 1.

Pretty J, Brett C, Gee D, Hine R, Mason C F, Morison J I L, Raven H, Rayment M and van der Bijl G. 2000. An assessment of the total external costs of UK agriculture. Agricultural Systems 65 (2), 113-136

2.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.(2005). Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Current State and Trends. Findings of the Condition and Trends Working Group. Islan Press, Washington. Also available at: http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx

3.

Defra. 2007a. An introductory guide to valuing ecosystem services. Defra, London. Available at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-countryside/natres/eco-value.htm

4.

Bird, W. (2007) Natural Thinking: Investigating the links between the Natural Environment, Biodiversity and Mental Health. Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Available from website: http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/naturalthinking_tcm9-161856.pdf; Pretty, J., Peacock, J., Hine, R., Sellens, M., South, N. and Griffin, M. (2007) Green Exercise in the UK Countryside: Effects on Health and Psychological Well-Being, and Implications for Policy and Planning. J. Environ. Planning and Manage. 50(2) 211-231; Pretty, J., Peacock, J., Sellens, M. and Griffin, M. (2005a) The mental and physical health outcomes of green exercise. International Journal of Environmental Health Research 15(5), 319-337; MIND (2007) Ecotherapy: The green agenda for mental health. Mindweek report. Available from website: http://www.mind.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/D9A930D2-30D4-4E5B-BE79-1D401B804165/0/ecotherapy.pdf;

5.

Kaplan, S. (1995) The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology 15, 169-182; Louv, R. (2005) Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder North Carolina, Algonquin Books; Hartig, T. Evans, G. W. Jamner, L. D, Davis, D. S. and Garling,T. (2003) Tracking restoration in natural and urban field settings. Journal of Environmental Psychology 23: 109-123

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 6.

Peacock, J., Hine, R. and Pretty, J. (2007) Got the Blues? then find some Greenspace: The Mental Health Benefits of Green Exercise Activities and Green Care. University of Essex report for Mindweek.; Pretty, J., Peacock, J., Hine, R., Sellens, M., South, N. and Griffin, M. (2007) Green Exercise in the UK Countryside: Effects on Health and Psychological Well-Being, and Implications for Policy and Planning. J. Environ. Planning and Manage. 50(2) 211-231; Hine, R. Peacock, J. and Pretty, J. (2008a) Green Lungs for the East of England. Report for the National Trust. Available from website: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/

7.

Peacock, J., Hine, R. and Pretty, J. (2007) Got the Blues? then find some Greenspace: The Mental Health Benefits of Green Exercise Activities and Green Care. University of Essex report for Mindweek; Sempik, J,, Aldridge, J. and Becker, S. (2003) Social and Therapeutic Horticulture: Evidence and messages from research. Rep. Evidence issue 6, Loughborough University, Thrive & Centre for Child and Family Research; Hine, R. Peacock, J. and Pretty J. (2008b) Care Farming in the UK: A scoping study. Report for NCFI(UK).

Available from website: http://www.ncfi.org.uk/documents/Care%20farming%20in%20the%20UK%20FINAL%20Report%20Jan%2008.pdf

8.

Hassink, J. (2003) Combining agricultural production and care for persons with disabilities: a new role of agriculture and farm animals. Wageningen University, Netherlands; National Care Farming Initiative (UK) (2008) Website: http://www.ncfi.org.uk/

9.

Hassink, J. Zwartbol, Ch. Agricola, H. Elings, M. and Thissen, J. (2007) Current status and potential of care farms in the Netherlands. Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences NJAS 55(1).

10. Hine, R. Peacock, J. and Pretty J. (2008b) Care Farming in the UK: A scoping study. Report for NCFI(UK). Available from website: http://www.ncfi.org.uk/documents/Care%20farming%20in%20the%20UK%20FINAL%20Report%20Jan%2008.pdf 11. Hassink, J. Zwartbol, Ch. Agricola, H. Elings, M. and Thissen, J. (2007) Current status and potential of care farms in the Netherlands. Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences NJAS 55(1).

Hassink, J. and van Dijk, M. eds. (2006) Farming for Health: Green-care farming across Europe and the United States of America. Springer. Dordrecht. Also available from website: http://library.wur.nl/frontis/farming_for_health/

Rachel Hine is Assistant Director of the Centre for Environment and Society, University of Essex. rehine@essex.ac.uk

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The journey ahead – finding nature in hospice gardens The hospice garden has to delicately balance a meditative and rather melancholy tradition with a newer sensibility around the belief that we are also a part of nature and that in surrendering to the natural world – rather than placing our hopes in some higher, divine authority - we may become strengthened and healed.

KEN WORPOLE “People have died in the open air, in their beds which we have wheeled out onto the terrace garden”, a hospice manager told me in suburban Surrey. This was in response to a question as to whether it was only visitors who enjoyed the serene, meditative garden that had been designed around the new wing of the expanding hospice campus.

What is now commonly called ‘the modern hospice movement’, dates back to the establishment of St Christopher’s Hospice in Sydenham, London by Dame Cicely Saunders in 1967. There are now over 250 dedicated hospices in the UK, and 8,500 modern hospice projects in 123 countries across the world: the number is growing all the time. In most countries the hospice movement remains largely inspired, administered and funded by religious or voluntary organisations – rarely the state.

The majority of hospices in the UK are managed and financed by local charities, giving them an unusual capacity for innovation in both treatment, care and indeed the design and administration of the buildings and grounds they occupy. Such has been the enthusiasm to develop hospices in the UK, it now seems that no mediumsized town can be without one.

A key feature of St Christopher’s was not just an unusual collection of buildings – a modest campus in a leafy suburban street - but that the gardens were regarded as being equally important to the success of the original ‘hospice’ ethos. This remains the case wherever new hospices are built. The independence in budget-making and commissioning powers which voluntary status brings to the hospice movement, means not only that they can develop exceptional designs for their buildings (though they don’t always take advantage of this), but that they have greater freedom in choosing appropriate and sympathetic sites to develop, providing an opportunity to put landscape and gardenesque elements (or a mixture of the two) to the fore. In this they are continuing a history in which as Gerlach-Spriggs has written: “such gardens have played an integral role in the evolution of human care.

Gardens have a mythology, a poetry, and a history, strongly linked to life cycles and the process of healing, renewal, and ultimately dying. The persistent appearance of healing gardens in places and times of medical innovation suggest that beyond the aesthetic human beings feel a biological need for contact with the natural”.1 52

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The verandah garden at St Oswald's hospice in Newcastle.

Photo: Ken Warpole

Retreat in nature It is clear to many, then and now, that a view of an attractive landscape surrounding buildings which house the sick or the elderly can bring psychological benefits – whether these are termed ‘therapeutic gardens’ or ‘healing environments’. These ideas are very much to the fore in the opening section of Jules Pretty’s recent book, The Earth Only Endures.2 There is now a distinctive body of research evidence within the health sector which claims that views of greenery and, even better, access to gardens, aids the recuperation of patients following surgery or treatment. Many new hospitals, GP surgeries and health centres, now try to include a garden feature in and around their buildings, often justifying the additional cost in terms of long-term health benefits and, ultimately, even financial savings due to the speedier recovery of patients, or their improved sense of well-being.

But hospice gardens are even more complicated and many-layered than even these understandings suggest. They draw as much upon a rich history of religious associations with the garden (especially the walled ornamental garden) as a place of retreat, meditation, and of memento mori (reflecting upon one’s own mortality), as they do upon herbal gardens and naturalistic gardens which allude to the healthgiving properties of the natural world. The medieval walled garden might have 53

ECOS 29(2) 2008 contained sun-dials, water clocks, arbours, inscriptions, often alluding to the transience of life, the hours, the days and the seasons. They were not part of nature but set apart, in some ways as an extension to the church or the monastery. They also acted as confessionals and, in addition to the conventions of modern spy stories where secret agents rendezvous in parks and gardens away from the microphones, you will also find in Shakespeare’s plays and Jane Austen’s novels - and in even earlier narrative traditions – the conceit that the garden is a place where secrets are shared and people are brought to a clearer realisation of their destiny.

In the hospice, of course, the healing can only be of the spirit, as the body is by definition in terminal decline and close to death. Even so, many people do find comfort in the idea that in dying, like other animals, we return to the earth and find some kind of solace in the continuation of the planet’s own destiny. Nature, in this view, is our ally and ultimate home. Or as Simon Schama expressed it, when writing on the landscape paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, whose evergreen forests appeared to promise hope of resurrection, that they went “directly to the heart of one of our most powerful yearnings: the craving to find in nature a consolation for our mortality”.3 The continuing growth of ‘natural’ or ‘woodland’ burial in the UK, again attests to this modern kind of naturalistic spirituality. Therefore the hospice garden has also to include woodland and uncultivated elements, evocative of the primal world.

Nature, landscape and architecture Getting this balance right brings into play a long-standing debate amongst garden historians as to whether gardens themselves are actually de-natured, artifical constructions, too closely defined by human intentionality and even hubris to be a part of nature in any meaningful sense of the word. Certainly the formal, aristocratic gardens created by the Elizabethans in Britain, or in Europe during the renaissance and baroque periods, were exercises in the display of political and social power, as well as demonstrating a grand-standing human mastery and control over nature. This is evident in the punishing forms of topiary, espaliered trees, elegant boulevards and allées, mechanical fountains and regulated water features still to be seen in many of them even today. The 18th century English ‘picturesque garden’ was a reaction against this, and, in the words of William Kent, had ‘leap’d the fence and seen that all nature is a garden.’ Whether gardens are part of nature or whether nature is itself a kind of universal garden, continues to haunt landscape historians, philosophers, theologians and others. Eden and paradise are claimed to be both, simultaneously, in theological history. More recently, the avant-garde artist and film-maker, Derek Jarman, recounting the creation of his exquisite shingle beach garden at Dungeness – perhaps the most influential garden of modern times in Britain - chose to call his journal, Modern Nature.4 It is wise to accept that the boundaries between the two can never be strictly demarcated.

In writing a book about the modern hospice movement, I have visited a number in Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia, looking at the architecture, planning and the 54

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The summer-house at Vidarkliniken, near Stockholm Photo: Ken Warpole

landscape settings of these most profound places. The most ambitious and extensive setting of all was found at Vidarkliniken, just 50 km south of Stockholm, a hospital (with hospice care) run in accordance with the principles of Rudolf Steiner. The landscape is stunning, set in gentle farmland surrounded by lakes and woodland. Much of the food is grown locally, and most of the organic waste (and water) is recycled naturally. Here there is little attempt at ornamental gardening, since the natural landscape itself is so ubiquitous and enveloping. Vidarkliniken receives a large proportion of its funding from the state, as it offers both conventional and anthroposophical treatments. The integration of architecture and landscape is compelling.

Vidarkliniken is unique, however. In most other hospices a number of common themes implicit in the design of the surrounding gardens and landscapes could be detected. These may be of interest beyond the hospice sector, particularly to those concerned with the wider relationship between the environment and a sense of human well-being. It was quickly apparent that, for example, Japanese gardening traditions were emulated in many places, notably evident in the adroit assembly of water features, rocks, stones, raked gravel and occasional outbreaks of shrubbery. These are gardens to be looked at, not entered, places for reflection not immersion or exploration. When I interviewed the landscape gardener Dan Pearson, in connection with his involvement in the design of the new Maggieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 55

ECOS 29(2) 2008 London, a cancer care centre in the grounds of Charing Cross Hospital, he confirmed the importance of the Japanese tradition in modern garden design, particularly where matters of privacy and reflection are concerned. For him, the Japanese garden exemplifies a concentration on ‘only the things that matter’, in which emotions and feelings are ‘finely tuned’. Thus they are ideal compositions to be contained within the grounds of a hospice.

However, such gardens usually form just one element in a mixed assembly of landscape and gardening elements, all of which help to serve a range of functions and meet a variety of needs. In most modern hospice buildings each patient room opens out onto a flat terrace, usually with some ornamental features, and these are designed to be fully accessible, even as we have seen, to patients in their moveable beds. Often these immediate outdoor elements are partitioned as small private gardens. Bird-feeders abound close to the patient rooms, along with wind-chimes.

The sensory experience Further out the gardens tend to become more naturalistic, and indeed may include wooded areas where children (of both visitors and patients) can play. Where possible the most important elements of the landscape prior to development are preserved, including mature trees, shrubs, ponds, badger setts and other existing landscape features. St Francis Hospice near Berkhamsted even supplies its own water from a bore-hole dug on site. This turned out to be cheaper than providing mains water from some distance away, as well as contributing to the consoling idea that the earth provides wherever it can.

It is clear that these gardens are loved by the patients, staff and visitors who use them. While most have been designed by landscape architects, their ongoing maintenance is usually in the hands of volunteers – not always an entirely satisfactory situation. For there is a strong case that a good plan and planting programme for a designed landscape can only improve and strengthen in time, and needs to be understood in terms of its original conceptual framework. A beautiful garden can, like an elegant building, be easily compromised or spoiled by inappropriate additions, changes, or modifications. These are long-term issues which only now are hospices learning to address.

There are also practical issues, which in turn have their psychological and symbolic aspects too. Trees and flowers which bloom and die quickly scattering dead petals and leaves everywhere, may not be the best thing to put immediately outside a dying patient’s room. Running water is always preferable to still (let alone stagnant) water, as are plants, shrubs and trees which bow and sigh in the wind to be preferred to those which sag or collapse in a heap upon themselves.

These gardens have to reflect seasonal change, changes in the weather, and provide a constantly moving and sensory experience of the natural world at its most artful and consolatory.

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Life-enhancing designs Such is the appreciation which many patients and their friends and families express for these gardens, that hospice managers find it hard to resist – but they invariably do – requests to plant commemorative trees or shrubs following the deaths of patients. Or to allow plaques or benches with inscriptions to be commissioned and donated in memory of those whose lives ended in these places.

What the hospice garden cannot be, I was told time and time again, is a memorial garden. It has to be imbued with a sense of life, change and hope for the future, and ‘the journey ahead’.

The rapid growth of the modern hospice movement suggests that it is meeting medical and spiritual needs which conventional institutional provision for the sick and the dying are no longer seen to provide – if they ever did. It also reflects new anxieties about the place and time of death which in a largely post-religious society have not been fully addressed. It was soon clear in all my visits that the care attending the dying and their friends and families in these hospices is quite exceptional, and quite moving and humbling to observe. One element of this care at the end of life, is a clear consideration of the benefits to be gained by views of, and access to, the sights and sounds of the natural world - even if this version of ‘nature’ is enhanced by the cultivation of a sensitively designed if sometimes overcultivated garden. One can only envy those who do spend their last hours in the open air, with some vestigial contact at least with the natural world.

References and further reading 1.

Gerlach-Spriggs, N, Richard Enoch Kauffman & Sam Bass Warner, Jr. (1998) Restorative Gardens: The Healing Landscape, Yale University Press.

2.

Pretty, J (2007) The Earth Only Endures, Earthscan, 2007.

3.

Simon Schama (1995), Landscape & Memory, Harper Collins.

4.

Derek Jarman (1992), Modern Nature: The Journals of Derek Jarman, Vintage.

Derek Jarman (1995) Derek Jarman’s Garden, Thames & Hudson.

Yves Abrioux (1992) Ian Hamilton Finlay: A Visual Primer, Reaktion Books.

Jan Birksted, editor (2000), Landscapes of memory and experience, Spon Press.

David R.Coffin (1994) The English Garden: Meditation and Memorial, Princeton University Press.

Ken Worpole (2003) Last Landscapes: the architecture of the cemetery in the West, Reaktion Books.

Ken Worpole is author of Modern Hospice Design: Architecture and palliative care, to be published by Routledge in 2009. www.worpole.net

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Sacrifice – the dilemma of Good Reason “Conservation of one resource may entail the sacrifice of another resource.”

Orris C. Herfindahl, U.S. economist “An ethic is not an ethic, and a value not a value without some sacrifice for it.”

Jerome Kohlberg jr. U.S. banker

MARTIN SPRAY It may be that we are the only animals that decide deliberately to exploit the world beyond what is needed for us to go on living – but I doubt it. Like other animals, whatever humans do changes something in the environment. We change things in our living. Some is done in order to stay living; some is done wantonly, wastefully; and some is done as though as a sacrifice for Good Reason. Conservation may be a Good Reason for some sacrifice.

Bogs rule Many moons ago, I was a member of a committee that promoted field studies in Sheffield schools. About the same time, I helped prepare part of a local radio series called ‘The Web of Life’. For several years, I had been active in the regional natural history society, including encouraging it to start to take on a remit for conservation and helping run the junior section. All these involvements took me to a favourite place at the edge of the moors of the Dark Peak, busably near the city. As a child, I had walked, picnicked, and played, there with my parents. The place still is important to me, as one of the sources of a widening fascination with ‘nature’. By myself and with fellow naturalists, I explored the heather moor and wet oakwoods, the tumbling stream feeding a nineteenth-century reservoir, and a small woodland edge bog, later to become a local reserve partly because of its round-leaved sundew and Pinguicula.

I found them both, and a dilemma. A house nearby was demolished in the late sixties, but the well-built gritstone outbuilding was kept. This came to the Field Studies committee’s attention, and its potential as a little field-centre was debated.

Its merit was easy access by public transport and a half-hour walk, municipal control, documentation by the City Museum and Nat. Hist. Soc., oakwood, pine plantations, heather and bilberry moor, bracken, rhododendron colonies, rough and improved grassland, rock faces, reservoir, stream, wet-flushes, and a bog on the doorstep. The bus terminus could add ‘village studies’ and local history, as well as a shop and cricket ground. This would be an excellent ‘resource’ for the educational opportunities we were promoting, and would complement others the city Education Committee was developing.

The merit didn’t win. The bog won.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 Maybe this was right – but at the time I thought it was wrong. It seemed wrong not to share the sensuousness of mossy tree-trunks, the curiosity charged by beasties hidden there or brazenly flying over the heather, the excitement of finding the lowly but carnivorous sundew – all this and more in fresh air and a beautiful setting – with children who had probably never even eaten bilberries straight from the bush or heard the cry of curlew in the warm summer breeze – perhaps who only ventured out of the city for a week at Butlins – let alone watched the distant city lights twinkle way below the darkened, silenced, disorienting moor. It seemed right to offer the sundew, and if necessary sacrifice it. Education is a very good reason. But this was naive.

The feeling that it was important to share the sundew and the curlew, and if possible the blank blackness of the night, was reinforced by the Web of Life dayout for children from inner-city schools that had followed the series. This must have been before Health & Safety was invented. 250 of them came, packed onto double-deckers; many (it was a Saturday) were without teachers. Most were excited. Most insisted on jumping in the stream before they had lunch. I can’t remember where sundews featured during the day, but I do remember we were careful not to let the kids trample through the bog.

An incident involving two 10 year old boys sticks as the most poignant memory of the day. Walking along the quiet lane, they started fighting. One wanted what the other had found. The trophy both wanted was ...a tuft of wool, a miserable grey wisp snatched from a passing sheep by a piece of barbed wire. Neither of them had seen such a thing before, and both wanted to take it home. I was first amazed, and then sad. I am still sad, because I think it is still the same for too many 10 year olds.

It isn’t cricket! (Is it?)

In London in 1977, on a two acre demolition site next to Tower Bridge, the short lived but influential William Curtis Ecological Park opened. It catered for numerous visits from all levels of education until 1985. Primary level children especially enjoyed it. I was much interested in environmental education and urban natural history at the time. A friend employed at the Park introduced me to the place, its residents, and its visitors.

Some children, she said, took a while to settle down. Teachers grumbled about precious time wasted, especially in the frogs-in-pond season. The excited frogs were exciting. ‘Work’ couldn’t begin until frogs had been explored.

The kids’ exploration was mostly not of the scientific kind. Some of them wanted to find out what (as they put it) frogs are for. One group discovered that they are for tennis. The details of ‘frog tennis’ are best not elaborated.1 My friend was a practicing nature conservationist, and a founder of a local wildlife group; yet, she was apparently content to let a group of young children ‘settle down’ with the sacrifice of a frog. Her rationale was akin to that of the 59

ECOS 29(2) 2008 sometime president of the regional natural history society that had fostered my earlier interests, who with charisma introduced many young children to wildlife of all kinds. He found that he could best propagate his delight in insects by encouraging the kids to handle them freely. In their exploring, clumsy, hands, there must often have been deaths. He hoped, he said, none was rare.

Were both my friends cruel – or just silly? Maybe – but I’d say not. Both were adamant that the physical contact per se was important, that the freedom to ‘explore’ was important, that a freedom of response was important. The school parties apparently worked more calmly after the sacrifices, which hopefully wouldn’t need to be repeated. The budding naturalists were more likely to be engrossed (if only briefly) by things around them they hadn’t noticed before the accidents.

I have never felt entirely comfortable with this; however, I think my friends were far more right than wrong. They were just tolerant of part of ordinary growing up. At least it used to be, for some of us... 2 Mea culpa. With slight embarrassment, I remember discovering by experiment what a worm does in a fire, and that adult caddis-flies don’t swim well. Doubtless there were other experiments. Later, I collected moths; I still have a few of the beautiful corpses. Later, when an undergraduate, I was prepared to ‘pith’ a frog, to study twitches in its legs. When a fellow-student’s incompletely pithed ‘specimen’ started dragging wires and needles along the lab bench I was less concerned for it than for the beautiful girl who collapsed screaming when she saw it. The next year, my honours subject was botany. 3

Ethics and dilemmas Have we not become a little too p.c.? Are the slowly spreading, widened ethical concern for fellow creatures (to which I subscribe), and a continuing at-all-costs defence of the rare, the special, and the beautiful (to which I don’t), both sometimes keeping us from seeing the point? Perhaps just sometimes.

I often ponder the bog dilemma, the joyful, muddy, kids, and the prize wisp of dirty wool. I believe I had a better – yes: in some respects better – experience of childhood than the two fighters. I am glad that my own children had the chance to splash in that same stream, fall out of trees, and walk by moonlight in the night forest, clutching my hands when – it was only sheep! – something rustled nearby.

I am glad that at seven they began to enjoy the adventuring and socialising experiences of Forest School Camps,4 and now in turn help other youngsters get hungrily tired and happily muddy. Neither has joined BANC, or FoE, they both owe a thicket or two for air-miles, and alas! I have never shown them sundew.

I sometimes imagine the frog, the girl, and the scream.... I am glad to have had the chance to explore the insides of (dead 3 ) frog and rat, worm and insect, and thereby increase not only an enthusiasm for natural history and biology but also, and more importantly, a feeling of the sameness of that biology, shared by frog, 60

ECOS 29(2) 2008 rat, insect, worm, and me. That seems to me to be the foundation of an ecological understanding of the world that does not leave Homo sapiens smirking on the sideline like the demigods. The ethical relationship is of course just as necessary, and if some fellow beings were sacrificed, I’m sorry.5 My belief is that the loss of a few can benefit the many.6

Bulldozers, bikers and stewards Do not expect a strong conservation ethic and practice to manifest among the majority of our fellow humans. When we see it in other cultures, it is sometimes an artefact resulting from our use of rose-tinted optics. “I shudder to think what my own [ancestors] would have done had they bulldozers”, quips Maori chief Tipene O’Regan.7 He is not summarising a unique situation. As much as anyone, I would like to switch civilisation from anthropocentricity to ecocentricity, but I am not expecting to be around for the party.

Some things, I guess, I shall see. Environmental problems will, surely, deepen and spread, and tip us into urgent remedial activity. At the moment, we are making miniscule changes. This already looks monumentally crazy. It looks crazy to an increasing minority who accept humankind’s subordination to the biosphere, rather than either dominance or ‘stewardship’ of it. Subordination it may be; but most action to restrain ourselves from endangering ourselves is just that: an attempt to save ourselves, partly by safeguarding so-called biodiversity. We want to save the whales because they are fun; we would save cod because they are tasty; and butterflies because they are pretty. We would avoid sacrificing a butterfly, even though we jeopardise innumerable other species. And, accepting our ecological position most often does not include doing something about it.

Nonetheless, we feel the need to do things. Some seem futile; some might be the wrong things. A volunteer, dismantling a vagrant’s well-hidden shelter in a National Nature Reserve, has qualms about sacrificing a fellow human: “We want to be Wardens, and shoving a tramp’s home into a dustbin bag is part of the job. I hate myself.” 8 We (I mean we ‘enlightened’ conservationists) are inclined to infer that (wild) nature is for our stewardship. But the world is everyone’s: even the offroad motorcyclist’s as he roars through the woods. “Not what the woods are for!”, you might complain. You might be wrong as well as right. “We are still in a world where one lot of people make the decisions and another lot abide by them, or sabotage them”.9

Suffering the children Kids, of course, are supposed to abide by them. I suspect we might need to accept a little more suffering of little children. They play. In doing so, they experience things, often in doing so they damage things. Is this not inevitable? I believe it is necessary. One might try zoning play to areas of low conservation status, but I suspect these correlate with low playability – and low serendipity – status.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 “What”, continues Colin Ward9, should our aim be in environmental education?

To educate for mastery of the environment: nothing less than that. “We are”, he adds optimistically, “in the early stages of moving away from a formal democracy to a participatory democracy, in which people cherish the environment because it is theirs.”

Around the time of the bog dilemma and early involvement with environmental education, I was much impressed by the deschoolers.10 They persuaded me we need education that is in part academic, but in larger part experiential; in part, indoors and institutional, but in larger part in the ‘real’ world: that – though not for all, or all the time – it can be fun, and doesn’t all have to lead to exams. Much, indeed, needn’t involve schools. In the seventies (this is not nostalgia), ‘environmental education’ looked like becoming “one of the most (and few) encouraging things about today’s schools...”.11 In fact, it was formalised, and sidelined. But some remains, and there are memories of last century’s work that could be the foundations for a structure better designed than the one being built then. Of course, the curriculum as a whole would need revisiting – again. Arts and science would not be stark contrasts, children would learn in as much a social as an academic setting, and we would shed the hands-off approach to learning about things.

I know this is a frighteningly tall order, is nothing new, that a compromise is most likely, and that Status Quo weighs heavier than lead. There are, however, encouragements to be found here and there. The experiences offered by the likes of Forest Schools and FSC; by urban farms; by places inspired by the William Curtis Ecological Park. Television can be enchanting and enlightening; the Web has gems amongst the dross. There are wildlife groups, wildlife trusts, traditional nat. hist. socs, and relative newcomers like the Fairyland Trust which promotes places where kids can “experience the enchantment... of real nature, free from plastic theme parks or education so serious that it’s boring”. 12 Do not anticipate miracles; could they ever influence a majority? However, all these and more can – if we can lift off the well-meant but deadening hand of H&S – bring people (not just children) into real rather than virtual contact with beasts and plants, rocks, streams, and mud. In the doing, we might seldom be in control.

Some creatures’ lives would be crushed and some places spoiled, but if more people as a result take more steps towards a healthier world, wouldn’t some sacrifices be worthwhile?

References and notes 1.

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And they weren’t in Pam Morris (1985) Conservation education: a primary context ECOS 6(4) 12-14.

For the park’s ‘normal’ use see Jeremy Cotton (1979) Field teaching in inner cities: The William Curtis Ecological Park Journal of Biological Education 13[4] 251-55. For other context, see the Trust for Urban Ecology (TRUE), www.urbanecology.org.uk.

ECOS 29(2) 2008 2.

Most of this, surely, can be called innocent; however, the debate on cruelty by children seems to continue. Keith Thomas wrote interestingly on this in Man and the natural world. London: Allen Lane, 1983.

3.

There is good summary of such problems in education in Tom Regan (2004 rev.) The case for animal rights. U. California Press.

4.

Not the same as Forest Schools, but I think partly similar - see www.fsc.org.uk. Its origins were in the Woodcraft movement.

5.

This is ‘sacrifice’ in a weak sense. In a strong sense, a thing that is sacrificed becomes sacred (L sacer make holy); thus made ‘sacrosanct’, it is not to be violated, criticised, or otherwise harmed. What you sacrifice must be of actual value: an empty gesture won’t work. As a stratagem, sacrifice is significant in both chess and real battles – something quite different from paying a bribe or a ransom, we might note.

6.

It is obvious that means and ends often conflict – violently. For a mundane instance, it is unpleasant feeling ambivalent about research with stem-cells when part of your brain is giving out too early.

Although he deals particularly with ‘nature’ at this scale, Lee M. Silver’s provocative Challenging Nature. The clash of science and spirituality at the new frontiers of life (N.Y.: HarperCollins, 2006) has important points for us to ponder at our scale.

7.

Quoted by Roy Perrett (1998) Indigenous rights and environmental justice Environmental Ethics 20(4) 377-92. This topic opens big questions about sacrifice for us.

8.

Geraldine Taylor (1986) Planting acorns, London: Impact.

9.

Colin Ward & Anthony Fyson (1973) Streetwork. The exploding school, London: RKP.

10. The complaint is that compulsory, solid, multi-year schooling is inefficient, counterproductive, and misses the point of education. Schools would have reduced emphasis. See especially Ivan Illich (1971) Deschooling society (Penguin ed. 1973); Everett Reimer (1971) School is dead, Penguin. They are almost forgotten.

11. Martin Spray & Nancy Stedman (1976) The environmental bandwagon: Could it be a backlash?

Bulletin of Environmental Education [‘BEE’]nr. 57: 10-14. Env. ed. was seen – positively – as ‘Education for frustration’ (Dennis Donnelly (1980) BEE nr. 115: 19-22) and as ‘Catalytic action’ (Martin Spray (1982) BEE nr. 128: 11-13). More recently, Steve Tilling (2004) Fieldwork in UK secondary schools J. Biol.Educ. 38(2) 55-58, after confirming “the continuing retreat into the classroom”, notes that – in the case of secondary biology – there is “no published evidence [...] to support improved academic performance or other personal development measures”.

12. www.fairylandtrust.org, and see Chris Rose & Sarah Wise (2003) The Fairyland Trust – festivals, fun and magic ECOS 24(3-4) 33-36.

Martin Spray spraypludds@hotmail.com

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2008 Derek Ratcliffe tribute article

Passionate Leadership: conservation in the 21st century If wildlife and people are to adapt to climate change the conservation movement must map out a brave new vision for landscape restoration, starting from the bottom up. To deliver this vision we must renew our post-war spirit and support visionary leadership on the ground.

STEPHANIE HILBORNE One: Where we’ve come from One prerequisite of great leadership is self-awareness. So, if I am to argue that the conservation movement must move into a phase of true leadership, then it is necessary to clarify my understanding of its history.

Our origins – defending with passion Nature conservation measures designed after the second world war, in particular through the 1949 Act, had little detailed science behind them. A set of special sites was identified based on the knowledge of some excellent naturalists and in a spirit of relative calm. They were intended to celebrate natural history but they soon took on an even more important task, as they became the battlefields in a major post-war defensive. During the 1950s and 1960s the ploughing of wildflower meadows, drainage of wetlands and destruction of ancient woodlands inflamed our passion and encouraged us to defend our most special wildlife sites. We formed organisations to protect these places – the local incarnation being The Wildlife Trusts (as Ted Smith documents so well in his recent book Trustees for Nature 1, see the book review in this ECOS). Our leading naturalists turned into ecologists and then, as time went by, into ardent conservationists.

The Great Crested Newt era – defending with science Despite the best efforts of our founding fathers, nature remained under heavy assault as the innate value of wildlife was clearly not being appreciated by those in authority. In 1977, Derek Ratcliffe helped to provide a more scientific justification for nature conservation through his Nature Conservation Review, and we entered the era of scientific nature conservation.2 The statutory site protection system sat at its core with tighter systems and processes gradually enshrined into UK law.

The era was epitomised by the Great Crested Newt’s becoming a victim of ridicule amongst developers and the Desmoulin’s Whorl Snail’s being hailed as a hero by 64

ECOS 29(2) 2008 conservationists for having more chance of halting construction of the Newbury Bypass than the immense passionate human opposition mustered by the nation. In the end even the snail failed to stop the bypass and was “translocated”. Moving wildlife out of the way and providing compensation for loss of sites became part of the business. At one tiny Northamptonshire wetland eight species of reed-beetle led to the re-routing of a road, creation of a facsimile of the ditch affected, and 10 years’ worth of management funding … about £100,000 per beetle species.

Science achieved one or two great victories, and continues to do so – Dibden Bay won a reprieve – but the usual story was a decision against wildlife, or a decision in its favour over-turned by appeal. Inevitably, the developer only has to win once, whereas conservationists have to win every time a reapplication is made. A fierce sense of injustice became an every day experience.

Biodiversity Action Planning – attacking with science In the mid 1990s the movement went on the offensive. It was now confident in its science and sickened by this endless sense of being on the back foot. The sector threw down a gauntlet of ambitious targets for actually restoring species and habitat biodiversity. Biodiversity Action Planning was a more positive approach and it meant that some Local Authority planners began to take local biodiversity more seriously.

The down side was that the species targets in particular took us further into the numbers game. An analogy could be drawn with the National Health Service. A valid target, when simplified, can lead to the freeing up of a certain number of hospital beds per week, irrespective of whether patients are leaving the beds alive or dead. For us, it may mean that conservationists precision-farm for wildlife based upon a feathery few (often) in poll position in the Species Action Plans. In doing so we may take our eye off habitat conservation and inadvertently disadvantage our less glamorous species or those not yet identified. Without subsequent monitoring it is hard to know if a recently created reedbed is supporting the hundreds of invertebrates and dozens of plants and birds it should do, or is actually a Phragmites monoculture. Any mismanaged conservation targets, far from causing the Government political embarrassment, usually pass unnoticed – rather like the invertebrates themselves. It’s now around 13 years since a coalition of conservation groups published Biodiversity Challenge, and the challenge has not diminished.

The coming era – attacking with passion After the war when the assault on our wildlife was in full flow, we had to save our most special sites and buy time. Again in the 1970s and 1980s as materialism grew to new heights we had to justify our ambitions in numbers. We could see no other option than to do what we did in the 1990s with Biodiversity Action Planning to reinvigorate ourselves and set a new challenge to Government. Now, in 2008, as society begins to realise the downsides of materialism and our ‘standard of living’ no longer equates so clearly to our full and deeper ‘quality of life’ the opportunity exists for the conservation community to take a new, and less dispassionate, lead. We not only have a responsibility to do so, but there is a new urgency to do so as climate change becomes a reality presenting wildlife with its biggest challenge for 13,000 years.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 The urgency is no less at sea. The likely advent of our first comprehensive marine legislation, 60 years after that on land means that the conservation movement will need to compress its own development. If we are to make a real difference, the four eras of the movement’s history summarised above: passionate defence, scientific defence and then offence and passionate offence will need to happen almost at once. We still have only 0.001% of the UK’s marine environment properly protected but at the same time as campaigning for more protected areas, we need to inspire people with the vision of the return of our great marine megafauna – 10 foot halibut, 400kg skates – The Wildlife Trusts vision here is of Living Seas.

Two: where we must get to – the vision On land, as at sea, the nature conservation movement finds itself at a critical turning point. Here our vision must be to restore the UK’s ecosystems on a landscape scale. We will need to use all the accumulated weapons in our armoury to achieve this (conservation science and society’s self interest included) but we must apply ourselves with renewed zeal, and work from the landscape up, rather than the target down. Whilst this will be challenge enough, we must also lay the foundations for future eras in conservation by developing the next generation of naturalists and ecologists. The Wildlife Trusts’ vision is of a series of Living Landscapes, linked together across the length and breadth of the UK. To achieve this will mean applying generic principles of ecology 3 to create extensive new seminatural habitats, links between them and permeability in the wider landscape.

Landscapes which are rich in wildlife, inspiring to people, resilient and robust.

On the physical level Living Landscapes consist of core areas, connections and permeability: Core areas of high quality habitats from which wildlife can recolonise the landscape once it is restored. Although with climate change the species make-up of a SSSI may alter, the value of the unimproved soils and broader invertebrate, lower plant and microbial biodiversity they sustain is vital to the future. A rich site such as Wicken Fen may harbour around 6,000 species compared to 400-500 in the same area of intensively farmed land.

Connections between core areas, in the form both of corridors and stepping stones to provide functional connectivity for wildlife across a landscape.

Beyond this, permeability across the whole landscape will be required. Suboptimal habitats can allow for species movement, if not their long-term survival.

Permeability would help species like the Adonis Blue, Silver-spotted Skipper, Spider and Lady Orchids to cross Greater London into the northern home counties.

Such developments will all be critical in creating the conditions for species expansion beyond existing havens. They will ease the colonisation of warmthloving species northwards and the passage of dozens of new, highly mobile species 66

ECOS 29(2) 2008 colonising Britain from mainland Europe. It will also allow us to provide space for wildlife to cope with extreme weather events such as unseasonal flooding, which can all but wipe out a species from a small nature reserve.

Whole ecosystems must be restored or created, not just for biodiversity but for people. Healthy ecosystems are fundamental for flood storage and alleviation, managing water supplies and improving the health of our soils. This is all the more vital with climate change and its indirect impacts, such as population influxes or increases in demand for hard flood defences.

Three: So how can we achieve A Living Landscape?

Over a hundred visions for restoring whole landscapes have already been identified by local people. Examples include Druridge Bay in Northumberland, the Mendip Hills in Somerset, and Pumlumon in Wales. Many of these visions have gathered enough momentum to be incorporated into regional and local land-use plans to form ‘opportunity maps’. The ideal way to achieve A Living Landscape is to put opportunity maps at the core of land use maps at each geographic level.

Such positive planning for ecosystem restoration and ecological networks should underpin decision-making and drive government policies in relation not just to development but also to agriculture, forestry and water resource management.

The benefits of such an approach are three-fold. It takes into account not only the current location of wildlife but also its future locations to create the Living Landscapes described above. Second, it can play a role in joining up land use decisions and land management decisions. Finally it embeds a bottom-up or decentralised approach with people at its heart.

Joining up the use and management of land Restoring landscapes through opportunity maps would allow us to reconnect farming and built development.

Gavin Saunders and Alison Parfitt describe Opportunity Maps as: “broad-scale visions for change which offer a tool for identifying where environmental enhancement could be delivered on the ground, using existing areas of environmental value as a starting point’. Opportunity mapping offers a holistic approach to visioning a future landscape richer in biodiversity. It encourages practitioners to think beyond disparate habitat patches or species populations to how ecosystems function at a landscape scale. It represents a natural evolution of the biodiversity action planning process, allowing ‘opportunity space’ for the achievement of BAP targets to be defined.

Opportunity maps can express nature conservation proposals to a lay audience more effectively and engagingly than text or figures”.4 Based on such maps, new mechanisms will be needed to reach farmers and developers alike to ensure the restoration of ecosystems, creation of semi-natural habitats and connectivity.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 Land Use: There are already mechanisms designed to ensure that developers invest in local communities. The development of 6,000 homes near Grays, Essex, included a Section 106 agreement which required the creation of a 200 acre nature park at the centre of the area of restored chalk quarries together with an endowment to support running costs. Chafford Gorges Nature Park5 has 60 acres of SSSI at its core with six species of bat and eight species of orchid amongst the wildlife on site. In addition funds were raised for cycleways, paths, interpretation and a visitor centre which provide a superb focus for the local community â&#x20AC;&#x201C; eight hundred people came to the opening, mostly on foot from the local area. Applying such an approach to the creation of ecological networks through a green infrastructure levy would emphasise the importance of such investments.

Increasingly businesses will recognise the market advantages of putting biodiversity at the centre of their developments, just as a growing number are recognising the importance of more carbon efficient design. The aggregates sector has long recognised that the better its quarry restorations, the better its image with the public and with planning authorities. But as with carbon efficiency, building wildlife into new development will not be enough, new ways will need to be found to allow wildlife to thrive within our existing settlements.

Land Management: Spatially driven ways to influence farming practice will also be required. The use of levies to compensate for practices that damage biodiversity (the parallel of levies on developers) would be the antithesis of the Redefining the Good Life â&#x20AC;&#x201C; residential development planned with nature on the doorstep at Chafford Gorges, Essex.

Photo: Daniel Bridge (Essex Wildlife Trust)

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 state subsidies that farmers are used to. However, agri-environment incentives can be targeted locally at priority areas for habitat restoration, as can cross compliance measures. Both these systems however depend upon the availability of state funds, and upon farmers’ need for financial support, a link that can be disabled quickly by changing markets. Regulation stands the test of time better but it is not clear how this might play a role in the positive restoration of landscapes.

Ideally the market would drive change. Consumers would have the opportunity to reward producers contributing to ecological restoration by paying a premium.

Community Supported Agriculture and other forms of local food marketing provide a direct route for financially rewarding good practice but this market, though steadily growing is currently too small to lever changes in land management on the scale required. In most places the economic connection between farmers and local communities is broken by centralised food buying. The big challenge is whether supermarkets, with their centralised buying and distribution systems, will be able to provide a link between consumers and food growing practices that contribute to landscape-scale habitat restoration.

Aside from land under agriculture or forestry, institutions, local authorities and other organisations own great swathes of land that could provide much greater benefits to wildlife – acting as links, stepping stones and more for wildlife within a Living Landscape. The Wildlife Trusts’ Biodiversity Benchmark6 affords recognition to landowners for excellent management of their land-holdings for wildlife.

Use of a single spatial map to underpin all these decisions and initiatives would begin to bring some cohesion to the outcome. The Wildlife Trusts and others in the voluntary sector can help to facilitate such links on the ground given our extensive contacts with all three elements in this equation: land managers, developers and local authorities.

The battle the conservation movement faces in achieving such an approach cannot be underestimated. Far from embedding a spatial approach to planning, the Government’s current Planning Bill seeks to divide decisions on major infrastructure by sector (energy, water, housing, roads). A sectoral approach has been used at sea unsuccessfully for many years. It is in recognition of the failure of this approach that a Marine Bill is under development which aims to introduce spatial planning at sea for the first time.

Taking a bottom up approach – letting go In the USA Arnold Schwarzenegger lost patience with the federal Government’s approach to the environment and took a lead on climate change mitigation. Here local government has pushed the boundaries over renewable energy. Now it is likely that the lead on climate change adaptation will be taken locally too.

Using opportunity maps as the core of a land-use map is a decentralised approach that enables real delivery on the ground, taking account as it does of factors such as sympathetic landownership or imminent land disposals. It allows us to follow in this country the approach the Government and development agencies use in overseas 69

ECOS 29(2) 2008 development where the difficulties of imposing solutions top-down has been recognised for some time, as has the need to engage local people in identifying how to restore battered ecosystems and re-create sustainable living. Thus the historic ecology and hydrology of the area is tapped, together with people’s creativity and leadership; the people most affected take part in designing their own future.

Local communities are made up of people with different professions, different politics and different ideas, and local environmental issues are never black or white. You may not believe in nuclear power but can you ‘disapprove’ of people who work on the floor of a nuclear power station and who want to maximise the wildlife value of the company’s land? Locally we are people, not ‘sectors’, and together we can be very creative.

Four: leadership - people are led by other people, not by leaflets Finally major change, as with major crises, requires leadership. People with insight and foresight, who recognise their responsibility. People who can bring others with them and will not be diverted readily from their task. When I say the conservation movement must lead us to this new dawn – I mean this in the widest sense. In reality it is those who are sympathetic to our cause within businesses, local government, and community groups who must lead. Society must take our vision to its heart in the way it did with the National Health Service.

It is clear that people will tend to react better to a personal message than to a piece of paper; even more so if the message is more spiritual or personally challenging. Hence the movement’s tens of thousands of committed volunteers will be vital in achieving our goal. Our 650 trustees in The Wildlife Trusts for example may have looked to the paid staff to deliver during the last 15 to 20 years, but with an exciting new vision behind which to rally, they may now feel inspired to play a much greater role in leadership. Such leaders within our wider community are invaluable and this time it won’t just be naturalists leading the way but a much broader range of people.

It will be possible to reach more people now because the materialism that characterised the last decades of the twentieth century is beginning to falter. The cost of depression, obesity, and social dysfunctionality is recognised, and society is looking to fill the spiritual vacuum in which so many people have found themselves living. Experiencing the natural world, as well as learning to value and understand it, is uplifting. The growth in membership of conservation charities is not fuelled by expert naturalists but by citizens who want their children to thrive.

BBC research indicates that around 8 million people in the UK are engaged with nature and wildlife “because of the children" with a further 7.1 million wanting "to get more involved in wildlife" or "to make a difference". We must be confident in the importance of our cause to society.

During the 1980s as the voluntary and statutory nature conservation bodies grew in size, our new-found professionalism engaged conservationists like me who were 70

ECOS 29(2) 2008 more likely to be statisticians than naturalists. I am the equivalent of a National Health Service manager – necessary but not good enough without front-line medics. We must train the naturalists of the future through initiatives such as the Ecology Groups run by many Wildlife Trusts. Such groups might monitor the development of new biological communities with climate change, and the expansion in geographic range of colonising species like the Chalk-hill blue, the French tree wasp and the Prickly lettuce. This approach should encourage a sense of hope in the future that monitoring the demise of our most precarious species from the edges of their range would not.

The majority of our knowledge base now exists in our older generation, yet three year olds too tend to know that bugs matter. It is a genuine priority to nurture our ecological understanding throughout the community. By sharing the science (and the folklore) and developing understanding in a much wider population, we can bring people to make the right decisions about their future and that of their natural heritage.

Building hope I haven’t written an essay on nature conservation since I left University College London. It was probably on the topic of Ratcliffe’s criteria. In contrast to last year’s tribute article author, John Barkham, I didn’t know Derek Ratcliffe personally but he was afforded founding-father status during my time at University and not just for his scientific contribution. I re-read Barkham’s piece just before I submitted this and felt in tune with many of its underlying sentiments, but I was struck by one contrast.7 The loss of hope he conveyed.

You see, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t realise that the planet and all that depended upon it was in a dire predicament. From an early age, exposure to daily newspapers and the nine o’clock news (often in which the last snippet-item would be acid rain or the ozone layer) combined with the destruction of my local wildlife to make me a conservationist before I was an adult. I was worried about acid rain as I learnt to drive. In fact uncertainty about climate change plagued my young adulthood with each hot summer or melting pavement being a possible sign. For me the certainty of climate change was almost an emotional relief. I have spent 25 years building up my hope. I believe that my generation’s responsibility is now to inspire hope in others, and to lead others to make the right decisions for the planet.

As for wildlife and why I ended up in management. I was always outdoors and fascinated by the intricacy of the natural world expressed so vividly by David Attenborough, but I was never a natural historian. I don’t think it was just laziness, rather I saw such learning as an investment in future pain. If wildlife was going down the tube I didn’t want to be any more in love with it than I already was. Now I realise that there is hope for wildlife and how inspiring such knowledge can be, and see that it would have been a risk worth taking – better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

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New residential development at Chafford Gorges, Essex, provides a chance to grow up amongst nature.

Photo: Daniel Bridge, (Essex Wildlife Trust)

References and notes 1.

Smith, T. (2008) Trustees for Nature. Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust

2.

Ratcliffe D A (1977) Nature Conservation Review, Cambridge University Press

3.

Warren, A. (1993) ‘Naturalness: A Geomorphological Approach’, in Conservation in Progress F B Goldsmith and A Warren (eds) 1993 John Wiley & Sons.

4.

Saunders, G and Parfitt, A (2006) The land of opportunity? A review of opportunity mapping in England. ECOS 27 (2) 68-75.

5.

Chafford Gorges, Essex Wildlife Trust: http://www.essexwt.org.uk/sites/Chafford%20Gorges.htm

6.

The Wildlife Trusts’ Biodiversity Benchmark: www.biodiversitybenchmark.org

7.

Barkhan, J (2007) Conservation in the sidings. ECOS 28 (2) 2-9.

Stephanie Hilborne is Chief Executive of The Wildlife Trusts. She was a student on the UCL conservation MSc course in 1990-1991. With 765,000 members across the UK, The Wildlife Trusts have a vision of A Living Landscape and Living Seas. Each year The Wildlife Trusts inspire millions of people about the natural world. shilborne@wildlifetrusts.org

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The Marine Bill – new dawn or failed opportunity?

MICK GREEN Whilst the legislation covering the protection of marine habitats and species in the UK has developed considerably in recent years, mainly driven by EU legislation, it still does not provide a comprehensive and ecologically sound structure to ensure the long-term favourable status of our seas.

There are two main problems with the current situation: First, the current legislation is applied in a piecemeal way. There is still no ‘coherent network’ of protected sites and there is no evidence that these sites receive much more ‘protection’ than the wider marine habitats. In addition, there has been no attempt to implement the wider protection measures within the Habitats Directive for mobile species such as cetaceans.

On direct protection, there has been great difficulty implementing and defining protection from disturbance for species, although new measures are currently out to consultation. Bycatch and destruction of habitat from fisheries remain a major problem with largely ineffective attempts to resolve this issue.

The second main problem is the lack of co-ordination across government departments and regions. The licensing and consent regime, along with protection measures, is split across different government departments, agencies, and regional government. An example is with the Cardigan Bay Special Area of Conservation (SAC), with the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR – the former Department of Trade and Industry) ignoring all protected areas when offering oil licences, while the Countryside Council for Wales may be spending considerable public money protecting the site. Meanwhile, the Welsh Assembly, that has responsibility for implementing the Habitats Directive in Wales, merely states it’s nothing to do with them. Until there is some joined-up thinking in government, current legislation will fail to protect the UK’s rich marine wildlife.

The conservation NGOs, mainly through Wildlife and Countryside Link, have put much effort into persuading government that new legislation is needed, and finally we now have a draft Bill – but does it deliver?

The Marine Bill The draft Marine bill was published in April 2008. It proposes the following:

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 Creation of the Marine Management Organisation The draft Bill provides for the creation of a Marine Management Organisation (MMO) to deliver marine functions in the waters around England and in the UK offshore area (for matters that are not devolved). The MMO will be an independent Non-Departmental Public Body.

Marine planning The draft Bill contains measures to deliver a new marine planning system. This includes explaining how the Government will produce a policy statement with long-term objectives for marine areas around the UK. Marine plans will then be able to set more detailed and spatial policy at a local level.

Licensing decisions The proposals in the draft Bill will change the system for licensing activities in the seas from a slow and complex one to a simplified system where, as far as possible, a one-stop-shop is provided for each project. This will let the Government look at applications in the round, and in theory to consider all the costs and benefits at the same time.

Nature conservation The draft Bill provides for the designation of marine conservation zones, both for protection of individual habitats and species, and also for the creation of a network of sites representing marine ecosystems around the UK. Designation will take account of environmental, social and economic criteria. The draft Bill also provides for measures to prevent activities from damaging sites once designated.

Managing marine fisheries The draft Bill introduces a number of measures to strengthen the management of marine fisheries. It includes measures to reform inshore fisheries management, replacing Sea Fisheries Committees with newly created Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities, as well as enhancements to legislation underpinning sea fisheries conservation and shellfish management. There are also measures to increase the flexibility in the Governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existing power to charge for commercial fishing licences.

Reform of migratory and freshwater fisheries The proposals in the draft Bill modernise powers for the licensing and management of fisheries and allow for the introduction of a scheme to manage live fish movement.

Enforcement The draft Bill streamlines and modernises enforcement powers. It introduces a common set of powers so that officers enforcing fisheries, nature conservation and licensing legislation will have access to a core set of enforcement powers for the purposes of inspection and investigation. This will clarify enforcement powers for those being inspected.

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Britainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s marine environment is limping towards more protection.

Administrative penalties The draft Bill introduces a civil sanctions scheme for licensing and nature conservation offences and an administrative penalty scheme for domestic fisheries offences.

Access to coastal land The draft Bill also contains provision for coastal access in England.

Does it Deliver?

The Marine Bill proposes a much wider network of protected areas; it proposes an overall Marine Management Organisation and Marine Spatial Planning promising a more joined up approach and a better system of enforcement. However, these proposals will add little unless there is better implementation than under current legislation.

The Marine Bill lacks detail. It is unclear exactly how, or even if, the protected areas will be properly protected; exactly how Marine Spatial Planning will be designed and co-ordinated across Departments or how enforcement will be applied. Already some problems are obvious. DBERR has already made sure that it maintains oil and gas licensing outside any co-ordinated planning and is unlikely 75

ECOS 29(2) 2008 to recognise future protected areas any more than it does the current ones. The Marine Management Organisation will only cover English waters (and possibly offshore – beyond 12 nautical miles for the UK as a whole), meaning there will be a continued difference in approach in Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish waters.

In addition, the Planning Bill currently going through Parliament proposes that ‘major’ development projects (such as offshore windfarms) will be considered by a Planning Commission outside any spatial planning or protective structure. The Welsh Assembly Government wants to retain or gain powers over Welsh territorial waters, but currently has no capacity or expertise to carry out these functions. In Scotland a separate Marine Bill is underway.

Industry meanwhile, sees the Bill as enabling legislation for speeding up development consents in the marine environment. This angle is also being pushed

by Ministers when talking to industry gatherings. Whilst there is a good case for improving the consents process at sea – which currently can involve many different Departments – this should not be at the expense of conservation. The balance between enabling development and conservation is unclear in the present proposals, and industry and conservation bodies are lobbying hard for their side to hold the upper hand.

The UK’s marine environment is under an onslaught at present. An aggressive oil and gas licensing regime, an equally tough push for marine renewables, along with continued damage from industrial fishing, aggregate dredging, military activities and increased leisure craft means a co-ordinating planning system is badly needed. Unfortunately, it remains unclear whether the marine bill can deliver the tough approach required.

Mick Green is a Director of Ecology Matters. mick@ecologymatters.co.uk Thanks to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society for funding a review of UK legislation, on which this piece is partly based.

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Environmental Stewardship and HLS – Achieving better outcomes for breeding waders The latest BTO national survey of breeding wading birds (2002) reported an alarming fall in numbers. ECOS asked National Nature Reserve farmer, Philip Merricks to comment on how his management has helped to achieve the largest concentration of breeding waders in the UK lowlands and to point to wider lessons for Environmental Stewardship.

PHILIP MERRICKS Quantity over quality In the last few days nearly 500 pages worth of reading has landed on my desk in the shape of two reports from Natural England and Defra: The State of the Natural Environment1 and the Environmental Stewardship Review.2 One aspect of particular interest to myself as a conservation manager was the accompanying press release from Natural England highlighting the desperately sad decline in breeding wader birds on lowland wet grasslands. So turning to the relevant section of the State of the Natural Environment report, I thought it was significant to find that there were no less than four references to the recent paper published in Bird Study on the decline of breeding waders by Wilson and others.3 The final words of the conclusion to this seminal paper appear crucial:“There is now a pressing need for an evaluation of agri-environment in relation to breeding wader populations on lowland grassland in the UK” and “The efficacy of site designation and current agri-environment schemes for conserving breeding waders on wet grasslands needs to be reviewed.”

So I rapidly turned to the Review of the Environmental Stewardship to see what steps were to be taken for the improvement of the Higher Level Scheme (HLS) management for breeding waders. You guessed it – not a mention. And it was equally disappointing to find that the Review focussed mechanistically on the number of hectares included within various schemes rather than the environmental outcomes resulting from these schemes.

Along with many farmers, I am an enthusiastic supporter of Environmental Stewardship having watched it grow from a tentative start with the Countryside Stewardship (CSS) and the Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) schemes. By and large, these pioneering schemes have been a great success in delivering real 77

ECOS 29(2) 2008 environmental benefits.

It was heartening to learn that the principle behind the new HLS was to focus on environmental outcomes and so it is a real disappointment to find that some aspects of the delivery of HLS fall a long way short of this very principle.

The relentless fall in numbers of breeding waders has been of much concern to many conservationists for quite some time.

But perhaps conservationists have been at fault in that their concern has not been translated The goods are delivered at Elmley marshes… into a more rigorous analysis of the Photo: Dave Rogers, Elmley factors behind the decline. Crucial clues for this decline are to be found in two published papers: The first by Peach and others published in the Journal of Applied Ecology made two vital points, namely: “These results (productivity failure) imply that poor breeding success up to or just after the time of fledging has been the most likely contributory factor in the decline in the British breeding population of lapwings” and “In order to replace annual adult losses, lapwing should produce in the region of 0.83 – 0.97 fledglings per year”.4 The second by Kleinje and others in their paper published in Nature in 2001, focussing on the rather more determined and committed Dutch approach to breeding wader management, exposed that: “management agreements for breeding waders …might have led to an ecological trap; that is, it might have decoupled the cues that individuals use to select their nesting habitat from the main factors that determine their reproductive success”.5 I believe that herein lies one answer – something that so far has been overlooked by policy makers and by far too many conservationists, both in theory and in practice. How many times has one visited a flagship reserve to find good numbers of breeding waders attracted to the site but negligible numbers of chicks fledged. Ecological traps such as this, lead to population sinks – this is indisputable.

Restricting landowners’ ingenuity Breeding waders feature highly in Defra’s Higher Level agri-environment Scheme (HLS). However a close reading of the relevant HK9, HK11 and HK13 options reveals that these HLS options completely ignore the crucial need to ensure breeding (chick fledging) success. The current management requirement of these HLS options are no more than the creation, restoration and maintenance of wet grassland for breeding waders. And coupled to that, Defra’s 17 highly prescriptive habitat indicators of success, currently do no more than state “that the target species should be present and their behaviour should indicate that they are breeding”.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 Is this wise? If I, as a sheep farmer, was told by a Defra vet that the indicator of success of my sheep flock was that “their behaviour should indicate that they were breeding” it would invite ridicule. What is crucial are the number of lambs reared to weaning age. And so it should be for breeding waders. Numbers of chicks fledged are what matters. Environmental outcomes mean real biological outcomes not a list of tick box habitat prescriptions achieved.

Success factors at Elmley NNR As we have had the responsibility of managing Elmley National Nature Reserve for conservation objectives (including breeding waders) for 25 years, experience has led us to the inescapable conclusion that there are five factors of production, all of which have to be in place to ensure success with breeding wader productivity (ie a biologically secure number of chicks fledged). These factors are: • the optimum grazing management; • the optimum water management; • the creation of surface micro-topography; • the slowed up spring grass growth; and • the effective control of predators.

Experience has shown that, like links in a chain, each and every one of these factors of production has to be acted upon to ensure that the biologically robust environmental outcome of at least 0.8 chicks fledged per adult pair is achieved. For those who would like to know more, our management at Elmley is explained in more detail in an earlier paper published in ECOS in 2003.6

Demonstrating the outcomes It is excellent that Government is committed to HLS being an outcome focussed scheme but it is hugely disappointing that this has failed in the case of breeding waders. Natural England staff make the point (with which I have much sympathy) that it is extremely time consuming and hence expensive, for their expert staff to monitor the number of chicks fledged on a site.

This is where I have an idea that might help solve the problem – an idea that I have outlined to Defra policy staff a number of times. Sadly without attracting their interest. To explain: if Defra was to suggest to every participant in an HLS breeding wader scheme that they carried a camcorder with them on their daily rounds of checking livestock, from their farm vehicle they could readily film displaying lapwing and their subsequent breeding activity. The filming could be verified by including in each shot the background landscape of the site. As Morris and Potter 79

ECOS 29(2) 2008 have astutely remarked “the attitude of farmers entering agri-environment schemes is a critical determinant of the level and quality of environmental benefits obtained”.7 The key issue is, that not only would this filming result in the HLS participant having a visual record of breeding waders on their site, but crucially this would encourage the farmer to become more attitudinally interested and attached to the breeding prospects and more importantly the breeding results of the waders attracted to the site. Experience at Elmley has shown that remarkable results can be achieved not only on film but also on focussing a site manager’s mind on the real environmental outcome – chicks fledged. Is there a chance that Defra might become similarly focussed? Breeding waders need nothing less.

Postscript: For those who would like some technicolour video viewing together with their black and white ECOS reading, a visit to www.utube.com (search Elmley wading birds) will reveal film clips of breeding lapwing, redshank and their chicks.

Videoed by Steve Gordon, the Elmley manager, who until this year, had never held a camcorder.

References 1.

Defra – Natural England (2008) – State of the Natural Environment Report

2.

Defra – Natural England (2008) – Environmental Stewardship: Review of Progress

3.

Wilson, A.M., Vickery, J. A., Brown, A., Langston, R. H. W., Smallshire, D., Wotton, S. & Vanhinsbergh, D. (2005) Changes in the numbers of breeding waders on lowland wet grasslands in England and Wales between 1982 and 2002. Bird Study, 52, 55-69.

4.

Peach, W.J., Thompson, P. S., and Coulson, J.C. (1994) Annual and long-term variation in the survival rates of British lapwings Vanellus vanellus. Journal of Applied Ecology, 63, 60-70

5.

Kleijn, D., Berendse, F., Smit, R., Gilissen, N., Smit, J., Brak, B. et al (2004) The ecological effectiveness of agri-environment schemes in different agricultural landscapes in the Netherlands.

Conserv. Biol, 18, 775-786

6.

Merricks, P. (2003) Agri-environment – Some thoughts from the Marsh. ECOS 24 (2) 28-36

7.

Morris, C. and Potter, C. (1995) Recruiting the New Conservationists: Farmers’ Adoption of Agrienvironmental Schemes in the UK Journal of Rural Studies, Vol 11, No 1, pp 51-63

Philip Merricks is responsibile for the management of three nature reserves: Elmley and Swale NNRs on the North Kent Marshes & the Romney Marsh Nature Reserve. He was appointed MBE for Services to Nature Conservation in 1999. jmerricks@fwi.co.uk

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Climate Watch 08 Surface and tropospheric temperatures are falling, particularly in the Pacific and this 'global cooling' has prompted heated exchanges in the media and on climate web sites - with the orthodox warmists asserting the drop will be but a blip in the general trend, and the sceptics claiming natural forces are now dominant.

PETER TAYLOR The political climate is hotting up just as the economic one is cooling down, and in June 2008, Gordon Brown proudly announced a £100 billion world-leading programme of renewable energy supplies to counter the threat of perceived global warming. Campaign groups finally sense a break in the gloom as ten thousand turbines, barrages (and biofuels) offer, in the words of a Greenpeace spokesperson, “economic gain, jobs and energy security”. I would never have imagined a time when FOE would be aligned with the Prime Minister, the Chief Government Scientist and the President of the Royal Society, or when Greenpeace would sound like the (ex)Chancellor of the Exchequer. The climate has indeed been changing.

And as I watch the landscape of the Somerset levels and distant Mendips, such political change is rapidly appearing in physical reality. The fields of the Polden Hills began turning a pale round-up yellow by the dozen a few weeks ago and then went under the plough, to be later seeded for maize and the global market for animal fodder and ethanol.

Biofuel strategy is belatedly under intense debate. The EU, having been lobbied aggressively, has signed us up for 5% bioethanol in the petrol tanks by 2010 (and 10% of all transport fuels by 2020). The speculators have scented easy pickings and long-term investors have piled out of the property market into commodities. Grain prices have doubled, and food costs risen by 20% here and much more in poorer countries. Good news for the local farmer – but very bad for farmland wildlife. And biofuel demand has hardly begun. The grain price rises are so far the result of rising demand for meat in developing countries, a poor harvest after China’s anomalous cold weather, drought in Australia and, of course, commodity speculation.

Wood chip will be next. Even a million zero-carbon houses with their back-up wood-stove would be dwarfed by the 4GW Drax coal station co-firing with biomass.

This is, of course, as Greenpeace points out – very good for business. Most of this now ‘sustainable’ development will be developer-led by large multinational corporations and local communities’ quality of life threaten to be sacrificed for central policy targets and the deemed ‘national good’. Business quite as usual.

Wind turbine developers can now afford to ignore local democracy and appeal to central government, to chance their turbine applications, often against the wishes 81

ECOS 29(2) 2008 of local authorities. A towering turbine at Chewton Mendip, violating the area’s local character, and triggering much grief and resentment in the locality, is a firm reminder in my home patch. ‘Green’ as the new ‘black’ appears more than a fashion statement.

It is only now dawning on the leading campaigners that there are no free lunches – biofuels consume not only orang utans and Latvian forests, but old meadows and ‘unmanaged’ copse-woodland as well. And there are mooted plans for genetically modified cellulose producers on the one million ‘under-used’ hectares in the uplands. Having awoken at this late stage, the same groups that pushed for binding ‘targets’ are now urging a slowdown on biofuels until the situation can be assessed.

No chance. The EU already did the assessment and concluded there is plenty of land.

However, the government has been pressed into a review of the ‘indirect’ effects on food supplies – the Gallagher Review is due to report in Summer 2008.

Greenpeace, FOE, Oxfam and the RSPB are urging the Review to suspend the targets until ‘sustainability’ can be guaranteed.

The warming pandemic There are very few willow warblers this year. Indeed, many sub-Saharan migrants are failing to return. There is a similar pattern in North America. Over there the main suspicion falls on pesticide use – formulations that are banned in the North are widely marketed in Central and South America. Despite the almost certain parallel between Europe and Africa, the suspicion over here is that global warming has altered the wintering habitats south of the Sahara and not much is said about pesticides.

Global warming is the suspected cause of just about every biodiversity mis-hap from population changes in butterflies, birds, trees, new disease organisms, flood damage, the wet summer of 2007, an Arctic melt-down and now the failing harvests – and it pervades the reasoning of just about every government department, environmental group, academic course, science research application and even Arts Council projects. Yet not one of these players has conducted a decent review of recent past climate cycles and their impact upon biodiversity. Nor have they much idea of the dynamic about to be unleashed on tropical forests and savannahs: land clearance (brush, trees and people); further peasant migration to cities (aggravating poverty, violence, drug abuse and prostitution as well as increasing demand for demeaning jobs, electricity and water). Industrial agri-fuels, pesticides and fertilisers will underpin business-as-usual (with a green tinge) western lifestyles.

But how many believe the science or the media?

Despite all the media hype about global warming, it is evident from opinion polls that fewer and fewer people believe it. And fewer still - less than a quarter of the population, are prepared to act or pay someone to act .1 some of the conservative ‘free market’ press are labelling ‘global warming’ as the biggest con of all time and finding a great deal of resonance.2 The liberal press and all manner of green and 82

ECOS 29(2) 2008 sustainable development groups label the opposition as deniers, or worse, and even scientific papers refer to the dissenters as ‘sceptics’. Of which I am supposedly one.3 But I research ocean cycles, cloud patterns, absorption of visible light in the sea surface layers, gyres and oscillations and… the recent plunge in global temperatures. The only thing I am sceptical of is global modelling that cannot replicate the cycles and irregular periods of the natural real world, nor factor in new science on solar electromagnetics.

I am convinced from my own reading of IPCC working group reports that there is no consensus on several fundamental issues – but this is not represented in the IPCC’s most high profile document, the ‘summary for policy makers’. One key issue is the relative strength of natural cycles. In my view, we have a false consensus around the urgency of mitigation now driving the current destructive policies and the dismantling of planning safeguards proposed by government in its planning bill.

The fast-tracking of planning has of course, much to do with the agenda of driving through a new era of nuclear power, but renewable energy infrastructure – not least the mass of proposed wind turbines – is also part of the package.

Cooling not warming New data strengthens the case for a dominance of natural forces. Global temperatures fell markedly in the twelve months from January 2007 to January 2008 (and further to May). The graph below may come as a surprise because it has hardly been broadcast throughout the press, nor will you find it easily on the Met Office Hadley Centre website.

Temperature anomaly, mean monthly temperature in degrees Celsius – base period 1961 – 1990

Pattern of global temperature change, 1948–2000 Data from Hadley Centre, UK MetOffice

Time: 1948-2008 – number of months counted from June 1948 to June 2008

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The last 20 years of surface temperatures 1988-2008 The orthodox ‘explanation’ of this temperature fall has been (at first) that this precipitous fall over the past 12 months is a ‘blip in the general trend’ and down to natural (implying unpredictable) variability. So it should not be taken to mean that ‘global warming’ has stopped, or that climate change is not still a major threat. But after a couple of months, this stance had to be modified. A new paper in Nature concluded 4, from an analysis of ocean cycles, that further cooling is likely! This was the first time oceanic cycles had broken into the journals that journalists read, but the conclusion is that global warming is only temporarily over-whelmed by natural cycles and normal warming will resume. Fred Pearce reported in The Guardian of June 7: “Now, a sceptic might say that if the modellers are only just learning about the importance of natural cycles to climate forecasts, why should we believe their predictions at all? Fair point. In their desire to persuade us about the big picture of global warming, scientists have sometimes got cocky about colouring in the detail.”

He then goes on to re-iterate the belief that the modellers have still got it right with the overall trend. But this is intellectually unsound – if natural cycles have the power to cool the warming, they must also have had the power to amplify it in the first place. I have been arguing that this amplification has been mistaken for the expected ‘anthropogenic signal’.

And it is too simplistic to argue that the current dip is caused by La Nina conditions in the Pacific and that the next El Nino will drive temperatures up again.

There is now a better understanding of the Pacific decadal cycle, which dominates global temperatures and having gone through a 30 year warm phase that has amplified the signal, is now heading for 30 years of cooling. Contrary to the supposed consensus assumptions, we are not dealing with unpredictable noise in the system and variability - the previous 30 years were part of a predictable positive cycle of warmth – with several regional cycles coinciding and driving the amplitude, particularly in the Arctic.

In my analysis, it is the peaking of these ocean cycles which has driven global warming, and naïve modellers unable to replicate such cycles have taken this rise to be the whole of the anthropogenic signal. As I have argued before, the global trend is likely to reverse. The official response will then shift to how the assumed carbon dioxide effect will kick in with a vengeance later in the century. But the assumed carbon dioxide effect was what supposedly drove the global warming in the first place – you can’t have it both ways! Unless, as the novelist Upton Sinclair observed, your salary depends upon not understanding such conundrums.

There is mounting evidence that the ocean cycles are modulated by solar cycles – not by the visible light output, but by the periodically varying solar wind and its effect on cloud cover. And what Hadley and those reliant for their predictions upon computer modelling will not say is that a global cooling during 2007 was predicted 84

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by some scientists – specialists in solar-terrestrial physics – and one in particular, Theodore Landscheidt, who unfortunately died in 2004 before seeing his latest predictions confirmed.

In a paper in Energy & Environment in 2003 entitled – ‘New Little Ice Age instead of Global Warming’, Landscheidt outlined his theory of solar-climate links based upon the transfer of momentum in relation to the centre of mass of the solar system. This somehow modulated the solar wind – all very prosaic, except that without establishing the precise mechanisms, he was able to accurately predict the last three El Ninos, including the very large event in 1998 – something that must have irked his one-time collaborators at the US National Aeronautic and Space Agency (NASA) who could not. He also predicted the peak of sunspots in 1990 and the subsequent lower peak in 2000 (which NASA thought would be higher) as well as the small El Nino of 2002 when everyone else expected it to be a big one because of global warming - adding, most crucially, that this would obscure the downward trend in global temperatures – until 2007, when cooling should be noticeable. IPCC fail to reference his work.

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 At the outset of 2007, I wrote in these pages that Hadley had unusually risked a prediction – that the year would see a major El Nino and this would raise the global record by driving temperatures above the 1998 peak. I mentioned that some solar scientists expected the opposite and it would be interesting to see who was right.

As it now transpires, this last year has seen the worst La Nina in recent records and global temperatures have fallen at record rates to where they were in 1980.

Shifting clouds have driven the warming Cloud cover only needs to shift downward by 1% for a few decades to create warming, or upward by the same amount to counteract via negative feedback the supposed effects of carbon dioxide. Not that a dispassionate observer could deduce this from official material. Hardly anyone talks about cloud cover trends. The only global data comes from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project and it reports a 5% reduction in global cover from 1983-2000. Quite enough to create the ‘global warming’ signal. The modellers’ defence is that the thinning clouds must be a ‘feedback’ from the warming. The problem is that no such feedbacks were predicted in the models. I have reviewed all of this material in a 240 page download on the ethos website: www.ethos-uk.com - entitled Ethos Climate Science Report in which I also detail how this data was dealt with by the IPCC where there is a clear lack of consensus in the Working Group reports that is not reflected in the Summary for Policy Makers. I outline an hypothesis to explain the observed warming (and recent cooling) based upon solar cycles, cloud cover, warming upper ocean water, oscillations and pole-ward moving currents. I am not the only analyst thinking this way – several have commented on the power of ocean cycles to distort the signal.5 The media, meanwhile continue to hype up anything that appears to confirm the global warming storyline. The BBC website in February highlighted a study that they held ‘debunked’ the whole solar-cloud hypothesis. In fact, the original paper conceded the link and merely questioned (in a weak statistical exercise) the likely percentage influence.6

Antarctic ice shelf cracks up Such media bias showed up in the news from Antarctica – a much better story than the Hadley graph! Recent data shows accelerating Antarctic glaciers and the cracking shelf. But what the news didn’t say is that all this happens in the Antarctic Peninsula – which has warmed because that part of the southern Pacific Ocean has warmed and the peninsula sticks out into it. The other 85% of the Antarctic continent has not warmed, contrary to model expectations, and neither has the rest of the southern oceans. As with the Arctic melt-down (which I review in depth – it is far too quick to be due to carbon levels) a combination of changes in atmospheric pressure, cloud-cover, wind and shifting ocean currents is quite capable of cracking an ice-shelf. And also of refreezing it.

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The power of myth So powerful is the need for a modern myth of environmental threat, that ‘global warming’ has distorted not only science and media, but the whole environmental movement. There is a parallel when the threat is aligned as Sir David King did, with the global dangers of ‘terrorism’, and we would do well to explore it.

However, the greater danger is that if we have another year or two of cooling – and Landscheidt put the chances of a solar minimum lasting several decades at 85%, then not only will the reputation of science suffer but much of the environmental cause. An incoming Tory government will be pressured to dilute the drive to a low-carbon future, along with the taxes and trading stamps and a footnote to the effect that environmentalists cannot be trusted.

The press will have headlines ‘Quiet sun comes to the rescue’! But a quiet sun is not good news – as I have tried repeatedly to warn, because hitherto productive agricultural ecosystems do not respond well to rapid global ‘dips’ and the food crisis that is with us now, will intensify. If last summer’s shift in the jetstream is repeated (the jetstream is now known to shift south under ‘quiet sun’ conditions), and La Nina persists with a new ‘cool phase’ of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (google PDO and NASA), then Alaska will cool and restart the Beaufort Gyre, refreezing the Arctic and badly affecting Canadian wheat production as well as Chinese harvests for the next two or three decades.

Focus on what matters – food supplies and natural resilience The world’s poor often get overlooked at the expense of penguins or polar bears, but Christian Aid switched its ads to lobbying Gordon Brown on carbon emissions – with images of poor people up to their waists in water.

You can’t lobby against the Pacific Decadal Oscillation – obviously, but none of the lobby organisations invested in a critical review of the IPCC’s ‘authoritative’ work despite plenty of indications it was operating an authoritarian science regime (several of its members went public, including in a special report for the US National Academy of Sciences). These NGOs have thus, by default, taken part in what might be a hugely damaging collusion.

Virtually everything we would want to do to protect and enhance our wildlife heritage and landscape character, or to sustain a vibrant rural community in our countryside, or to green our cities, is furthered by a policy of resilience to a changing climate. We do not need computerised predictions to follow established common sense in land–use planning, sustainable construction, habitat creation and connectivity, expansion of allotments and organic agriculture. The error-prone exercises in prediction have led us away from developing common purpose as well as common sense. Never has there been a greater need for ‘joined-up’ thinking and collaborative projects that communicate a positive vision.

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References and notes 1.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/juliettejowit" Juliette Jowit, http://observer.guardian.co.uk" The Observer, 22 June, 2008

2.

Christopher Booker, Sunday Telegraph, 8 June, 2008.

3.

I am far from alone in questioning the current ‘consensus’, though there are few dissenting voices among UK climatologists. In France, Holland, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand and the USA there are many leading meteorologists who do not share the ‘global warming’ viewpoint. Several are vocal critics and some are also either reviewers or authors of parts of the IPCC report. Over 30,000 concerned professionals in the field have signed a declaration questioning the IPCC analysis.

4.

Keenlyside N.S.et.al. (2008) Advancing decadal-scale climate prediction in the North Atlantic sector.

Nature Vol 453, 1 May 2008 doi:10.1038/nature06921

5.

Charles Perry with the US Geological Service is also investigating ocean temperature oscillations, the jetstream and solar electrics. He is presenting his work on this theme at the forthcoming International Geophysical Congress.

6.

Sloan T & Wolfendale AW (2008) Testing the proposed causal link between cosmic rays and cloud cover. Environ. Res. Lett. 3 (2008) 024001 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/3/2/024001 Editor’s note – both counter and supporting views on this article’s climate change perspective can be read on the New Statesman (www.newstatesman.com) web thread triggered by an article from David Whitehouse ‘Has global warming stopped?’ (19 December 2007) and a response from Mark Lynas (14 January 2008). The next ECOS will have more perspectives on climate change in an analysis of the Climate Change Bill.

Peter Taylor runs Ethos UK. www.etho-uk.com He is currently writing a book on the climate modelling debate.

Photo: Murdo Macleod

No turbine repository on Lewis - campaigner Dina Murray makes her views clear about the prospects for wind turbines on the peatland landscapes of Lewis. The Scottish Government has rejected the extensive development of turbines on a Special Protection Area proposed by Lewis Wind Power, Amec and British Energy. The 181 turbines would have meant associated roads and concrete foundations carved into the moorland. The plans were opposed by wildlife groups across Scotland and triggered thousands of individual and local objections. The Scottish Government and other authorities are now looking afresh at how more sensitive renewable energy can be integrated with community livelihoods and environmental interests in the Western Isles.

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Towards Enlightenment: the 2008 VINE Conference A summary of April’s VINE conference, for those who missed it, and for those who were present and might need re-awakening.

MATTHEW OATES Few conferences begin on exposed hillsides on April Fool’s Day during a howling gale, especially a gale not forecast by the sophists who run today’s weather forecasting service. Nonetheless, the 2008 Values in Nature & Environment conference began thus, with walks in utopian wildlife sites at Clougha in north Lancashire and Arnside Knott in south Cumbria. Although each walk was attended only by a dozen or so people, they were hugely successful, and the obvious difficulties of group communication in strong winds were overcome. One walk commenced with the ceremonial shredding of the SSSI citation, the banning of all mention of condition assessment, agri-environment funding and the B word (biodiversity that is, not the one containing two Gs, and its derivatives). Instead, delegates were encouraged to convey what nature and wildlife actually means to them, there and then. The National Trust wardens for Arnside Knott effectively admitted that they manage this wonderful site as much for its aesthetic and spiritual feel as for its rich and important wildlife, if not more so. Their intuitive feel for the place was massively impressive and, even in a howling gale, Beauty came out on top. The key moments were superbly captured on a DVD of the walk.

The tempest had abated by the time the indoor sessions began, at Lancaster University, the following day. It was replaced, not by mental storms, but by a calmness that offered placid mutual understanding. To many, the conference was a quiet oasis, away from the bureaucratic maelstrom that is today’s nature conservation movement. To some, it offered escape into the real world - the realm of the relationship between mankind and nature, and the landscape of the inner soul – together with the opportunity to discuss the issues that are fundamentally real. To all, it offered the chance to exchange views though, interestingly, thinking was very much along the same lines and no obvious incompatibilities were noted.

Perhaps broader or conflicting views would have surfaced had more delegates attended. Clearly, though, the current fashion that regulates training budgets in most environmental organisations excludes conferences with titles such as Inspirational Nature, for several delegates from well-known organisations attended in their own time and under their own funding. Doubtless the conference would have been better attended had it been titled Inspirational Target-setting and Delivery.

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The road to Lancaster It must be confessed that the conference was originally formed to attract chief executives and senior managers, but the one big name Chief Exec who expressed genuine interest was unable to make those dates due to an anniversary of great personal and family significance. A trustee of that organisation spoke instead.

People working in environmental policy were also conspicuous by their absence and, predictably, no BAP players were present, and only one speaker used the word biodiversity. No particular sector of the nature conservation movement was strongly represented.

Of course, the conference did not change the world nor resolve the relationship between man and nature. It did, though, succeed in readily getting a number of nature conservation practitioners to discuss and reaffirm the importance of passion, inspiration, beauty and love in their professional and individual lives, and it did explore the spiritual dimension which our profession seems to want to ignore or refute. Moreover, it did not reinvent the wheel, but probably did help towards manoeuvring the spiritual dimension of nature into a more central position within nature conservation.

The workshop messages Predictably, some of the seven workshops worked better than others. These took place in stark lecture theatres that were more used to hosting physics and maths lectures. The feng shui was certainly inappropriate. Highlights included: • affirmation of a strong feeling of disconnection with the natural world as result of corporate culture and the language of academic science; • the importance of the concept of significance in nature conservation, for clarifying and exploring ‘what matters’; • a quote from Martin Luther King that reads: “Science without spirituality leads to misguided men and guided missiles”; • the need to stop boring the pants off people through biodiversity-speak, and communicate through a language that combines the scientific, spiritual and creative; • the need to stop viewing education as being something that provides teachers with a job and pupils with an ample supply of boredom; • the acute need for liberating individual inspiration within the workplace, and for organisations to empower and entrust their professionals to do what they need to do.

Rebellious stuff perhaps, but none of it was brand new and it was all eminently sensible.

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‘Belonging’ and ‘cultural connections’ – messages of main speakers To some delegates the indoor conference began on a rather negative footing. After some stunningly beautiful images by the photographer John MacPherson, depicting spiritual landscape of nature, the first two talks were somewhat apocalyptic. Alastair McIntosh talked about hubris, nature as a social construction, the doom of climate change, the tripartite community of people with people and nature, the paradigm of spiritual connection and the need to rekindle the inner life. Stephan Harding, a disciple of Arne Nesse, followed by arguing that we are reaching the point of planetary breakdown and that something is fundamentally wrong with the way we view the world: mankind is engaged with a war against nature than it can only lose. This prompted a point regarding the suitability of an exam factory as the venue for the conference.

The exam factory’s leading nature conservation light, John Rodwell, then spoke on Spirit and Nature, as a scientist and as an Anglican priest. He argued that nature should come before nature conservation. He also drew a distinction between nature conservation as it might be: wonder, encounters, learning, belonging and cultural identity – and nature conservation as we know it: confidence in science, commitment to sites, conserving spatial patterns, and the key issues of shifting baselines and the need for a common language. The term ‘ecoTaliban’ was used and he questioned the viability of ‘securing the future’, the meaning of sustainability and the danger of sanitised nature conservation ‘managing change from past to future’. He concluded that Nature is where we belong and that human nature includes the spiritual dimension (which may involve religion).

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ECOS 29(2) 2008 Adrian Phillips then spoke on what drives nature conservation, admitting that too many nature conservation activities are oblivious to personal inspiration and relationships, and that politicians and policy-makers can only identify with the concept of beauty through the medium of landscape. Looking at Wild Ennerdale, he concluded that the language used in such projects is liberating but that we cannot create new wildernesses in the UK, only new cultural landscapes. His talk provoked a reaction against the ‘emotional autism’ of the academic approach, to which he replied that the belief that only science holds answers has dissipated, which opens the door to other approaches, such as VINE’s.

Tentative conclusions A panel-led discussion concluded the conference. This commenced with a debate over what the future of VINE should be (as a qualifier here, it is important to note that as yet VINE does not have any specific direction, and certainly no targets; this looseness may not be a bad thing). Discussions emphasised the need for officially designated space in which people can engage with the natural world, and that VINE could help with progress in that direction, both as a self-help group and by helping others to develop individual ways to engage. There was a consensus that nature conservationists should not need to reinforce or reaffirm their individual passions, and that VINE should definitely be using language other than that of biodiversity and targets, and that the group should be effective and infecting. A distinction was made between the vine itself and the structural trellis up which it grows, though there is a danger that passionate conservationists could become too self-indulgent, especially when frustrated by the obvious difficulties of sharing feelings, experiences and views within an organisational structure. This was countered by the view that an organisation in which people do not maintain their passions is a dead one, and that organisations need to allocate time for wonder. VINE should be about unlocking the locked heart, and Coming Out as devotees of Nature.

Discussion broadened out, really into the role of man in nature. A fear was expressed that nature conservationists may be trying to do too much, particularly in terms of practical delivery, but that the missing area of activity involves dealing with the psychology of nature conservation. Concern was expressed over the decline of young people seeking engagement with nature, and the danger of substituting the real experience for the virtual. Nature can be nasty, and is not always beautiful; it can be awesome and Sublime, within the 18th century meaning of the term. Aslan, we should remember, is not a tame lion…

This is my own take on the whole proceedings. An in depth conference writeup, can be viewed on the VINE website (www.vineproject.org.uk ). John Bacon, who organised this conference after having publicly retired from conference organisation, vows that this was his last event. We shall see. It was certainly one of his best. VINE remains an enigma.

Matthew Oates works for the National Trust and is one of VINE’s founders and steering group members. matthew.oates@nationaltrust.org.uk

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ECOS 29(2) 2008

Trump town on the dunes?

American tycoon Donald Trump has plans for the North-East Scottish coast…

DAN PUPLETT Menie links on the coast of north-east Scotland is home to one of the finest sand dune systems in Britain, a stunning, wild landscape of mobile sands and unique plant communities. In 2006, American business tycoon, Donald Trump announced his proposal to build two championship golf courses, a five star hotel and a housing estate in this beautiful coastal setting.

There is strong opposition from conservationists.2,3 In 2007 Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) advised Aberdeenshire Council that part of the development would seriously damage Foveran Links SSSI.4 RSPB and Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT) are jointly opposing the development on the grounds that the damage would be severe and irreversible, and would not be outweighed by any strategic or national interest. However, RSPB, SNH and others are clear that they are not opposing the overall development, but do challenge the part which would destroy the shifting dunes.

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NEIL BENNETT

Aberdeenshire Council’s infrastructure services committee rejected Trump’s application, given the ecological importance of the site, but because of the economic scale of the proposal it was called in by the Scottish Government. Predictably, there have been tantalising promises of over 6000 jobs, and Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce has welcomed the £1 billion development proposal. 1

ECOS 29(2) 2008 The resort would undermine the very purpose of SSSIs which includes the protection of our ‘crown jewel’ sites from destruction by damaging developments.

It would also contravene a string of environmental and planning guidelines, making a mockery of the Coastal Sand Dunes Habitat Action Plan.5 Dune ecosystems are very dynamic by nature, so stabilising and re-vegetating them to create the courses would destroy it as a wild, living system. This kind of destruction can’t be mitigated against with the kind of scant, placatory environmental concessions being offered.

Trump on the other hand is clearly determined, and is unabashed in his reluctance to make any significant compromise. Staggeringly, in the face of all the evidence, he has said that his development will make the site ‘better environmentally’ than it is or ever has been (claiming the dunes “need stabilising” to “save them”)! 6 SWT, RSPB and SNH gave evidence at the public enquiry in June, and a decision is awaited.7 At a time when Scotland should be leading the way in the protection and restoration of wild places, perhaps the crux of the issue is this: are we willing to sell the very best of our natural heritage to whoever can offer the right price; or will we firmly say, “this is priceless” - and mean it?

References and notes 1.

Scotland's gullible politicians are the victims of a colossal Trump try-on. The Guardian. 13 June 2008

2.

Conservationists unite to stand up to Trump as inquiry tees off. March 27 2008. www.rspb.org.uk/news/details.asp?id=tcm:9-186452

3.

www.swt.org.uk/Trump-Development/

4.

Scottish Natural Heritage responds on Trump golf links 30 May 2007 www.snh.org.uk/press/detail.asp?id=1713

5.

Hughes, J. 2007. Outline Planning Permission for Golf Course and Resort Development on land at Menie House, Balmedie, Aberdeen.

Public Local Inquiry: Ref CIN/ABS/001. Summary of Precognition of Jonathan Hughes for Scottish Wildlife Trust . www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/planning/inquiry/PrecogScottish%20Wildlife%20Trust_Summary%20precognition.pdf

6.

Trump golf inquiry in full swing. 10 June 10 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/7444123.stm

7.

Trump dunes the ‘jewel in the crown’ 18 June 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/7461059.stm

Dan Puplett works for Trees for Life. He is a naturalist and lives on the Moray coast. The views here are his own. dan@treesforlife.org,uk

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Book Reviews

REAL ENGLAND The Battle against the Bland Paul Kingsnorth Portobello Books, 2008 Pbk £14.99, ISBN 9781846270413 When the campaign group Common Ground lifted our eyes towards the loss of things local and invented the term ‘local distinctiveness’, many assumed that commonsense action would prevail to stem further losses. Others thought that the English trait of reasonableness and fair play would be followed and we would all be moved to stir local action into the mix of place and people. Sadly, everyone failed to observe and resist the voracious and vicious beast that is the enemy of everything ‘local’… the monster of globalisation.

With Real England, sub-titled, ‘the battle against the bland’, Paul Kingsnorth has toured England with a jaundiced eye in a quest to do battle with the worm of global capitalism that is eating out the heart of the land. He sensibly lists some of the places where he sees that the battle has already been lost – nearly the whole of the farmed landscape for instance; rural village shops; urban market places and city centres; canal-side industries; pubs everywhere; and market towns. He names the main perpetrators (a long list of property developers, agribusiness, global brands, ‘pubcos’, international banks, city institutions, the government, Regional Development Agencies, and… then he blames us too. We are the supine, consuming, shallow, celebrity obsessed, twits who have allowed all this to happen.

The book has some stories of real rescue to gladden the heart but on the whole the list of loss and destruction is sapping and depressing. There is a focus on the positive efforts of individuals, communities and ‘the spirit of place’ to fight back against the odds like English Don Quixotes, but the impression throughout is that they are not winning, merely clinging on to the flood gates as the roaring waters of globalisation surge around them. The townspeople of Bury St Edmunds, for instance, invoking, in desperation, the ancient ‘curse of St Edmund’ to try to stop Debenhams building a new towncentre store in the marketplace; Robin Page raging about the loss of skylarks and other once common farmland species to agribusiness practices in Cambridgeshire; and, the ironmongers of Sheringham trying to thwart the regional development plans of Tesco. It is a journalistic litany of spirited and 95

ECOS 29(2) 2008 successful wins at the small scale, but each skirmish won is nullified by another strategic battle lost. The shock that ‘Big Government’ is continuously bending the rules in favour of ‘Big Business’ (as he describes, for instance, through unelected and unaccountable business leaders in the Regional Development Agencies, deciding the fate of whole regions) in a curious cartel of global or European development for the benefit of the few. Paul Kingsnorth deviates from his main theme to bemoan the lack of democracy for the English who are not only disadvantaged by not having their own parliament but also suffering Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish MPs voting to decide matters only affecting England.

There are some plaintive alarm calls such as this one on traditional orchards and apple varieties: “That we have, in this small and not especially naturally diverse country of ours, such an amazing variety of a single fruit, such a remarkable result of a collaboration between people and the rest of nature, is a wonder. It is a marvel; something we should be boasting about, and holding on to tight. To let it all slide away simply because we can’t cash in on it right now or because we’d like the land to grow biofuels or housing estates is equally, obviously wrong. It is something we would later regret and mourn.”

Paul Kingsnorth regards the inability of the English to express their feelings as an additional curse but has a good go at expressing his, thus: “As we move forward in pursuit of the siren of growth, we unleash a flattening of our history, heritage, landscapes and cultures. We tear up our orchards, bulldoze our markets, sell off our farms and our public squares. Big

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government and big business combine to steamroller people and places, for the good of the country, and those who object are pushed to the margins, to cling to what remains of colour and character. That character clings on where it is not, yet, worth the time and effort it would take to extinguish it.”

I kept waiting as I read deeper into the book for some gathering of magical incantations to defeat the monster that was so lengthily described, intensely despised and yet so powerful and all pervading. It never really came to a call for revolution, a cry for Gandalf the Grey or the sounding of the horn to wake King Arthur in England’s new hour of need. It ended with the declamation that it was all down to us.

This is an interesting and stimulating book but I think that this is a disappointing and to a certain extent (to use the English expression), a stating the bleedin’ obvious, conclusion. What I had expected was an analysis followed by a strategic and inspirational plan of how to engineer this change rather than mass secondment to the nearest Parish Council or agitation for an English Parliament. I might offer a thought that the dragon of globalisation has weak spots… it depends upon us to continuously consume and relies upon just-in-time supply to service this consumption. The means to defeat it are clear (if problematic)… we all need to stop consuming or slow down the rate of consumption whilst building up the alternatives. I confess that the thought of this turns me towards the idea of another article for ECOS on this interesting theme, so watch this space.

Thank you Paul, for reminding me where I had mothballed the lance.

Duncan Mackay

ECOS 29(2) 2008 THE ENDLESS VILLAGE REVISITED Peter Shirley Wildlife Trust for Birmingham & the Black Country 28 Harborne Rd, Birmingham, B15 3AA 2008, 89 pages Unpriced, £2 postage, Pbk ISBN 978-0-9552132-1-2 There were few books that revealed the awkwardly robust, but often exquisite, nature of Britain’s towns and cities before the last decade of the 20th century. Richard Fitter’s London’s Natural History (1945), Nan Fairbrother’s New Lives New Landscapes (1970) and Richard Mabey’s The unofficial countryside (1973) uncovered a diversity largely ignored by the nature conservation establishment, but it was a fourth that arguably tipped it over the edge into action towards protection, conservation and promotion. W.G. ‘Bunny’ Teagle’s The Endless Village was published in 1978; a report for the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC). It cost the grand sum of £1.

The report – a habitat survey of the City of Birmingham and the four Black Country boroughs (Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall, and Wolverhampton) to assist the West Midlands Structure Plan – couldn’t have been more different to what had gone before. Commissioned on a shoestring, and involving over 1000 miles of bus trips, the survey interacted with local people through newspaper articles and radio broadcasts. This local input informed The Endless Village, and was infused into its narrative, which in turn led upwards to one of the local MPs, Dennis Howell, Minister for the Department of the Environment (the NCC’s sponsor), who remarked to Bob

Boote, NCC’s Director, that he was pleased that the Council was at last doing something for his constituents.

Peter Shirley – active in conservation within the West Midlands, and an advocate for urban nature at a national level, since those times – takes a look back to the changes in the 28 years that has elapsed since Teagle’s report landed on the NCC desk, helped by both Bunny himself and work by Ellen Pilokar. The Endless Village Revisited, as its name suggests, follows a 2005 resurvey of the sites, habitats and species featured in the original survey. It is also both a fond appraisal of the original publication (and Teagle’s approach) and a history of the conservation of the nature of our towns and cities since the late 1970s, which gives it resonance beyond the Black Country.

Shirley highlights the changes that have occurred to some of the original sites described, including Moseley Bog, Rough Wood, Fens Pools, Queslett Quarry, Smestow Valley, and Spaghetti Junction. Some sites have subsequently been reduced in size or lost, waterbodies have since disappeared, and invasive species have taken a hold. In contrast many sites are now in positive management (aided by increased resources), water quality has improved, and access largely positively encouraged.

In addition, most of the surviving sites enjoy various levels of planning protection for their biodiversity interest – almost unheard of within the West Midlands (or for that matter other British conurbations) in the 1970s.

A resume of habitat changes notes the unsurprising increase in woodland, a decrease in species-rich grasslands, and attention to reversing the decline 97

ECOS 29(2) 2008 in heathland within the region.

Snippets of information helpfully colour the narrative throughout. For example nightjar have recently returned to Sutton Park after becoming extinct in the 1950s following the use of insecticides to wipe out mosquitoes prior to the World Scout Jamboree.

However, the disappearance of the “swirling vortex of starlings” in Birmingham City centre (which peaked at 57,500 individuals in 1984/5, but declined to 1 bird within 7 years) is rightly lamented.

Teagle rounded off The Endless Village with a ‘what next?’ finale cowritten with George Barker. Shirley responds by offering a succinct summary of biodiversity conservation policy and practice within our towns and cities since 1978, with justifiable emphasis on local examples.

He canters through a welter of activity and graciously concentrates on the positive, covering everything from habitat creation and wildlife gardening to urban forestry. Nevertheless, Shirley is still clearly frustrated at the orthodoxy of much of nature conservation practice in its inability to grasp the potential of places like the West Midlands conurbation and the people who live there, and calls for the “holistic ways of working that urban nature conservationists embraced thirty years ago.”

Action to conserve Britain’s urban nature sprouted in the forgotten postindustrial landscapes of the Black Country during the 1970s. Teagle’s astute perspective helped to sow seeds within an admittedly cautious nature conservation establishment which, in time, began to take root and blossom.

Whether we have made the gains that those initial adventurers into the 98

shadows of motorway flyovers and derelict factory vistas had envisaged is arguable, but The Endless Village Revisited charts the changes admirably, and in an affectionate way that brings alive the spirit of those involved.

Mathew Frith

THE TRANSITION HANDBOOK From oil dependency to local resilience Rob Hopkins Green Books, 2008, 239 pages £12.95 paperback ISBN 978 1 900322 18 8 “When I think of what Transition Town Totnes is doing I feel so full of hope I could cry.” “Vision with action can change the world.” These two quotes give a feel for the Transition Town movement. And this handbook explains and illustrates what you need to get on with it. There are three parts: The Head – why peak oil and climate change mean that small is inevitable: The Heart – why having a positive vision is crucial: The Hands – exploring the transitional model for inspiring local resilience-building.

Transition Town initiatives are catching on, seemingly understood as the right response for our times and featured on Radio 4’s The Archers.

There are over 60 launched and accredited initiatives in Britain.

Establishing a collective vision is an early stage; then topic based working groups are set up eg. waste; water; arts etc. Economic groups focus on local currencies to facilitate local action and keep the monetary benefits local (remember experimenting with LETS?). Our very own Peter Taylor gave a talk about climate change at Glastonbury to help that initiative

ECOS 29(2) 2008 there get going. Websites mention land use but usually in the context of gaining community assets and affordable housing issues, I have not seen much about wildlife or green space although everyone is developing local food projects (there are strong permaculture, composting and getgrowing influences throughout the Transition Towns).

A colleague, (who like me was in the thick of the last cycle of activism for change, Local Agenda 21), says that the Transition Town (TT) movement feels like a franchise operation. But looking at the TT websites and what is happening on my home territory of Stroud in Gloucestershire, I think this is needlessly harsh. This handbook could be seen as prescriptive or just full of inspiration and ‘how to do’ examples.

It is also lively and fun; and you could not say that about many Local Agenda 21 initiatives which, in most districts, were led by local government.

Transition Town initiatives, while clearly recognising the need to involve local government, are firmly the business of local activists – its often the Greens re-furbishing their familiar agenda of human scale, local resilience and systems working yet again. Will TTs’ initial enthusiasm be sustained?

And will these ideas travel beyond the activists to become adopted by the mainstream in the suburbs? The Government’s eco-towns aspirations have already been watered down so who knows. The pattern we experience is that these ideas get re-invented rather than sustained so there is a welcome familiarity about the Transition Town basics. Has anyone anywhere come up with better ‘on the ground’ proposals for addressing

quality of life, well being, or whatever you want to call it now?

Alison Parfitt

THE ENEMIES OF PROGRESS The dangers of sustainability Austin Williams Societas, Exeter, 2008, 96 pages Pkk, £8.95, ISBN 9781845400989 The blurb says “Sustainability is a malign philosophy of misanthropy, low aspirations and restraint. This book argues for a destruction of the ‘sustainable’ prefix, removing its unthinking status as a contemporary orthodoxy, and for the reinstatement of the notions of real development, progress, experimentation and ambition in its place.”

The first part attacks sustainability positions on transport, energy, architecture and education largely in the UK. The second part considers China and India, developing countries more generally, and America.

With a blurb like that I was afraid this book would upset me. It didn’t. It’s worse. It made my eyes glaze over.

Because it’s dull. Because there’s no real argument in it: Williams doesn’t engage with the substance of sustainable development arguments at all.

He does, to be fair, warn readers early on that actually he just isn’t interested in one key driver: “When I told colleagues that I was writing a book about sustainability, they all assumed that it would deal primarily with the issue of climate change. As it happen, this book has nothing to do with it.” As he airily explains: ‘This is because it [climate change] is considerably 99

ECOS 29(2) 2008 low down on my list of things-to-worryabout.” That’s about as much analysis or argument as we get, and is typical of the tone. His main method throughout is to quote short context-free prosustainability soundbites and sneer at them. For example: “Even when it comes to scientists – people who should know better like meteorologists, climatologists, geologists etc – all are prone to the sustainability zeitgeist. Physicist Stephen Hawking, who has been out of the headlines since receiving severe heatstroke and sunburn outside his house in 2004 and therefore thinks he knows a thing or two about global warming, says that ‘the worst-case scenario is that the Earth would become like its sister planet, Venus, with a temperature of 250 [degrees] centigrade, and raining sulphuric acid. Thanks, Stephen, that’s very useful.”

Williams evidently thinks that bracketing the quote with an irrelevantly belittling anecdote and a flip bit of teenage backchat is all that is required to dismiss it, without any need to address the actual point Hawking is making. A swipe at Sir David King goes the same way: “The Government’s ex-chief scientific adviser notes that ‘we’ve been having cheap energy for so long and people have just seen it as a resource that they can burn.” I’m no scientist, but isn’t that what fuel is for?’

Williams evidently thinks this sarcastic rhetorical question is sufficient to confound and refute King’s years of study and thought, since he doesn’t develop the point any further.

But the question has an answer, and not one he’ll like. Bits of the planet 100

aren’t intrinsically ‘for’ anything; we use them in various ways; it has become apparent that using fossil hydrocarbons profligately as fuels has grave consequences for our future security, so it’s a good idea to try to do so less.

Williams is indeed ‘no scientist’, in the most self-limiting and unattractive sense of showing no interest in or respect for the quest to understand how the world works and use the results to inform human action for the better. As a non scientist in this know-nothing sense, he has no standing or competence to say all the real scientists he sticks his tongue out at ‘should know better’.

At no point does he pause to consider why the impressive assemblage of eminent scientists, thinkers, politicians and other public figures he quotes and derides (there are 98 references in the transport chapter and 65 in the energy one) say what they say about climate change, environmental limits and resource use. This wilful refusal to analyse, to argue, to consider reasons and consequences, reduces his interminable passages of quotations interspersed with sneers to about the level of intellectual force and persuasiveness of a toddler whining about not being allowed to guzzle an entire slab of chocolate while refusing to accept the obvious reason.

And, alas, about the same level of entertainment value too.

The unrelieved snide carping tone makes the book a weary, dreary read. This is a terrible waste of opportunity.

Denunciatory polemic lends itself to wit more readily than perhaps any other literary form. If you set out to be as unrelentingly rude about a set of beliefs and the people who hold them as

ECOS 29(2) 2008 Williams does here, you should at least be able to raise some laughs along the way.

Jeremy Clarkson’s antienvironmental riffs and rants can inspire me to the anatomically difficult feat of simultaneously spitting with rage and howling with helpless laughter, and as a bonus there’s even sometimes a serious point concealed in the cherishable comic turn of calculated laddishness like a shard of glass in a chocolate mousse. But Williams never gets beyond a snippy petulance.

whatever level to reduce the need to do such things is a weak and shameful abdication of the human calling and destiny to defy, trample down and triumph over mere nature.

He never really explains what he’s in favour of either. The list of windy abstractions quoted from the blurb at the start of this review is about as clear and explicit as he gets. However from the things he objects to, you can deduce that he believes that the apotheosis of human freedom and happiness – the pinnacle that all history has been struggling towards – is the ability to leave lights and heaters on in empty rooms, wallow in deep baths, discard more rubbish each year, drive thirstier cars further to things that used to be nearby, get fat and unfit, and fly further and further to places that are more and more the same as where you’ve come from and everywhere else. And that any attempt to question the glory of these constitutes a sinister, outrageous and intolerable conspiracy against human spirit and dignity.

However, perhaps wisely, Williams never presents these propositions clearly enough to be examined and tested. The whole lively debate about life satisfaction, wellbeing, what really does and doesn’t make people happy and enable them to flourish passes him by entirely. In his usual manner, he merely introduces Lord Layard as “the British Government’s ‘happiness guru’“ as if the phrase and the sneery scare quotes are sufficient to demonstrate the irredeemable ludicrousness of the whole topic, thus saving him attending to, let alone engaging with, what Layard or a range of other thinkers actually say about it. The nearest he gets to a serious discussion is to point out that the world is full of poor people who need and deserve to consume far more. But he uses this to denounce people who call for less consumption in the developed world as hypocrites, missing the point that one of the main themes and preoccupations of the sustainable development movement these two decades has been the need for development paths in the global north to create the economic and political opportunity, and the resource headroom, for more, and more equitable, development in the global south.

You can also deduce that he thinks the noblest enterprises humanity can engage in are things like building higher and higher flood defences around unwisely located cities, air conditioning buildings to keep the seasons out, and helicoptering food aid into starving or drought ridden regions, and that organising ourselves at

Sadly the uncomfortable sense that Williams is writing about an imaginary parallel universe concocted from gappy and partially digested reading robs us environmentalists of any pleasure we might take from his claims that we are ruling the world. This reaches an unlikely apotheosis in a bizarre chapter portraying America as robbed of 101

ECOS 29(2) 2008 confidence and decisiveness, corroded by self criticism, paralysed by guilt over its energy wastefulness, and in thrall to sustainability. If only.

Roger Levett

AN APPEAL TO REASON A cool look at global warming Nigel Lawson Duckworth, 2008, 149 pages Hbk, £9.99, ISBN 9780715637869 It is interesting to write a review of a book for ECOS that hardly mentions the environment and even when it does, puts little value on it. The book’s message is that everything will be OK because future projections made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggest, in purely economic terms, that despite the social and environmental impacts of climate change, there will be an increased standard of living in coming decades.

Why this assessment is not scrutinised

by Lord Lawson to the same degree as other aspects of the IPCC's predictions seems at best rather convenient. It seems that, for Nigel Lawson at least, biodiversity and the natural environment have no part to play in our quality of life.

The first chapters address the science and the shortcomings of the IPCC which is described in the second chapter in the following, if slightly unmeasured, way: “The problem stems in part from the fact that what was intended by the governments who set up and continue to fund the IPCC to be a fact-finding and analytical exercise, has mutated in the minds of most of those who head it into something more like a politically correct alarmist pressure group.”

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This view is in clear juxtaposition to what is described in a recent article by George Monbiot:1 “The drafting of reports by the world’s preeminent group of climate scientists is an odd process. For many months scientists contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tussle over the evidence.

Nothing gets published unless it achieves consensus. This means that the panel’s reports are extremely conservative - even timid. It also means that they are as trustworthy as a scientific document can be.

Then, when all is settled among the scientists, the politicians sweep in and seek to excise from the summaries anything which threatens their interests.”

If Monbiot is to be believed, he clearly also has his own agenda. Far from alarmist the IPCC often agrees to tone down projections and is subject to huge political lobbying. Even if he is incorrect it is still hard to see what the scientists of the IPCC stand to gain by becoming an “alarmist pressure group”.

The whole idea of liberal conspiracy is a strange one - the most well resourced and influential lobbying group in the world is surely the oil industry.

Lawson uses a number of interesting references but often fails to substantiate some of his bolder statements. He raises some valid points about the difficulty of climate change mitigation and the difficulties in pricing of carbon - an area in which he is well placed to comment given his past role as chancellor.

However, he is so emphatically supportive of the free market and deregulation that he dismisses alternative approaches. Furthermore, more effort could have been made to hide his contempt for environmentalism

ECOS 29(2) 2008 - in the conclusion Lawson decides that anyone who is an environmentalist must also naturally be a communist: “For many green is the new red. And those who wish to take power to order us how to run our lives, faced with the uncomfortable evidence that economic prosperity is more likely to be achieved by less government intervention rather than more, naturally welcome the emergence of a new licence to intrude, to interfere and to regulate: the great cause of saving the planet from alleged horrors of global warming.

The problem with this argument is that it can be used just as effectively in reverse. For those who support unfettered capitalism and the liberalisation of markets it is impossible to admit that deregulation has led to large-scale environmental harm and in some circumstances increased poverty.

For those with a right-wing economic ideology, climate change must be a socialist conspiracy rather than a result of this misplaced ideology.

There may well be a good book out there or to come that adequately addresses the current uncertainties in climate modelling, but this isn’t it.

Perhaps if that book ever emerges its principal quote of endorsement will not be from the creator of Yes Minister (and Yes Prime Minister) maybe it will be from Armando Ianucci creator of the The Thick of it.

1. Monbiot, G (2007) The Real Climate Censorship, The Guardian, 10 April 2007. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/ 2007/04/10/the-real-climate-censorship/ Ralph Underhill

THE FIELD BY THE RIVER The diary of a nature lover Ken Burnett Portico Books, 2008, £12.99, Hbk, ISBN 9781906032326 This is the story of a year in the life of a French field in the valley of the Sarre in an unrealistically dreamy part of Brittany written by an English ex-pat.

However, before you reach for the Peter Mayle genre antidote spray, there is a sub-text to this work that describes a moment of epiphany in nothing more preposterous than a field full of wildlife. The moment begins with a five second streak of blue feathers in the form of a kingfisher and builds through otters, fungi and insects to a full calendar of natural delights and the rural Breton-French society that is shaped around them.

Here, in the field you can feel the change coming. There, down by the river, the weeds of sophistication and contrivance have been shed for a skinny dip in the cool waters of sharing nature’s simple gifts. This is a humble journey that was an awakening as much as it was ground-truthing and therapy for the overstressed. We should all have such a field with a stream at some point in our hectic cycle of life. I realise that I was lucky and got my field and stream combo at the age of seven with a side order of newt-rich manorial fish pond. I nearly lived in ‘my field’ for a year and became so absorbed in it that little else seemed to matter. I could sense the field’s vital breath and listened to its many scratching, bubbling and sniffling noises as its manifold dwellers went about their daily tasks. I felt like an inhabitant and other humanity felt like an intrusive force that I eyed somewhat suspiciously. Once they were gone I could return to my reverie in 103

ECOS 29(2) 2008 nature. I never tired of the delight in poking my arm up to the elbow into a surging spring hole. The hunt for the ridiculously gaudy great crested newts in their sun dabbled aquatic dance arenas never paled. I can really share the sentiment that Ken Burnett is trying to express during the year in his field.

There is an important central point to the type of experience that Ken Burnett is attempting, in his own words and in his own style, to describe. It is the power and capacity that nature stores up to surprise and captivate us. It is a greater shock if you are not expecting it and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sure that for many ECOS readers our first time experiences probably came to us quite early. There is a danger that we might forget that many people have not enjoyed this experience or have yet to find their field. This is probably particularly true for many of the 40-50 million of us in the UK that live in towns and cities where wild greenspace seems to shrink by the second as infilling and over-development absorbs the last of the gruffy grounds; those scruffy, grubby wild play spaces that are probably vital to rounded human development and a long-term caring society. Every child needs a field by a river away from meddling parents where the world can be sorted and every instant becomes a challenge or an everlasting delight. Thanks to Ken for reminding us that this turning point can come at any time in life, but the power is no less real and enriching.

Duncan Mackay

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A MANUAL OF NATURE CONSERVATION LAW Michael Fry NCWG Publishing 2nd Edition 2007, 800 pages Hbk, ÂŁ80, ISBN 978-0955608308 If ever a second edition of a book was urgently needed by those of us who have to apply the laws of nature conservation on a daily basis, it is this one. No longer will we have the tiresome task of checking our hand-written annotations, in dog-eared copies of Acts and Regulations, in order to ensure that we have the latest amendments. We now have a copy of the legislation in which we will have confidence.

It is comprehensive of the nature conservation law, importantly including those Directives that may have direct effect, as well as providing the context for domestic regulations. It includes the now increasing law relating to biodiversity conservation in the marine environment and, since 2007, off-shore.

Although not legislation as such, I would have liked to see the Ramsar Convention as well as the Biodiversity Convention included, but I guess the line has to be drawn somewhere.

Following the recent 60th anniversary of the Huxley Report, I was pleased to see, in the Introduction, that we have not lost our appreciation for the influence of early visionaries in shaping our wildlife legislation. We may grumble about loopholes and inadequacies of transposition, but the legislation of today would have been beyond our wildest expectations when I first became involved in this fascinating and crucial work, some 25 years ago. The complexity of

ECOS 29(2) 2008 amendments to primary and secondary legislation, brought together in this volume and previously a nightmare for the practitioner, illustrates how difficult it has been to make the legislation more effective.

The referenced footnotes will also save time by directing the reader to the source of definitions, amendments etc. Welcome to the second edition of the invaluable companion which Michael Fry has prepared for us. I don’t think I have looked forward to using an eight hundred page book quite so much before!

account of Ted’s formative years. It became clear to me that here was a boy brought up in a safe, stable family, embracing the solid virtues of thrift and hard work. The descriptions are redolent of a gentler, less complicated age. Quite why he became fascinated by natural history is not clear to him. It was not because of particular parental influence or interest. He found it himself in the Lincolnshire countryside. Interestingly though, this did not lead directly into a career in nature conservation. Rather, through his teaching work, Ted was able to engage in his passion for wildlife.

David Tyldesley

TRUSTEES FOR NATURE A memoir Ted Smith Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, 2007, 384 pages Hbk, £15.95, ISBN 978-0-9538270-2-2 This is a substantial and ambitious book that addresses three different, but related, agendas. Firstly, it is autobiographical; secondly, it traces the history of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust; thirdly, it provides a record of the development nationally of nature conservation since WW2, with particular reference to the County Wildlife Trusts. These themes are drawn together through the life of Ted Smith, born in 1921, and an influential figure in conservation policy and development in the UK for 60 years. His lifetime of achievements have been marked by an OBE in 1963, a CBE in 1998 and many other prestigious awards.

There are six unequal parts. The first is entirely autobiographical and is a poignant, charming and economical

Part II, ten chapters that form about half of the book, traces the development of the Lincolnshire Trust from its inception in 1948, but never losing the links with the national conservation scene nor with Ted’s personal life. He was a founding father of the Trust and, from that point on, as its Secretary, became increasingly involved in the national picture and in various initiatives. For me, much of this section is a depressing reminder of what we have lost. The catalogue of lost battles for a countryside rich in wildlife is seemingly endless, making it hard to celebrate the few successes.

Lincolnshire alone lost 99.7% of its meadows between 1938 and 1995. What does this say about the effectiveness of the conservation movement?

Yes, there are successes, but the steady weakening of the Nature Conservancy and its successors right up to the present is a telling commentary on national priorities. Ted Smith, with his distinguished, quiet, determined diplomacy and attention to detail, fought – and won – innumerable battles, right from the level of the 105

ECOS 29(2) 2008 individual wood or meadow, through to ensuring the growing influence of the Wildlife Trust Partnership.

Part III focuses on the nationwide development of the Wildlife Trusts, the complexities of them as businesses and the difficulties experienced in getting them to speak as one on the national stage. There is also an important and revealing section on the failed merger negotiations between the RSPB and Wildlife Trusts in 1973. It appears clear that the failure rests firmly at the door of the RSPB. One is left wondering what the shape of voluntary conservation – and the extent of its influence might have been – had not insular small-mindedness not won out over the best interests of nature.

Part IV, a single chapter of only four pages, fills somewhat uneasily what would otherwise have been a significant gap in Ted’s memoir, detailing his role in and the changing fortunes of the Nature Conservancy and its successors, work which, not surprisingly, he found of absorbing interest. Part V follows the development of the Lincolnshire Trust over the same period from 1974 in ten times the length. The exacting detail here of changing committee memberships, nature reserve acquisition, finance and organisation is typical of the book.

Finally, in Part VI, we return to the personal, catch up on wife, family, home and garden. This leaves me with the sense of a man who has led a full, satisfying and long life; a consummate committee man who has fought selflessly on behalf of many for our heritage of wild nature; and who has benefited from the base and background of a loving family.

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This is not the sort of book to complete reading in a single sitting.

However, in parts it is a gripping tale.

More importantly it provides a unique historical record of the struggles, strengths and failures of nature conservation in Britain, explaining why we in nature conservation are where we are now.

John Barkham

OXFORD DICTIONARY OF ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION Chris Park Oxford University Press, new edition 2008 pbk., 522 pages, £10.99, ISBN 978-0-19-860996-4 This is intended as an accessible guide for desk-top or pocket. However, the claim that it is the ideal reference for students and professionals must be Oxfordian tongue-in-cheek. It is a fair reference...

The dictionary’s structure follows the modern style, with asterisks on words in definitions leading to separate entries, rather than entries being hierarchical articles under head-words. This keeps things simple; it is great if one is browsing; it is dangerous if one is hasty. Under species, for example, there is a sound, simple definition; then “Species are defined in various ways”, and five species concepts are asterisked; and then, there are three ‘see also’ words. Following these leads is important – and enlightening.

Biodiversity has its own box of text, nine asterisks, and three see-alsos – which are all worth seeing.

Martin Spray

ECOS 29(2) 2008

BANC Away day and AGM 11 October 2008, Ham Fen, Kent BANC’s annual visit to see an innovative conservation project is on 11 October.

We’ll be visiting one of the first sites in England hosting reintroduced beavers, with a chance to learn about beavers’ habitat influence and beaver management issues.

The day will include a lunch time meet-up of members and a short AGM. For more details see www.banc.org.uk

The next issue of ECOS will include: • Return of lynx and wolf – when will Scotland be ready?

• Living with beavers and wild boar, rediscovering wildcats • Food security – the conservation impacts

ECOS 30 - redefining nature conservation

NEIL BENNETT

The 30th year of ECOS is fast approaching - all three issues will look at new directions in conservation. As conservation continues to break out from its protectionist era, are we armed with the right tools and resources? Do we have solid criteria that we all support and understand? Do we agree on priorities and how do we determine what matters in nature? Let us know if you have something to say: ecos@easynet.co.uk

Eco Towns threaten middle England

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ECOS 29(2) 2008

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29 (1) Walking the talk in conservation 28 (3/4) Climate Change adaptation – helping nature cope 28(2) Nature’s Id 28(1) Loving Nature?

27(3/4) Accepting the wild?

27(2) Shores and seas – the push for protection 27(1) Species reintroductions 26(3/4) Aliens in control 26(2) Carbon, conservation and renewables 26(1) The extinction of outdoor experience 25(3/4) Wilder landscapes, wilder lives?

25(2) Superquarry finale & last chance for the countryside 25(1) Wild boar and wild land 24(3/4) Extinction of Experience 24(2) Urban greening 24(1) Nature conservation – Who cares?

23(3/4) Citizen Science 23(2) Reintroductions and aliens 23(1) Land reform 22(3/4) Nature in the neighbourhood 22(2) Foot and mouth and the future landscape ECOS & BANC - keep in touch on the web BANC’s web site offers a chance to…

• Follow up the debate in ECOS between issues • Link to current news in conservation as it breaks • Learn about new initiatives and campaigns We look forward to seeing you at www.banc.org.uk

www.banc.org.uk BANC inspires innovation in conservation.

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ecos a review of conservation

CONTENTS Editorial 1.

Get lost! Geoffrey Wain

Volume 29 Issue No 2

Themed articles 3.

Natural wonders and wellbeing – the case for getting closer to nature. Mike Townsend

12. Playing naturally. Martin Maudsley 21. Nature Deficit Disorder – Just a relapse or a worrying trend?

William Bird 29. Conservation therapy – hands-on examples from National Nature Reserves. Ben Le-Bas 33. Identity-building in the woods. Claudia Carter and Liz O’Brien 42. Care farming: bringing together agriculture and health.

Rachel Hine 52. The journey ahead – finding nature in hospice gardens.

Ken Worpole

cos

58. Sacrifice – the dilemma of Good Reason. Martin Spray Feature articles 64. Passionate Leadership: conservation in the 21st century.

Stephanie Hilborne 73. The Marine Bill – new dawn or failed opportunity?

Mick Green 77. Environmental Stewardship and HLS – Achieving better outcomes for breeding waders. Philip Merricks 81. Climate Watch – The threat of green initiatives. Peter Taylor 89. Towards Enlightenment: the 2008 VINE Conference.

Matthew Oates 93. Trump town on the dunes? Dan Puplett 95. Book Reviews

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