Great blog here from Peter Cooper discussing that big elephant in the room – how the conservation movement spends most of its time preaching to the converted and how it needs to find a way of reaching out to others outside of the older, white, middle class bracket.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get up to the New Networks for Nature conference – hopefully next year. At its heart it holds a superb ideal – that the natural environment inspires far more than practical conservationists and natural scientists but a whole host of creators, including poets, authors, scientists, film makers, visual artists, musicians…However, unfortunately it seems that this diverse group of people are not as diverse as it might first appear. ..read on.
This past weekend saw me attending my third New Networks for Nature event in Stamford – essentially, a ‘relaxed’ conference that’s celebrates both the scientific and cultural aspects of nature in one.
I owe a lot to New Networks, especially given my first one back in 2012 was what launched me into youth network A Focus on Nature for the first time, which I am currently proud to sit on the committee for. But this year, I didn’t come away with the same ‘ooh, that was absolutely fab’ feeling as before. Don’t get me wrong, there were many great points, but others not so much I won’t bother rambling about them here though – bar one.
In the space of one coffee break, three people I’d never spoken to before all happened to approach me, and, as if they were fates sent to dictate the idea of my next blog…
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