This afternoon I went for a walk at Weeleyhall wood, an eighty seven acre ancient woodland in north Essex, owned by Essex Wildlife Trust. It was quiet and peaceful, apart from the odd rumble from a car on the road about four hundred metres to the south. For a Sunday afternoon I met remarkably fewContinue reading "The Wildwood of my Imagination"
Winter – time of the dead? Not at all – time of the quiet more like!
As I head off for my Boxing Day walk - a tradition for many people in the UK - I will be keeping this great little blog post by Dawood Qureshi in mind. I am spending my Christmas period with my family in north Essex - a completely different landscape to the hills of theContinue reading "Winter – time of the dead? Not at all – time of the quiet more like!"
Paris and Ice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjTsj-fi-p0 There have been many attempts to summarise the events that have taken place at the climate talks in Paris in recent weeks so this post will not attempt to do this yet again. For those interested I suggest you visit this link. Instead, I want to draw attention to the work of the scientistsContinue reading "Paris and Ice"
Why bother understanding the historic environment?
The historic environment combines two of my passions a passion for the outdoors, the natural world, urban and rural spaces and how people interact with them. a passion for the past, for past lives, the archive and historic complexity. It is perhaps therefore no surprise that I am personally drawn to the ‘historic environment’. ButContinue reading "Why bother understanding the historic environment?"
One of the most depressing things about conservation? How Middle-class it all is.
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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