Oh, the bright lights of London blended with conversations about the environment! It’s where people live, some environmental organisations have their offices, books are launched, and rural government civil servants work.
A melting pot of an urbanising nation who have long disengaged with the land, food and nature. Ouch! No, this is not about the so called rural/urban divide, it’s about how we as society engage with each other on some of the environmental issues.
Marches, onwards!
To sample some [of these issues], I took a drive up the Welsh/English border to meet a range of characters with cups half-full with action on the land. No time to waste, there’s money out there. Tons of it. Sometime in unusual places – a small land manager in a catchment receiving grants for pond creation and hedge management from a water company. And that’s before flushing out funds from the Water Restoration Fund – quick now, by 7th June (or the professional grant applicators will have gobbled it up).
Shakespeare’s wood
Ok, there some land interests with more interesting cultural assets than a block of grade 3b arable land. This quietly understated stately home is where the old Bard based his ‘As you Like it’ play in a north Shropshire woodland. The landowner is exploring options on enabling the public to sensitively ‘access’ the landscape without damaging the very authentic nature of the asset.
Soil toil
Around the corner, farmers are doing the same on working the land. For different reasons. To feed UK citizens, steward the soil, and nurture farmland habitats under increasing pressure from climate change and other public demands. Conservation agriculture is what today is called regenerative agriculture – though we do love our blemish-free crisps in the UK and destoning potato furrows makes it salty hard to fit the regen model!
Moss talk
It’s good to talk. With a range of people, some of whom may not always be obviously thinking like you; or happen to operate in a different way when online, embattled in furious social media skirmishes. Watching snipe zipping over sphagnum bog and lesser redpoles hanging in alder trees, is certainly a more conducive environment for healthily gritty environmental conversations.
Cheshire cats
Who would have thought a footballers country had such ferocious cats? No wonder land managers/owners/farmers/ecosystem stewards/land eco-engineers (apply as seen fit) keep their heads down and just get on with things – even if they have to pin up a note saying this is not a pheasant release pen.
The Big Smoke
Back in town, too often this where the head office, civil servants, literary activists reside. It’s certainly a hotpot of people, policies and pints – as watering holes are often where much of the chatter goes on. My angle was about doorstepping ‘thought processes’ to highlight blind spots, exchange ideas, glean dots-to-join while walking from Farrington up to Kings Cross then down to Westminster. So easy on flat pavements compared to hairy hillsides!
Roaming
Talking of walking, I popped into a book launch seeking to connect to nature (rather than walking poles and footpaths) while eroding the requirements for barbed wire and a rules-based rights to access land. I might return to this subject – either here or in another guise.
On other conversations, I learnt that 20,000 farmers have signed up to the SFI (Sustainable Farming Incentive), agri-academics can hardly move for citation-driven repetitious panels, and the English tree planting quest is a mere 260k hectares away from the target of 16.5% tree cover.
Noisy times ahead
With the upcoming election, expect a racquet as “A March for….more nature/valued farmers/keep log burners/clean rivers/remove junk food/” (select own) comes to a media platform near you. Meanwhile, why not veer off into the quieter areas of the countryside where’s there’s more going on that meets the eye.
Oh did I mention my visit to the lowest point in the UK (Holme Fen Post) or back up north again? Another time perhaps. After I return from working in wild Ireland, grassy Carbon Calling and maybe even at earthy Groundswell.
