“/ disruptor /: a person or thing that prevents something, especially a system, process, or event, from continuing as usual or as expected”. Some creative thoughts for 2025 : click those pics+ for links
AGM (active game management)
Being invited to address a Scottish wildlife manager‘s AGM gave me an opportunity to explore some topics in advance. I designed a wide-ranging online quiz in advance which enabled contributors to air unspoken aspirations; there were 50 responses – “we’ve never done this [a quiz] before” – which can help inform ‘honest broker’ conversations towards building trust now for future partnerships.
London centric
A trip to the bright lights of London enables more environmental themed discussions than you might expect. Thoughts on nature advocacy, countryside access (more about connection to land, less about walking poles), and changes within traditional landownership all expose tensions between ideology and pragmatism. This in turn provides evidence to find better ways to creatively unpack and frame environmental and rural issues – the same applied to my visit to Oxford for both the Farming Conferences in January 2025.
Riverscapes
Hosting a farming panel at a campaigner-dominated river summit enabled topics to be discussed beyond those subjects many just want to talk about. Pollution is a big issue but so is water abstraction and importing water via fruit. Another summit is set to return again this year (click the pic below for details).
Irish thinking
What do you get when filling difference spaces with tree planters, ecologists, foresters, farmers, and nature protagonists at an inclusive conference and summer school on the west coast of Ireland ?
See link above and click the pics for more outcomes.
Big tent/small barn ag
Groundswell and Carbon Calling are two farming conferences where big names, big kit, big ideas and innovative ‘pilot’ sessions seek to share information in fresh ways. There are also creative ways ‘to do’ knowledge exchange without [always] just hearing from those top 15% quartile progressives in the field. (Apply for details)
Party fringe beavers
A trip to Liverpool to chair a session on ‘Nature’s comeback’ involved reading the house rules to the room, briefing the panellists and circulating audience interactive microphones to explore and moderate unscripted views which help inform wider and often unexplored non-binary discussions.
It’s just another way to engage in environmental dialogue. Oh, and introduce two people who have never met but have stuff in common – “yes I’m the NFU designed to lead on trees”.
Field intel diversity
‘[Climate] resilient development benefits from drawing on diverse knowledge (high confidence)’ appears in para c.6 of the IPCC’s 6th Assessment. This might explain my need to undertake ‘field intel’ trips to ground-truth what’s going on out there by learning what people are really thinking, feeling and doing – not just what they are saying.
Fruit, cow, supermarket, tree
The amount of stuff I continue to learn from people, face-to-face, still blows my mind. Seeing the agroforestry fruit trees below and noting the impact of soil change from fen black to clay cap on the trees highlighted the site-specific context of land use. The state of crop’s roots indicate the ability of farmland to ‘healthily’ handle pesticides which may be required to increase yield productivity – yet again highlighting the importance of soils.
Fenland exhausted by extractive vegetable growing, alongside failing land drains, may be worth more to society (and farmers) as peat rewetting projects. There’s more room for well-executed mixed tree species planting in upland areas and lowland ditch wiggling without impact on food production. I could go on….
Land drains and wiggled ditches
Optimising land use does not dogma employ. This can be hard to stomach (exhibit A: an interview with Prof Charles Godfray – a land use academic) when change is never easy. And it’s really tough for a long-term, cashflow-poor, asset-rich multi contested narrative rural sector. And it can often seem unjust.
For all the wins-wins we seek, reality involves trade-offs. These can be easier to navigate if honest upfront conversations are framed with humility aiming to build trust; perhaps rather than approaching from a position of being ‘on the right side of history’.
Disrupting space for dialogue
Creating space is required to help a diverse range of communities (including under/misrepresented rural ones). It’s not easy to stand, loudly united, while having quiet conversations at the same time – especially when nuance comes with its downside. But these conversations are required (both in public and in pubs) – from move the status quo, build trust and create opportunities around building resilience for the changes ahead.
Adaptive thinking
This blog is set for 2025 but is prone to being updated. Meanwhile do comment in any way or form or contact me to unpack/discuss any of the above (especially the cryptic stuff!). Updated Jan 2025
‘it is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it’
Joseph Joubert
Back to Langholm moor, ever changing from moor to woodland
