environmental commentator
It’s not a tribal blog, it’s a dialogue
Every so often, I aim to produce a pithy (under 800 words) piece always with links to references.
Do apply to do a guest blog – note same word count and references if possible. Be prepared for ‘light touch edit’ to ensure positive, rather than divisive, engagement with the widest range of views.
When I chaired a discussion on the National Pollinator Strategy in Oct 2016, things unfolded differently to what delegates expected. The Public Policy Exchange framed the conference around two words. Exchange – as in knowledge sharing, and communities. To include a diverse range of farming, urban, scientific, political, research council, environmental, farm advisor and beekeeper interests. Diversity … Continue reading Pollinators: without labels
Gareth Dockerty worked for Natural Resources Wales as a Conservation Officer and Reserves Manager, and has qualifications in woodland, conservation grazing and ecology. He has also worked in North York Moors National Park on small rural business development and is currently Regional Officer for BASC in North Yorkshire. The uplands face an array of often … Continue reading Guest blog – Gareth Dockerty
Farm tenancies for a pound, controversial views on farming subsidies, ‘pricing out’ upland farmers – the National Trust hasn’t held back from headlines this year. (Updating Aug 17, Sept 19, Jan 20 infinitum) A quarter of a century ago, I worked for the trust as an … Continue reading Trusting times
Smarter engagement and co-design with more land managers could deliver more wildlife. Sometimes at little public cost. The collective skills, ‘public goods’ to use the modern parlance, of which farmers and land managers hold, have huge untapped environmental benefit. “I wonder if we recognise the tens of thousands of farmers in our own country as … Continue reading Collective skills
I’ve been coming up against a lot of fear recently. Fear of hearing about rewilding, fear of talk around predator control, fear within politics. We can outwit it. No one has said anything explicit, but I perceive there are some that dislike my providing the issue of rewilding with any airtime at all. The label, … Continue reading Bypassing fear
My article in The Field was one of the toughest pieces I’ve written to date. Does an unhealthy thirst for adversarial positions feed conflicts in conservation? Pitching the proposal was hard enough. Editors commission stuff that keeps their audience coming back for more. Whether to entertain, to reinforce views, to challenge (but not too close … Continue reading Harnessing tension
The more we explore different land uses, the more complexity we discover, the more we must accept elements of change – especially in the uplands. Much of the UK land area is upland, home to a sliver of our population. Of which a tiny slice actually work the land within industries from farming and forestry … Continue reading Upland enquiry
The recovery of farmland birds is long term work-in-progress. Go count some birds on farmland between the 2-18 Feb 2024 to support citizen research and makes farmers proud of their wildlife. Countryside context Make no bones about it – it’s been a tough journey. Post Second World War farmers were encouraged to become more efficient. … Continue reading Citizens’ birds (2024)
A sense that two farming conferences are getting closer together; although it’s fun to ‘spot the difference’, we can harvest more common ground. (updated Jan 2025, prior to my 13th year attending both conferences) I caught two people ‘stuck’ between the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) and the Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC). One had been … Continue reading Fabulous farming
This post is not about flooding. Well, not entirely. Perched on my ‘fence’, I see knotty problems that require us to swallow our partisan positions to work together while being more realistic about our needs. Perhaps I try and cram too much into blogs that conflate a number of issues but I’m going to take the liberty … Continue reading Knotty water
#WoodofStones – a year’s worth of tweets of a tiny National Nature Reserved in Wales
