5
09, 2018
24
08, 2018
London wants to become a ‘national park city’ – is that a contradiction in terms?
This article was originally published in The Conversation on 24 July 2018. Header image via shutterstock The movement to declare London a national park city in 2019 is gaining momentum. Mayor Sadiq Khan recently launched National Park City Week, along with a series of outdoor activities to kick off the school holidays. Citizen groups and
11
05, 2018
Rewilding’s next generation will mean no more reserves full of starving animals
This article was originally published in The Conversation on 11 May 2018. Header image via shutterstock In the late 1960s a patch of land to the east of Amsterdam was reclaimed from the sea for industry. Following the 1973 oil crisis this plan was abandoned and flocks of geese moved in. As the geese grazed
17
12, 2017
Alagoas curassow: generating identity value from a species asset
It is a thoughtful moment looking into the eye of a bird that nearly went extinct. As I crouched and observed an Alagoas curassow my first thought was a sense of deep gratitude to Pedro Mario Nardelli who in the late 1970s acted to rescue the last wild specimens and establish a captive population in
8
12, 2017
Brazil’s Cerrado forests won’t be saved by corporate pledges on deforestation
This article by Sergio Carvalho and myself was published in The Conversation on 8 December 2017. Header image via www.shutterstock.com To the south of the Amazon basin lies a huge savannah known as the Cerrado. Once a mix of grassland and forest, much of the Cerrado has now been transformed into the vast soy farms
22
11, 2017
Photography is transforming British birdwatching
This article was first published in British Birds on 15 August 2017 One Sunday last July I strolled down to the hide at RSPB Otmoor, one of my local birding patches in Oxfordshire. Five years ago I might have entered an empty hide. Not anymore. The place was packed with bird photographers, happily chatting as
3
09, 2017
Back from the brink, but what next for Lear’s macaw?
In December 1978 the famous Brazilian ornithologist Helmut Sick made one of the ornithological discoveries of the 20th century. He located a breeding population of the fabulous Lear’s macaw – a species that had been known in collections for 150 years but whose whereabouts in the wild was a mystery. Lear’s macaw is one
15
07, 2017
Wild meat: rewilding and hunting
This article was published in Geographical Magazine on 15 June 2017 The idea of rewilding boar into the UK’s landscapes is gaining plenty of traction, but if we truly want them back we’ll need to consider hunting them as well. Cycling through the Forest of Dean, my daughter and I encountered a sign instructing
21
05, 2017
Shooting for the Earth: Malta opti-hunt 2025
In 2012 I was invited by Cerry Levy to visit Malta with a group of artists seeking to offer new thinking on the campaign to stop springtime hunting on Matla. Below is my contribution - an imaginary article in published in online newspaper in 2025. It offers a vision of a future Europe where opti-hunting is
16
05, 2017
Living landscapes as new natural assets
Good morning all, and thanks for the invitation to present today. Gary asked me to present some thoughts on new paradigms for conservation. My aim is to do just this. I will argue that we need to seize the opportunity of Brexit to reframe how we think and talk about rural lands. Brexit is a