Murray Edwards College Cambridge last week hosted the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE). My grapevine* tells me it was a lively event, bringing together academics and others in the relatively new field of the 'environmental humanities' (such as the Open University's 'Stories of Change' project). BBC Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin's closing speech was apparently very well received highlighting as it did the importance of story-telling in making environmental issues relevant to the public and the challenge of communicating the complexities of energy economics in 40 second vignettes.
Yet, within the world of poets, authors, critics and the environment there are some heated debates. Recently these spilled out onto the pages of the New Statesman magazine. Through an exchange of essays, two celebrated authors, Mark Cocker (here) and Robert Macfarlane (here) argued the significance and relevance of the recent rise and popularity of creative writing about nature. These essays are really worth reading. In a nutshell, Mark claims that this some authors pull punches by not getting stuck into the nitty gritty of contemporary nature conservation challenges while Robert makes the case that there is space for all forms of writing to contribute to a debate about how we relate to the natural world. The Goshawk, gets caught up in this as Mark critiques 'New Nature Writing' by pointing out that one of the genre's most celebrated examples, Helen MacDonald's book H is for Hawk, has as its leading animal character a captive rather than a wild bird.
Mike Langman's wonderful image of a Goshawk (rspb-images.com)
Now, I am not about to wade into a debate between two authors that I admire, but this conversation has echoes of others that appear to be cropping up with increasing frequency. Last week, our Vice President Chris Packham wrote a challenging piece in BBC Wildlife encouraging charities like the RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts to be more outspoken on current wildlife controversies. The Guardian covered the story (here) and I offered a perspective about how we do what we can within our charitable objectives and our finite resources focusing on where we think we can have impact.
Of course, I recognise and acknowledge the frustration, even anger that as a society we are moving too slowly to address with the nature conservation crisis. At the heart of these disputes is a difference of opinion about the strategy that different people or organisations adopt 'to win'. I don't mean win in a sporting sense but a less precise but still definable common objective: to improve the state of nature and the way our species continues to fail the millions of other species with which we share this planet.
I don't regret these challenges - debates can provoke and through discord, creative solutions can emerge.
The RSPB has, over the years, have had many vigorous internal debates about the relative merits of different approaches to influencing change in attitudes and behaviour. At one time there was the idea that we should invest more effort to get people to 'love nature', while others argued that we wanted people to 'save nature'. This 'love nature' vs 'save nature' row was informed by research about how people responded to different messages. Our current negotiated settlement is best expressed through our current Giving Nature a Home campaign which tries to capture the idea that nature is amazing, it's in trouble, but together, through our own individual actions, we can help save it.
Other tensions arise in the RSPB's conservation toolkit. Through our planning casework we work with developers to ensure the needs of nature are not compromised but we will object when proposals needlessly sacrifice nature. As we demonstrated recently through the debate about the proposed cull of up to 25% of lesser black gulls on the Ribble Estuary, we will challenge through the courts poor decisions even if made by government. Even if we lose but still believe in our argument, we are prepared to take our fight to the Court of Appeal (where in the case of the Ribble we were ultimately successful - see here).
Our desire to work with those that want to do the right thing does not mean we ignore those that do harm. We have advisors who work with landowners - even those that run shoots - to help them manage their land for wildlife . Not everyone likes this, as I found to my own cost earlier in the year (here), but part of our strategy is always to tackle those who damage nature or break the law which is why we have an investigations team that works with the police to tackle bird crime.
On Friday, a new RSPB publication landed on my desk. It is a summary of what we have achieved over the past four years through our Futurescapes programme which has attracted financial support from a range of sources but most significantly, the EU Life fund. The teams involved in our 38 landscape-scale conservation projects should be incredibly proud of what they have achieved. Adhering to the principles espoused by Professor Sir John Lawton of more, bigger, better and connected protected areas, we have delivered 108,500 hectares of practical conservation, engaged 310,000 people through 198 projects and 144 partnerships. I am convinced that lasting change in these places will only come if we find ways to align local people around a shared vision for an area and then, through hard work and creativity, we find the resources to effect change.
Dove Stone RSPB reserve part of the Dark Peak Futurescape by Ben Hall, rspb-images.com
I like harmony both within our species but also between our species and the rest of the natural world. This is why I contributed the following quote to our Futurescapes report - it pretty much sums up what winning means to me and what's needed to be successful.
"Imagine a future where our most iconic landscapes are alive with the sights and sounds of abundant wildlife, where people are working together to after our natural assets, and where inspiration comes from being in these places. This future is possible...We have the know-how. We need to the determination to collaborate and the political will to make it happen."
So, when you next go into a bookshop and are confronted with bookshelves full of new books about nature, celebrate the diversity. And if you've already read Helen MacDonald's book about her captive goshawk and want to find out more about the species' life in the wild, then there is always another book to satisfy that longing. When it comes to goshawks, why not try my colleague Conor Jameson's Looking for the Goshawk? I loved them both and think they should be sold as a twin-pack! But, that's just me. Always chasing harmony...
*My wife, Jenny Bavidge who teaches at Cambridge, had a role in organising the conference so the grapevine didn't have far to go.