#690: Our need to be fully human

That is the title of a blog on the NAEE website which has been written by Mary Colwell, the instigator of the GCSE in Natural History.

"It is essential we tell children that their home is precious, that it matters, that the life around them has a value and a right to exist – and that it is essential for the survival of humanity. 

We must show them how to notice and to care. 

We have to connect children to the natural world and teach them the names of things and what life needs to thrive. 

Future generations will have to sort out the mess we have made and they must be given the tools to do that. 

They must be plugged into nature, drawing from it the life lessons that will keep the Earth functioning and, crucially, keep us sane. 

We will rely on future generations to make wise decisions for all of life on Earth."

#682: Robert MacFarlane giving this year's BBC Reith Lectures

Robert MacFarlane shared earlier today that he will be giving the BBC's Reith Lectures for this year. This BBC piece provides more details.

Each lecture will take one of the four classical elements as its focus:

• The first lecture, Earth: The Ladder and the Web, traces the rise and consolidation of the ‘human superiority complex’ –– the belief we are perched atop a ladder of life, rather than entangled in a web –– beginning with one of the earliest works of world literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh.
• The second lecture, Air: The Great Thinning, uses birds to examine some of the consequences of human exceptionalism, and shows how recent scientific breakthroughs are disclosing the superpowers of other life-forms, thereby challenging the paradigm of our uniqueness.
• The third lecture, Fire: Deep-Time Thinking, argues for ‘deep-time’ perspectives in both our politics and our story-telling, such that we can become better ancestors to future generations.
• The final lecture, Water: The Geography of Hope, takes rivers and water as its focus, exploring some of the extraordinary ways in which law and democratic structures are being radically re-imagined in order to give voices, votes and even rights to rivers, oceans, whales and mountains.

An archive of previous lectures can be seen here.

At a time of ecological crisis, extreme weather events and a rapidly heating climate, Robert Macfarlane’s Reith Lectures will examine what is in his view one of the most consequential stories humans tell themselves: that our species stands above and apart from the rest of nature.

Throughout the series, titled The Human Superiority Complex, Macfarlane will argue that this belief has become deeply rooted in Western thought, and has helped bring the planet to the brink of catastrophe.

Drawing on inspiring examples from around the world, the four lectures will also highlight the scientists, artists, activists, lawmakers and communities who are challenging this worldview and opening the possibility of different, more just futures for life on Earth.

One of our most influential writers on landscape, language and the living world, Macfarlane brings more than two decades of acclaimed work to the lectures. A bestselling author, his books have reached readers around the world, while his collaborations across art, film, music and performance connect ideas from literature, science, culture and public life.

The 2026 lectures will be recorded in front of live audiences in London, Bangor, Aberdeen and Amsterdam. They will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service later this year and will be available to listen to on BBC Sounds.

Audiences can apply for free tickets to the recordings from late September, via the BBC website. I’ll try and let you know when they become available.

#654: Landgulls

An article in The Guardian on urban gulls.

Gulls are birds which have grown to live with us, and which we both tolerate but also encourage through the way that we interact with them. They have been called "rats with wings".

Instead of sea cliffs, gulls find nests on the side of tall buildings, which mimic them.

Instead of hunting for food, we supply them with a steady stream of waste food because of our convenience lifestyle and overflowing rubbish bins.

Gulls learn how to steal, and there are lots of videos which show them opening automatic doors into shops and then coming out with packets of food.

To find out a great deal more, I recommend that you read the book 'Landfill' by Tim Dee.

#652: Stone Curlew habitats and new housing

This story from the BBC News had a headline which at first glance is the wrong way round surely...

It's since been changed.

Stone curlews are a protected species. I have seen them in the wild in a field which is part of a Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserve.

I've visited Weeting Heath and seen the bird in the fields at the reserve. It's eye always draws the eye... it's a beautiful bird.

#647: Mary Oliver

The poetry of Mary Oliver has come up a few times in recent weeks.

This poem was mentioned a few times.

Are you familiar with her work?

What other poems are potentially relevant for a perspective on the natural world?

#643: The Path More Travelled

A cross posting from my Geo Library blog project - what do you mean you haven't visited? There's over 700 books that would be of interest to geographers.

'Absorbing and exhilarating . . . This book will literally expand your horizons' MICHAEL PALIN
'A panoptic, deeply researched and compelling history of our nation' PATRICK BARKHAM

This was the book I finished at the beginning of the summer break.

It's a chunky tome from Nicholas Crane which sits alongside his earlier book on the making of the landscape of Britain.

It explores the origin of the paths and tracks that run through England, from their first makings as the landscape was populated with the first arrivals. 

The paths firmed up with foot traffic and created a network of paths connecting settlements as they developed. Horses expanded the network, and trade turned them into roads. They were joined by trains and canals and then the car changed everything.

It's scholarly and accessible and full of incident and detail, taking you through the thickets of ancient woodland and out to the development of motorways and the current issues we face travelling through the countryside, including past struggles to gain access to open access land.

Details from the publisher:

In The Path More Travelled, acclaimed geographer and travel writer Nicholas Crane explores the hidden history of Britain's coast-to-coast web of footpaths, from the icy Cairngorms to the banks of the Severn (where he discovers footprints left over 7,000 years ago). 

Witty, wide-ranging and passionate, this is an enchanting call to rediscover and protect the lifeblood of our landscapes.

My copy was published by W&N in 2026

Hardback, 432pp

ISBN:  978-1399605816

If you want to hear more about the book, Nicholas Crane is doing a series of events around the country, including a talk in King's Lynn at the Town Hall.

Your best option if you live in the East of England is to come along to our Christmas social event on Tuesday the 8th of December.

It will be hosted by Norwich School.

Nick will have a focus on the ancient footpaths of East Anglia as well, given the location of the talk, and the fact he was born in Cringleford - a few miles from where my daughter lives - and grew up in the area.

My ticket is booked, so I will see you there and may even help you get some sausage rolls and brownies once the talk is over. We usually have mulled wine on arrival as well...

#620: Prairie - Candace Savage

This looks like being particularly good. I'm really keen on books like this which promise to tell the human history of physical / natural regions / biomes.

I will look to get this out of the library and add it to the blog once I've had the chance to read it.

#617: Stewardship

"As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace."

1 Peter 4:10

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/14/church-of-england-votes-against-rewild-land-2030

The Government's own plan is less than ideal.

#609: Traffic noise and baby birds...

We know that traffic noise causes harm to human health.

It increases stress levels, and the associated air pollution affects air quality.

This piece from April 2024 explains how it also damages nature and forces birds to sing louder.

Noise from traffic stunts the growth of baby birds.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

#581: Natural History Reading List:#27 Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures

I have this book as an Audible copy, and it is excellent. 

It is also available to purchase in paperback and hardback, or loan from your local library.

If you haven't already got a copy then it may be worth going for the illustrated version which has some wonderful images of fungi.

A film of the book has also been made, with narration by Björk.

#569: Jane Goodall - someone to mention

We recently lost a real hero of Natural History: Dr. Jane Goodall.

She had spent her life speaking about the need to conserve nature, and habitats, particularly for primates. 

There are many quotes which are attributed to her, where she shows the true value of connecting with nature.

She also recorded a Netflix special interview for "Famous Last Words" which she said could only be shown after her passing and in this she named the people she thought were having the greatest impact on the natural world through the actions of their companies or political decisions. 

Who would be on your list of people to mention as part of a GCSE Natural History specification??

Let me know in the comments.

#526: John Clare and an Inherited Perspective

Another name which I hope the new specification introduces young people to is the poet John Clare.

He is the subject of a book by the London-based writer and psychogeographer Iain Sinclair, who traced his footsteps. The cover of the book can be seen below. It is called 'Edge of the Orison'.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-clare

Click the link to download the whole eBook - thanks to Nottingham Trent University. (PDF download)

Image via Wikipedia - Public Domain

#524: Man

By Steve Cutts - made in 2012, but only just came across it... looks at our relationship with the natural world - dark humour, so don't watch if you're particularly sensitive.

#521: National Tree Week 2025

The resource pack from the Tree Council for this year's National Tree Week has been made available as a PDF download via this link.

The week itself runs from the 22nd to the 30th of November.

By the way, for an excellent book on British woodlands check out 'British Woodland' by Ray Mears. A lovely book! It's in my library...

#506: Nature connectedness

This two word phrase is likely to become increasingly important to many taking the new specification I would imagine. I would be surprised if an increase in this was not added as an outcome from studying GCSE Natural History.

Nature connectedness is intended to replace the current disconnect between young people and the natural world flagged up by a number of writers, including Robert MacFarlane.

How can this be fostered in young people?

Perhaps time spent outside?

A recent BBC News article suggested as little as 20 minutes is enough to have an impact.

Ideas welcome. How best to do this?

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

#501: Green to Grey

Green to Grey tracks environmental change in the EU.

Here's the opening shots of the website which includes a wealth of information and imagery on environmental change. Would go well with Daniel Raven Ellison's 100 Seconds films.

The website has many stories and details of specific locations.

It was featured in this recent Guardian piece outlining the rate of change of the environment. We often talk about deforestation in the Amazon, forgetting that we are degrading the landscape here in Europe, and even more so in the nature-depleted UK.

Thanks to Alice Griffiths for the tipoff here.

#484: Nature connectedness

A recent piece in The Guardian by Patrick Barkham on some work by Miles Richardson on nature connectedness.

Nature connectedness is bad in Britain.

"We are seeing an ongoing “extinction of experience” with future generations continuing to lose an awareness of nature because it is not present in increasingly built-up neighbourhoods, while parents no longer pass on an “orientation” towards the natural world. Other studies have found parental nature connectedness is the strongest predictor of whether a child will become close to nature.

“Nature connectedness is now accepted as a key root cause of the environmental crisis,” said Richardson. “It’s vitally important for our own mental health as well. It unites people and nature’s wellbeing. There’s a need for transformational change if we’re going to change society’s relationship with nature.”

A newborn child is much the same as a child born in 1800. Children are fascinated by the natural world. It’s maintaining that through their childhood and schooling that’s essential, alongside urban greening. There’s policies starting to do that but we’ve got to think in transformational terms – not 30% but 1,000%.”

One particular statistic from the report was shocking...

A study found that people in Sheffield on average spent just four minutes and 36 seconds in natural spaces each day.

#442: "Freakosystems"

A piece on the BBC Futures website talks about the impact of people on a Hawaiian island which has produced a very unusual ecosystem.

O'ahu's lowland forests are now almost entirely devoid of the plants and animals that grew here for millions of years before the arrival of humans. Settlers brought extinctions by cutting down trees to make farms and introducing voracious predators and disease-carrying animals. Today, these tropical forests are a tapestry of non-native species introduced from every corner of the planet: Brazilian peppertree, Indonesian cinnamon and roseleaf bramble from the Himalayas and Australia. Most of the animals, including all the birds that Tarwater mentioned earlier, are also alien.

Update

Another example....

These are ‘freaksosystems’, or Frankenstein ecosystems. For the most part, people who work in landscape design and management have the feeling that they know better than nature. They love nothing more than to create a ‘freakosystem’ of their own designing (I love this term 😂). https://t.co/fjPczCuVm0

— Ben Goldsmith (@BenGoldsmith) April 28, 2025

#405: Biome viewer

Thanks to Hannah Steel for the link to this useful visualisation tool.

Biomeviewer displays a range of information in a visual way.

It's really useful for identifying biomes in a general way, and rotating the globe to see where they are located and identifying their characteristics.

There are accompanying resources in a folder, student worksheet and apparently an iOS app too.

The worksheet takes students through the various features which are built into the app.

You can also explore anthromes: anthropogenic biomes. These are where the majority of humanity lives.

A classification proposed by E.C. Ellis, October 25, 2005 lists them. Minimum mapping scale greater than or equal to one square kilometer.

Source: https://ecotope.org/about/anthropogenic_landscapes/

There is a lot more information and some useful maps on this website too, which is the new home of the previous link. Lovely work and I now want to do something with this as well...

#389: Humans and nature

The phrase 'more than human' is one I hadn't heard until a few years ago, when I attended a session run by Sharon Witt and Helen Clarke.

More than Human Rights is an interesting concept.

I'm part of the MOTH (More-Than-Human) Rights collective, based out of @nyulaw.
We've just released this book of essays, conversations & collaborations on the subject of MOTH rights & much beyond.
It's free to all as a PDF/Kindle download.
Pls share on.
👉https://t.co/5AqE5K7dba pic.twitter.com/in1JInOLVn

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) July 29, 2024

Check out their work here.