{"id":3162,"date":"2024-10-10T15:27:32","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T14:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3162"},"modified":"2024-10-18T10:32:36","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T09:32:36","slug":"culture-and-nature-6-organising-strategy-ways-and-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3162","title":{"rendered":"Culture and Nature – 6 – Organising Strategy: Ways and Means"},"content":{"rendered":"

Section 6 – Organising Strategy: Ways and Means<\/strong><\/p>\n

download as pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

If anyone buys the idea that we need a national effort on nature and culture, an important question is how could it be done?<\/p>\n

The earlier sections make some suggestions about projects, audiences and activities but not about overall organisation and strategy.\u00a0 Below are three strategy suggestions: about scale and geography of organisation, about audience enagagement, and about PR for the nature movement, and a couple of of thoughts about what people need to know, and candidate political asks actionable in the short term.<\/p>\n

Scale and Geography \u2013 Use National Character Areas<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a country with a highly centralised system of political power, there is an ever present gravitational pull on any social campaign not focused on business, to direct lobbying, advocacy and effort at the political centre of Westminster and Whitehall.\u00a0 But then delivery of government policy is often filtered down to less powerful bodies such as Counties and Districts (with the important exception of Unitaries with directly elected Mayors), and most UK politicains have local Constitutuencies.<\/p>\n

That, and the allure of a highly centralised and dominant national press and news media (which many countries do not have), and social media with its beguilingly low transaction costs, often leads to English campaigns which try to use \u2018grass roots\u2019 indications of support (eg petitions and clicks) for policy asks directed at the National Government in London, with not much in between.<\/p>\n

My contention in Part 1 was that this has not proved very effective but it certainly won\u2019t work very well in terms of demonstrating and developing the cultural significance of nature.\u00a0 For one thing it does not reflect lived experience, unless you are part of the Westminster-Whitehall policy community.\u00a0 For another, both nature and popular culture are themselves much more granular and dispersed, locally and regionally and across the four UK Nations.<\/p>\n

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A Devon Parish Map from Common Ground \u2013 sourced from the community, so hard to overlook by local politicians<\/em><\/p>\n

In terms of organisation and logistics, NGOs are then faced with a problem.\u00a0 The very obvious very local level, embraced for instance in a case-by-case way by Common Ground with its Parish Maps<\/a>, is the Parish (or Town Council). But the NALC, the National Assoctaion of Local Councils (an excellent body which has done some sterling work on nature) represents 10,000 Town and Parish Councils, which is too many for most projects to deal with.<\/p>\n

The County and District tiers are important but socially little loved. They suffer from the baleful effects of too-frequent re-organisation by national government, and a public perception that they do little more than arrange for the bins to be emptied, and, if they are considered at all beyond that, impose Council Tax, fail to handle planning, social services or transport effectively, and seem powerless in the face of National Government.<\/p>\n

This is very unfair but Local Government is a largely forgotten force in UK life, until something goes wrong.\u00a0 It\u2019s even ignored in many University politics courses.\u00a0 None of that makes adminsitrative Counties and Districts a natural choice for social campaign architecture.\u00a0 (This little experiment<\/a> in trying to localise a national campaign to Norfolk Constituency levels might be of interest).<\/p>\n

Amazingly, England and perhaps Scotland and Wales, do have an essentially nature-based system of regions which in my view, are at the natural scale, and follow the right natural contours, for working on nature and culture.\u00a0 In England they are called National Character Areas.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Interactive map of <\/em>National Character Areas<\/em><\/a> (the colours)<\/em><\/p>\n

England has 159 National Character Areas<\/a> (NCAs) but hardly anyone living in them has the slightest idea they exist.\u00a0 Not even Estate Agents and tourism organisations, for whom they are a ready-researched marketing opportunity. (There are also 48 NLCAs or National Character Landscape Areas<\/a> in Wales, and there is a system of Landscape Character Types<\/a> in Scotland).<\/p>\n

Government agency Natural England says NCAs aim \u2018to help guide land management and other activities to strengthen character and resilience, responding to pressures such as climate change\u2019 but they could be a lot more interesting than that.\u00a0 The NCAs, which are a national system but really should be called Local or Natural Character Areas, are defined by local regional geology, nature and land use.<\/p>\n

It means they reflect the distinctive landscape on a human scale and are described in (relatively) everyday terms the public can understand, without any maths, convoluted science or jargon.\u00a0 Most of them could be traversed by someone on a bicycle in a day, or in some cases, on foot. (England is a small and varied place).\u00a0 They depict the characteristic nature, explain why the \u2018verancular\u2019 or local building styles vary from one place to another, the industry, farming, habitat and its history, and provide a nature-based expression of locality and identity.<\/p>\n

Here for instance is the start of the description for the Bedfordshire Greensand Ridge, set in the South Midlands, the sort of area often wrongly referred to as \u201cunremarkable\u201d.<\/p>\n

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The description includes:<\/p>\n

\u2018… A patchwork of semi-natural habitats including mire habitats, lowland heathland and lowland mixed deciduous woodland species, including coppiced hazel which is important for dormice at Maulden Wood. <\/em><\/p>\n

… Adders are particularly associated with heathland areas of the Ridge … The Ridge is dissected by the rivers Ouzel and Ivel, which have carved distinct valleys … Springs arising from the Ridge support important wetland habitats, including acid mire and wet woodland.<\/em><\/p>\n

… Visible heritage of iron-age banks and ditches at Kings Wood and Glebe Meadows, Houghton Conquest Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and iron-age hill fort remains at Sandy. Remnant ridge and furrow at Hockliffe and Potsgrove. <\/em><\/p>\n

… Historic parklands and estates associated with grand country houses such as Woburn … Estate villages, houses and farmsteads use local building materials including clay brick and tile, locally quarried brown ironstone, thatch and render… <\/em><\/p>\n

Major communications infrastructure includes the Sandy Heath transmitter.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

The NCA definitions are not just about nature but nature is important to people as part of place and identity, however much or little natural history knowledge they have. As Craig Bennett of The Wildlife Trusts pointed out in 2021: \u2018Polling shows that good quality natural places are the\u00a0most important thing<\/a>\u00a0to foster pride in people\u2019s communities \u2013 more than pubs or even the local football team\u2019.\u00a0 (That survey gave people 16 possible reasons to be pround of their local area and \u2018our local parks and green spaces\u2019 came top at 36%).<\/p>\n

It would make driving around, travelling across or living in England more interesting if there were signs to announce when you are entering one of these areas but I\u2019ve never seen one, although when I travel from my home in North Norfolk to see my daughters in Bristol I cross at least seven of them.<\/p>\n

From a nature campaign organising perspective they are an unused gift.\u00a0 Socially, they connect with people\u2019s lived experience, where they grew up or went to live, and what it is like, in a way that larger regions, or administrative Counties, do not.<\/p>\n

\u2018Place\u2019 is important to people in the UK, as elsewhere, and as the Victorians recognized, natural history provides threads in that fabric.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s the sort of rooted background identity which ought to be covered in School Curricula and perhaps captured in a form of \u2018Passport\u2019, or \u2018Identity Card\u2019 for every resident, as some of the coordinates of \u2018home\u2019.\u00a0 Maybe even something which runs with a home as a property.\u00a0 At the very least, our NCAs deserve a mention on road signs.<\/p>\n

Audiences \u2013 Engage Across Values Groups<\/strong><\/p>\n

To make just one over-arching suggestion about audiences, if the UK nature movement is to reach and see its ideas more adopted beyond its base, or less kindly, outside its ghetto, they will need to resonate with motivational values<\/a>, the underlying deep and largely unconscious convictions of the population.<\/p>\n

Many environmental NGOs are perceived to be, and most campaign groups definitely are \u2018change organisations\u2019. This in itself is enough to mean they tend to be very strongly dominated by Pioneers, just one of the three roughly equal main values groups dividing the population. \u00a0(See How change campaigns get populated by the Usual Suspects<\/a>).\u00a0 Which of course applies in politics.<\/p>\n

This does not matter if your aims and objectives can be achieved from within, or resourced by a focus on, one values group but it does matter if you want your cause or projects to be perceived as representing or involving the mainstream, or \u2018normal\u2019 or \u2018average\u2019 people.<\/p>\n

As Mark Avery observed<\/a>, in the UK cancer and health charities raise vastly more money than nature and environment groups.\u00a0 Their most high profile fundraising activities are often mass sponsored Fun Runs or Park Runs, and their participants and supporters are skewed to the mainstream esteem-seeking Prospector group. Support for environment and nature charities however is strongly skewed to Pioneers (charity motivational values maps here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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Motivational values difference: left my favourite type of charity is environment, right favourite is health.\u00a0 Warm colours indicate stronger agreement (UK population). This is why health charities have a bigger social and cultural presence in the UK than purely environmental ones, and why adapting environment or nature to be \u2018about health\u2019, can involve a wider audience. More \u2018nature\u2019 data <\/em>here<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Compared to Pioneers, Prospectors<\/a> like to do fun and socially visible things, preferably \u2018looking good\u2019 as a group of friends. Pioneers not only overindex on nature and global issues but love debating ideas and issues.\u00a0 This is perhaps why events like the RNN Restore Nature Now march are stronger on talks, information and ideas than looking good or having fun, than the average Prospector would like.\u00a0 Yet Prospectors are most often<\/a> swing voters, are disproportionately represented among those in full time employment, and politicians are sensitive to them as \u2018aspirational\u2019 voters.<\/p>\n

So in terms of audience strategy, it would make sense for a campaign to increase nature ability, and to send participatory signals, to first and foremost try to engage Prospectors.\u00a0 A lot of Pioneers will probably be attracted to nature events and activities anyway, so long as they are \u2018interesting\u2019 enough, and Settlers will join in once the behaviour seems normal.\u00a0 (For more see this summary<\/a> and the book What Makes People Tick<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n

Here is a \u2018values planner\u2019 giving a \u2018straw person\u2019 idea of the sorts of activities which different motivational groups might be attracted to. Essentially you can most easily engage Pioneers with interesting ideas, Prospectors with (the right sorts of) activities, and Settlers via groups they are already in, and familiar activities.<\/p>\n

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These <\/em>values planner<\/em><\/a> activities were adapted to climate change some years ago but could be easily be revised to fit nature.<\/em><\/p>\n

Pioneers can be attracted to innovative activities but Prospectors want to see them proved successful, and Settlers want them to have become normal before joining in, so rather than inventing completely novel ways to engage with nature, it\u2019s more effective to attach, reveal or insert nature into existing<\/em> cultural practice.<\/p>\n

To take the case of gardening culture, for Settlers gardening might be about survival (grow your own), retaining the familiar (including regular visiting birds or other wildlife), exerting control or rules of your own, and being \u2018normal\u2019, so if normal changes, the Settlers change in line with it. \u00a0For Prospectors a garden could be an opportunity to display symbols of success (which could include wildlife if there is a clear way to be seen to \u2018do the right thing\u2019 and \u2018win\u2019), have fun, and do things with friends.\u00a0 For Pioneers a garden could be many things depending their interests, including a realm of the imagination, an opportunity to experiment, and to make a difference.<\/p>\n

The natural social dynamic of behavioural change is that Pioneers innovate and experiment, and if that appears socially successful, Prospectors will emulate it.\u00a0 Then if enough people pick up that new behaviour, it appear as normal, so Settlers join in. \u00a0 \u00a0The current UK trend of increasing gardening for, or with nature, is part way through this change dynamic.<\/p>\n

Interventions need to be designed to match these needs and dynamics otherwise they will not spread, or may even cause a build up of resistance and \u2018culture wars\u2019.\u00a0 (The problems faced by initiatives like No Mow May and changing verge management, are a case in point: Pioneers will start them, Settlers may be incensed by Councils \u201cnot doing their [traditional, normal] job\u201d, and Prospectors probably are not sure what to think but avoid the controversy).<\/p>\n

Knowing about nature in general meets different needs, or gives different benefits and rewards, for different people according to their motivational values.<\/p>\n