{"id":3381,"date":"2024-10-10T15:28:44","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T14:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3381"},"modified":"2024-10-18T10:29:15","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T09:29:15","slug":"culture-and-nature-section-1-a-campaign-for-nature-in-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3381","title":{"rendered":"Culture and Nature &#8211; Section 1 &#8211; A Campaign For Nature In Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>A Campaign For Nature In Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Section-1-Campaign-for-Nature-in-Culture-Introduction-.pdf\">download as pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Chris Rose \u00a010 October 2024<\/p>\n<p>This is Part 3 of a series of posts on Politics and Nature (Parts 1 and 2 were published on 27 August 2024 as <a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3115\">Focus On Culture Not Policy To Restore UK Nature<\/a>).\u00a0 Part 3 is in seven sections.\u00a0 This is Section 1.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Subsequent sections (follow this post in order)<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2 \u2013 Missing The Garden Opportunity<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">3 \u2013 Signalling and Marking Moments<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">4 \u2013 Nature Events in Popular Culture<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">5 \u2013 Why Conservation Should Embrace Natural History<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">6 \u2013 Organising Strategy and Ways And Means<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">7 \u2013 Afterword: Aren\u2019t We Doing This Already?<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Section 1 &#8211;\u00a0 Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first part of this blog argued that the impact of UK environment NGOs on government policy has long been limited by a Westminster political culture which disbelieves its claims to represent significant public support.\u00a0 It gave examples of how \u2018for decades UK politicians of both main UK Parties have treated the environment and particularly nature, as a politically optional and ultimately disposable \u2018priority\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It also argued that \u2018with nature almost absent from social connections between voters and their political representatives\u2019 government environmental policies \u2018are only weakly accountable to public opinion\u2019.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So long as this political conviction remains in place, mobilisations and marches for nature, lobbying on policies, opinion polling, an avalanche of nature-celebrating books, data-rich reports on the State of Nature, and other calls for action are all subject to heavy discounting.\u00a0 In effect, the pro-nature movement has limited political capital, compared to other calls on the government which are more present in social connections between voters and politicians.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This part looks at how we could make nature less invisible, and more embedded and expressed in everyday social culture, so it reaches politicians \u2018bottom-up\u2019.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By \u2018culture\u2019 I don\u2019t mean \u2018high culture\u2019 as in The Arts and Literature, or \u2018alternative\u2019 inter-personal philosophies of living more \u2018naturally\u2019 but what most people do day to day, hour to hour, week by week, month by month, at work, rest and play: how we spend our time and money for instance on our homes and gardens and in our spare time, how we mark important moments and places, and how that evidences our connections to nature, and actions people are taking to value, protect and restore it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Such \u2018wrap around\u2019 social evidences are needed to make the policy efforts of our environment groups more effective, and could be more powerful and cheaper, than trying to increase the membership of environmental NGOs, although it might also have that result.\u00a0 To do this we don\u2019t need a culture-war about nature but we do need a cultural promotional campaign for nature.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>What Would Success Look Like?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We will know if it\u2019s worked, when it passes \u2018The Weekend Test\u2019.\u00a0 If, when one politician asks another, \u201cWhat did you do at the weekend?\u201d, they become as likely to respond with something nature-related that they came across, or did with their friends, family or constituents, as to mention a trip to an opera or a football match, attending a County Show, or getting tickets to Wimbledon. Then we\u2019ll know the UK has a politically mainstream nature culture. (Believe it or not, we once did have something like that).<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>The Challenge<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To embed nature in culture \u2013 in things people do and take as normal &#8211;\u00a0 I suggest we will need:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Increased public nature ability<\/strong> to reverse the trend to nature blindness and enable people to be \u2018good at nature\u2019. Starting by being able to recognize, name and understand the native plants and animals where they live: the ABC of nature literacy and ability<\/li>\n<li><strong>Salience<\/strong>: existing nature and conservation efforts need to be more visible and perceptible: sign-posting and signalling them<\/li>\n<li><strong>Connecting Opportunities<\/strong> and events involving nature, in mainstream culture; connecting to things people do already, building on historic nature culture and place-based identities, and strengthening pro-nature \u2018start ups\u2019 which are themselves potential culture-makers<\/li>\n<li><strong>Organisation<\/strong> of a movement wide campaign effort<\/li>\n<li><strong>Political asks<\/strong> which can be pressed on government in the near-term, to give the campaign political traction, and align the nature base and organisations themselves<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the first part acknowledged, creating these social signals would be a long-game, not just a one Parliament project.\u00a0 In fact to be most compelling, such evidences need to emerge from activities, events and behaviours which do not signal a political ask but are just social facts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The near but not quite complete disappearance of nature from our culture has been a long and gradual process, involving an industrial revolution, a couple of agricultural revolutions and several technological revolutions.\u00a0 Now there is a counter revolution which we can make use of.\u00a0 It\u2019s still in the foothills but it creates hand-holds and stepping stones, some revitalising old nature culture, others creating new initiatives.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From a management point of view, organisations need to recognize that while this would be a political project it\u2019s not one to be left to the few NGO staff working in \u2018The Political Unit\u2019.\u00a0 Many of them are \u2018policy experts\u2019 and have a brief to try and achieve policy outcomes but\u00a0 it\u2019s not about policy.\u00a0 In the words of former Prime Minister Harold Wilson \u2018policies without politics are of no more use than politics without policies\u2019, and\u00a0 here, the deficit is politics.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But in this case the politics part is about making nature culture, and the people best able to do that may be fundraisers, marketers, communicators and \u2018front of house\u2019 staff who understand people, not policies.\u00a0 \u2018Changing culture\u2019 may seem an alien concept to civil society groups more used to thinking about \u2018saving Red Squirrels\u2019 or changing farm subsidies but it happens all the time. Take food for instance.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><em>Changing Food Culture<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Ravenous-Dimbleby-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3367\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Ravenous-Dimbleby-1-199x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Ravenous-Dimbleby-1-199x300.png 199w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Ravenous-Dimbleby-1.png 556w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The last few generations have seen a change in British food,\u00a0 noticed even by some foreign visitors.\u00a0\u00a0 In his book <em>Ravenous,<\/em> on food, health and farming, Henry Dimbleby, the chef and restaurant entrepreneur turned environmental food system advocate and \u2018Food Tzar\u2019 under the Conservatives (he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-politics-65012960\">resigned in frustration<\/a>), says of food culture:<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Good food cultures don\u2019t just happen: they are made by us <\/em><em>&#8230; It is sometimes said that Britain \u2018lacks a proper food culture\u2019 &#8230; but &#8230; ours has changed enormously over the centuries &#8230; The British were once envied by the hungry French peasantry for our comparatively abundant food, our farmhouse tables laden with suet puddings, savoury pies and joints of beef.\u00a0 But the Industrial Revolution &#8230; created a mass movement of the population away from the countryside.\u00a0 The resulting shortage of workers meant that food had to be imported from the colonies and beyond.\u00a0 The rural poor, who had eaten frugally but from the land, were replaced by the new urban poor, who often survived on little more than bread and tea.\u00a0 As a nation we became severed from the rural cuisine that had been our forte.\u00a0 It could be argued that we have never fully recovered &#8230;\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dimbleby highlights the case of Japan as a country which changed its food culture in several steps of \u2018deliberate state intervention, as well as historical accident\u2019.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To summarise his account: first, when Japan opened up to foreigners in the late C19th and early C20th its government advisers were struck by the strength of foreigners, and argued the Japanese should drink more milk.\u00a0 Second, in 1921, the Japanese army, \u2018concerned at the state of malnutrition among its recruits\u2019, recommended soldiers eat more protein and fat, and this was promoted to the population in government radio broadcasts and through public cooking demonstrations.\u00a0 Third, after WWII, defeated starving Japan got US food aid for school meals, and, as Japan got richer in the 1950s, citizens mixed Western and Japanese food styles. Fourth, in the 1990s Japan introduced rules to limit the influence of supermarkets and junk food, and law requires citizens to maintain a healthy weight.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the UK, it\u2019s the accident, or at least the market bit rather than the government bit which has made most difference to food culture. Dimbleby describes how immigrant Indian, Chinese, Turkish and Thai restauranteurs seized an opportunity to bring \u2018foreign food\u2019 to UK streets in recent generations.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the same time real increases in income and much reduced costs of flying led to mass tourism and adoption of new tastes first experienced abroad (this is me not Dimbleby \u2013 see values changes in the <a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=1462\">run up to Brexit<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So when I was a child in the 1960s, working- and lower-middle class English people drank wine only at rare special occasions and then, we chose from three sorts: red, white or pink. Time spent in Europe on holiday changed tastes, and in the 1980s cheaper imports from Australia were promoted by Supermarkets and newspapers in Wine Clubs, so today most adults in the UK are probably better able to recognize a variety of wines than they are a variety of wild plants and animals.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stimulated by the cost of obesity, cancer and coronary disease to the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/National_Health_Service\">NHS<\/a> which is a perennial concern of UK politicians,\u00a0 UK governments have tried, albeit much more hesitantly than Japan, to encourage healthier eating.\u00a0 They have set some limits on salt, fat and sugar and from 2003 ran a \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/health-20858809\">Five A Day<\/a>\u2019 fruit and vegetables public education\/ social-marketing campaign (5-a-day was an American idea from 1988).<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Precedents For State Interventions In UK Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The UK has seen many state-sponsored interventions to change daily cultural practice, just not on nature. Today for instance we speak of \u2018health and safety culture\u2019 but Health and Safety, started with a few factory safety laws <a href=\"https:\/\/www.historyofosh.org.uk\/timeline.html\">from 1802 onwards<\/a> and was turbo-boosted by the Robens Report, under a Labour government in 1972.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The human cost of road traffic accidents led the UK government to run a famous public communications campaign (1971) \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rospa.com\/rospaweb\/docs\/advice-services\/road-safety\/history-road-safety-campaigns.pdf\">Clunk Click Every Trip<\/a>\u2019 on wearing seat belts, and has run campaigns on consumption of drugs and alcohol, including drink driving, and smoking, into the C21st.\u00a0 The law in the UK has been progressively changed to promote inclusivity and prevent discrimination on grounds of race or sex, in the workplace and public life.\u00a0 UK governments have intermittently encouraged energy conservation by citizens.\u00a0 Many of those changes were partly stimulated by civil society campaigns.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1960s campaigns by the press, architects and the heritage lobby such as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.civictrust.org.uk\/\">Civic Trust<\/a>, led to the UK adopting a system of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Listed_building\">Listed Buildings<\/a> (it\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/historicengland.org.uk\/whats-new\/features\/conservation-listing-timeline\/\">origins<\/a> are older).\u00a0\u00a0 That system has not only been arguably more successful than we have with our \u2018natural heritage\u2019 but it also gradually educated the public, norming and crystallising expectations.\u00a0 So estate agents and buyers are aware of the difference between real Georgian and neo-Georgian homes, or real Tudor and Mock Tudor but hardly any would be able distinguish \u2018original\u2019 real ancient woods from planted ones.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>A National Drive For Public Nature Ability<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There\u2019s little that Non-Governmental Organisations like better than asking governments to do things.\u00a0 Too often it\u2019s an easy but ineffective option but in this case it\u2019s appropriate, and necessary, and an achievable objective (cheap for example, compared to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/article\/2024\/sep\/03\/englands-nature-friendly-farming-budget-to-be-cut-by-100m\">\u00a32.4bn<\/a> funds paid yearly to UK farmers and landowners).\u00a0 An old-school above-the-line educational government public awareness campaign about UK nature, and specifically one designed to facilitate a larger programme of nature-ability, is needed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Such a campaign should be an early ask from NGOs to government.\u00a0 It would be a signal of intent that this is an important and overlooked issue, and create a space in which to convene a multi-actor multi-dimensional programme involving civil society, government at all levels, businesses and other actors.\u00a0 \u00a0So far as I know nothing like it has ever been done in the UK \u2013 except perhaps once.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Countryside-is-Great.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3383\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Countryside-is-Great.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"908\" height=\"552\" srcset=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Countryside-is-Great.png 908w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Countryside-is-Great-300x182.png 300w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Countryside-is-Great-768x467.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 908px) 100vw, 908px\" \/><\/a><em>If you live in the UK you probably missed this government poster<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At first glance it could be an advertising campaign to get people to value and visit Britain\u2019s ancient woodlands (woods that have always been woods \u2013 what in many countries are called \u2018old growth\u2019 forests). Just 2.5% of them remain.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In particular it could be to promote Bluebell woods, for which the UK is famous amongst botanists, as due to its oceanic climate, half of the world population of these beautiful flowers are found in the UK.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/row-of-bluebells-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3369\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/row-of-bluebells-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"435\" srcset=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/row-of-bluebells-1.jpg 900w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/row-of-bluebells-1-300x145.jpg 300w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/row-of-bluebells-1-768x371.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><em>Bluebells in Foxley Wood, Norfolk<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Carpeting the floor of some woods in April and May, in a blue haze of flowers, Bluebells are one of Britain\u2019s best known, folkloric and loved wild flowers.\u00a0 It\u2019s not on the scale of Japan\u2019s traditional <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hanami\"><em>Hanami<\/em><\/a> or \u201cflower viewing\u201d trips to see blossoming cherry trees but many people make an annual pilgrimage to see the Bluebells in spring.\u00a0 \u201cPilgrimage\u201d is the word many of them use.\u00a0 It\u2019s a cultural, if not formally recognized event.\u00a0 Consequently if a \u2018Bluebell Wood\u2019 comes under threat, it has an added cachet to help mobilise public support in its defence, compared to just \u2018a wood\u2019.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In fact, this advert was part of the \u00a3125m government funded <a href=\"https:\/\/www.insidethegames.biz\/articles\/15820\/government-backs-p125-million-qbiggest-longest-ad-for-britainq\">\u2018GREAT\u201d campaign<\/a> begun in 2012, the year of the London Olympics, to promote tourism.\u00a0 Hailed as \u2018the biggest longest ad for Britain\u2019, it included posters, tv, print and cinema ads in seen in Beijing, Berlin, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Mumbai, New Delhi, New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto but not of course, in the UK.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Great-countryside-railway-poster-e1728569092655.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3386\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Great-countryside-railway-poster-e1728569092655.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"478\" \/><\/a>Seeing as a 2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/british-kids-cant-identify-a-conker-or-a-bumblebee-11784960\">survey found<\/a> almost half of UK children couldn\u2019t identify a Bluebell, it\u2019s a shame it wasn\u2019t shown in the UK.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><em>Is That A Bluebell?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Sky-News-bluebells-e1728569128659.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3385\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Sky-News-bluebells-e1728569128659.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"685\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Screenshot from Sky News (2019)<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sky News reported:<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Half of children cannot identify stinging nettles, 65% wouldn&#8217;t know what a blue tit is, 24% do not recognise conkers and 23% do not know what a robin looks like.\u00a0 Almost all of the children surveyed could not identify a beech leaf or a cabbage white butterfly, while 83% did not know what a bumblebee looks like.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That survey followed numerous others which revealed an epidemic scale state of nature blindness in the UK, affecting not just children but adults, including educators and university students enrolled in ecological courses.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A 2002 study by Cambridge University zoologist Andrew Balmford became famous for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/11440003_Why_Conservationists_Should_Heed_Pokemon\">finding that<\/a> children could identify more Poke?mon characters than native British wildlife.\u00a0 In 2005 Anne Bebbington from the Field Studies Council <a href=\"https:\/\/artplantae.com\/2011\/11\/04\/plant-identification-environmental-literacy\/\">showed<\/a> that A-level school students and their teachers, as well as trainee teachers attending courses at Juniper Hall Field Centre, had very little ability to name \u2018common\u2019 wild plants. A third of students could only name three species. \u201886% of A-level biology students could only name three or fewer common wild flowers whilst 41% could only name one or less\u2019. Bebbington also found that 29% of the biology teachers could only name three or fewer flowers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A 2008 National Trust survey found just 53% of children <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationaltrust.org.uk\/article-1356398668159\/\">could identify<\/a> an Oak leaf, Britain\u2019s national tree, and half could not tell a bee from a wasp.\u00a0 The Trust went on to run a major effort to get children and families to spend more time outdoors in nature, but if adults can\u2019t explain to their children what they are seeing outdoors, how will this be an introduction to nature or equip them to recognize changes in nature?<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My 2014 post <a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Why-Our-Children-Are-Not-Being-Connected-With-Nature1.pdf\"><em>Why Our Children are not being connected with nature<\/em><\/a> noted that 85% of UK adults agreed \u201cit is vital to introduce young children to nature\u201d but it was evident that this was not happening.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a 2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/355653133_Knowledge_of_Nature_and_the_Nature_of_Knowledge_Student_natural_history_knowledge_and_the_significance_of_birds\">Oxford University project<\/a>, Andrew Gosler and Steven Tilling quizzed 149 biology undergraduates about birds, trees, mammals, butterflies and wildflowers before they went on a residential field course.\u00a0 Birds \u2018were the best known by the students, while butterflies were the most poorly known group\u2019 but only 56% of the students could name individual bird species rather than generics like \u2018duck\u2019, and for butterflies, \u2018only 12.8% of students correctly named five British species, and 47% named none\u2019.\u00a0 Whether students came from rural or urban families only had \u2018a small effect\u2019 on their knowledge.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sarah Wise and I started the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fairylandtrust.org\/\">Fairyland Trust<\/a>, which engages families with young children in nature, using activities which embed basic natural history learning through making, in 2001.\u00a0 It\u2019s deliberately aimed at the mainstream families, engaging adults and children together. 70-90% of the 250,000+ people who have attended its events and activities, have had no previous contact with conservation groups. Over time we\u2019ve learnt and progressively simplified the activities to assume less and less knowledge.\u00a0 For instance, we discovered that almost nobody knew that butterfly or moth \u2018food plants\u2019 are what the caterpillar eats, not the flying adult.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the early 2000s we were asked to take a Magic Wands Workshop to a Wildlife Trust reserve.\u00a0 As Magic Wands involves choosing a wand of wood from a British tree, we asked the Education Officers which native trees grew on their site, and were taken aback when they didn\u2019t know, and said they\u2019d have to ask the warden.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At Glastonbury in the \u2018Green Kids\u2019 field, we met environmentally-aware parents who were astonished to learn that hedgerows held many different trees and shrubs (which we\u2019d used in a Crowns workshop).\u00a0 Seeing \u201chedging plants\u201d sold in garden centres, they had assumed there was one plant to make hedges from.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2007, as consultants to Natural England (NE), Sarah and I invented an activity called Ecoteering, designed to enable visitors to recognize key nature features of NE\u2019s National Nature Reserves.\u00a0 Ecoteering works by using \u2018navigation species\u2019 to find your way from one \u2018discovery\u2019 feature to the next.\u00a0 We tried out versions of it on friends and Natural England office staff, and were surprised when one of the latter commented that the navigation species (shown on a photo card) were too difficult to identify, and to distinguish Bracken from Heather would be a role for \u201ca specialist\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Ecoteering-navigating-nature-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3370\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Ecoteering-navigating-nature-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"814\" srcset=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Ecoteering-navigating-nature-1.png 1000w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Ecoteering-navigating-nature-1-300x244.png 300w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Ecoteering-navigating-nature-1-768x625.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><em>From <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ecos.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/ECOS-35-2-2-Navigating-nature.pdf\"><em>Navigating Nature<\/em><\/a><em> in Ecos magazine \u2013 opening a \u2018discovery box\u2019 on an Ecoteering trail for Natural England<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But what does it matter if children, and the adults they become, can\u2019t recognize their own country\u2019s plants or animals?<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><em>The Wrong Poster-Bee<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2010 Friends of the Earth (FoE) asked me to map out possible campaigns they could develop to \u2018get back into\u2019 the issue of biodiversity (ie nature).\u00a0 I suggested quite a few but noticed that whenever I told any non-specialist about the project, they usually said \u201coh you mean bees\u201d.\u00a0 It was already a zeitgeist issue, because bee-keepers were reporting \u2018collapse\u2019 of their colonies, and a few scientists were fingering agrichemicals as the likely culprits.\u00a0 The next year (FoE) asked me to outline a bee campaign strategy, and they executed a campaign with some success.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many more campaigns followed (some such as by Buglife, preceded it). Campaigns to Save the Bees bees from \u2018bee killer\u2019 (Neonicotinoid) pesticides became a worldwide phenomenon in the 2010s (<a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=2599\">see this<\/a> on some of the history).<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bumble Bees, and hundreds of other types of wild bee, are in decline in many countries.\u00a0 In some cases they have been reduced from species widespread before agricultural industrialisation to tiny vulnerable populations (such as the Great Yellow Bumblebee, reduced by 80% in the UK).\u00a0 Three UK Bumble Bee species have become extinct. By 2019 the Large Mason Bee which used to be found in southern England and Wales and the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2020\/jul\/12\/making-a-beeline-wildflower-paths-across-uk-could-save-species\">Six-banded Nomad Bee<\/a>, formerly \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2021\/jul\/24\/this-only-saves-honeybees-the-trouble-with-britains-beekeeping-boom-aoe\">fairly widespread\u2019<\/a>, were each confined to single sites.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Boris-honey-bees.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3387\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Boris-honey-bees.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"660\" srcset=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Boris-honey-bees.png 850w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Boris-honey-bees-300x233.png 300w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Boris-honey-bees-768x596.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The success of campaigns in generating public interest led to politicians (including Boris Johnson as London mayor), the media and individuals to promote bee-keeping, especially in urban areas.\u00a0 This increased bee numbers but of Honey Bees, not of wild bees.\u00a0 The campaigns to \u2018save the bees\u2019 often used images of\u00a0 Honey Bees which are reared in artificial hives.\u00a0 Honey Bees were first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sierraclub.org\/sierra\/how-honeybee-buzz-hurts-wild-bees\">domesticated 9,000 years ago<\/a> and are more like livestock than wild animals. They do not need rescuing. In fact like many agricultural animals they compete with wildlife for food.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/honey-and-bumble-bee-reference.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3396\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/honey-and-bumble-bee-reference.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"545\" srcset=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/honey-and-bumble-bee-reference.png 850w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/honey-and-bumble-bee-reference-300x192.png 300w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/honey-and-bumble-bee-reference-768x492.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/a><em>Above,\u00a0 for reference, is a Bumble Bee with a Honey Bee<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Find a basic UK bee identification chart <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fermanaghomagh.com\/app\/uploads\/2020\/05\/UK-Bee-Identification-Guide.pdf\">here<\/a>. A few truly wild Honey Bees do exist in the UK but are nowadays <a href=\"https:\/\/backyardbeekeeping.iamcountryside.com\/beekeeping-101\/the-lost-honeybees-of-blenheim\/\">very rare<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018Saving Chickens\u2019<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The US Sierra Club <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sierraclub.org\/sierra\/how-honeybee-buzz-hurts-wild-bees\">pointed ou<\/a>t in 2018 that studies in <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1111\/ele.12659\">California<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0006320705004994\">Canada<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0006320712004417\">Ireland<\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/peerj.com\/articles\/522\/\">England<\/a> found that wild bee numbers dropped as farmed bee numbers increased, and wild bees contracted pests and diseases from Honey Bees.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u201cHoneybees are not going to go extinct,\u201d said Scott Black, executive director of the US\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/xerces.org\/\">Xerces Society<\/a> an invertebrate conservation group. \u201cWe have more honeybee hives than we\u2019ve ever had and that\u2019s simply because we manage honeybees. Conserving honeybees to save pollinators is like conserving chickens to save the birds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2018 Greenpeace US <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sierraclub.org\/sierra\/how-honeybee-buzz-hurts-wild-bees\">drew criticism<\/a> from a Cambridge bee researcher for featuring only agricultural Honey Bees in its SOS Bees campaign material (no longer online).<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2019 the Guardian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2021\/jul\/24\/this-only-saves-honeybees-the-trouble-with-britains-beekeeping-boom-aoe\">reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>&#8230; growing concern from scientists and experienced beekeepers that the vast numbers of honeybees, combined with a lack of pollinator-friendly spaces, could be jeopardising the health and even survival of some of about 6,000 wild pollinators across the UK.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Kew Gardens\u2019\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kew.org\/science\/state-of-the-worlds-plants-and-fungi\"><em>State of the World\u2019s Plant and Fungi report<\/em><\/a><em>\u00a0<\/em><em>warned: \u201cCampaigns encouraging people to save bees have resulted in an unsustainable proliferation in urban beekeeping. This approach only saves one species of bee, the honeybee, with no regard for how honeybees interact with other, native species &#8230;\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Dale Gibson of\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bermondseystreetbees.co.uk\/\"><em>Bermondsey Street Bees<\/em><\/a><em>, a commercial beekeeping practice with a focus on sustainability, says they have reduced their hives in London by a third to alleviate the overpopulation crisis. He explains how the dietary requirements of honeybees can make competition for scarce food resource extremely fierce.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>\u201cHoneybees are very efficient, almost omnivorous consumers of nectar and pollen; they are voracious,\u201d says Gibson. \u201cThere is no off button. They will carry on consuming what\u2019s out there as long as it\u2019s out there. Just to stay alive each beehive will consume\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lbka.org.uk\/forage.html\"><em>250 kilos of nectar and 50 kilos of pollen<\/em><\/a><em>. If you have a hive of 70,000 bees, that\u2019s 70,000 times four or five cycles over a single season. You are talking about almost half a million bees that have got to be fed.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[In contrast even a large a colony of the Buff Tailed Bumble Bee, the commonest species in the UK, will only hold <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Gardening-Bumblebees-Practical-Creating-Pollinators\/dp\/1529110289\">about 400 workers<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em> <a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/too-many-honey-bees.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3394\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/too-many-honey-bees.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"638\" srcset=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/too-many-honey-bees.png 850w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/too-many-honey-bees-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/too-many-honey-bees-768x576.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>The Guardian<\/em> also noted that:<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>\u2018While the UN\u2019s Food and Agricultural Organization reports there are more than\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fao.org\/faostat\/en\/#data\/QA\/visualize\"><em>90<\/em><\/a><em>m honeybee hives globally, many rarer native pollinators are in increasingly precarious positions\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So the Honey Bee was the wrong poster bee. Yet like an out of control meme, the Honey Bee continues to be promoted as a proxy for all the wild bees and other insects under real threat from pesticides and destruction of habitat, mostly through industrialisation of farming.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even now, the UN <a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/en\/observances\/bee-day\">picks a Honey Bee to represent bees for its World Bee Day<\/a> , although World Bee Day 2025 information resources created for the Sustainable Development Goals by RELX (formerly science publisher Reed-Elservier),\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/sdgresources.relx.com\/events\/world-bee-day-2025\">accidentally uses an image of a wasp colony<\/a> instead:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/UN-wasp-bee.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3393\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/UN-wasp-bee.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"632\" srcset=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/UN-wasp-bee.png 850w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/UN-wasp-bee-300x223.png 300w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/UN-wasp-bee-768x571.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/a>Too late, conservation groups were left trying to qualify the story and point out that Honey Bees are not even as important for crops as is often assumed. In 2024 The Wildlife Trusts <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wildlifetrusts.org\/savingbees\">said<\/a>\u00a0 \u2018Honeybees\u00a0are mostly kept in managed hives, and are likely responsible for pollinating between 5-15% of the UK&#8217;s insect-pollinated crops. That leaves 85-95% of the UK\u2019s insect-pollinated crops relying on wild pollinators &#8230;\u2019..<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><em>Tolerating Nature Blindness<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Wrong-Poster-Bee story shows that conservation efforts can be derailed by an inability to distinguish one plant or animal from another, in other words by nature blindness or a lack of nature ability or literacy, or as it used to be called, by a lack of Natural History knowledge.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When the \u2018professional\u2019 communicators and educators who relay the \u2018messages\u2019 of the nature movement to the whole of society are also unable to tell one creature or plant from another, it undermines campaigns or programmes designed to protect or restore nature.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mistakes in the UK media regularly provide examples.\u00a0 Here the EDP, Britain\u2019s largest regional newspapers, provides picture of a Blue Tit to illustrate a story about Bee Eaters.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/blue-tit-bee-eater.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3392\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/blue-tit-bee-eater.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"632\" srcset=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/blue-tit-bee-eater.png 850w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/blue-tit-bee-eater-300x223.png 300w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/blue-tit-bee-eater-768x571.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Not knowing what a Bee-Eater looks like is easily forgiven, as they rarely appear in the UK but the Blue Tit is almost ubiquitous across the country.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With negligible nature ability, people look out of their car windows and make sense of what they see. Understandably, apparently \u2018wild\u2019 creatures or plants are likely to be taken as natural.\u00a0 Many for instance think that Pheasants are wild British birds because they seem to be free-living but Pheasants are not native or wild: they are mass-reared and released livestock.\u00a0 This misapprehension extends to some producers of \u2018educational\u2019 materials and its seems, the BBC, which has awarded it the epithet \u2018British\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/British-pheasant.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3391\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/British-pheasant.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"492\" srcset=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/British-pheasant.png 850w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/British-pheasant-300x174.png 300w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/British-pheasant-768x445.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Millions of (Ring-Necked) Pheasants are released for shooting each year, with an estimated biomass (weight) equal to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/326330716_Abundance_biomass_and_energy_use_of_native_and_alien_breeding_birds_in_Britain\">twice that<\/a> of all other breeding birds in Britain.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the Pheasant is large, obvious and relatively tame, it\u2019s a bird likely to be seen by people driving in the countryside.\u00a0 Like mass-released Honey Bees, Pheasants are voracious feeders, only not on nectar.\u00a0 A <a href=\"https:\/\/markavery.info\/2022\/08\/23\/les-faisans-et-les-squamates-evidence-from-belgium-that-pheasants-reduce-reptile-numbers\/\">study from Belgium<\/a> suggests that wild snakes and lizards have disappeared from areas with large scale Pheasant releases.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">David Attenborough\u2019s nature programmes are one of the BBC\u2019s most valuable assets but this doesn\u2019t mean the BBC is nature-literate.\u00a0 A BBC News voiceover confused Great Crested Grebes with Swans in reporting the results of the biggest UK wildlife photography competition:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/swan-great-crested-grebe.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3390\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/swan-great-crested-grebe.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"563\" srcset=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/swan-great-crested-grebe.png 850w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/swan-great-crested-grebe-300x199.png 300w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/swan-great-crested-grebe-768x509.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, in 2023 the UK Department of Education and <em>The Guardian<\/em> did not seem to understand the difference between foreign ornamental flowers and native wildflowers.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/guardian-and-govt-not-wild-flowers.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3389\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/guardian-and-govt-not-wild-flowers.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"658\" srcset=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/guardian-and-govt-not-wild-flowers.png 850w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/guardian-and-govt-not-wild-flowers-300x232.png 300w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/guardian-and-govt-not-wild-flowers-768x595.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One reason this matters, as mentioned above, is that many native insects reply on specific native plants as \u2018food plants\u2019, while the adult stages may use nectar from many flowers.\u00a0 Attempts to re-create \u2018lost meadows\u2019 (97% of traditional UK hay meadows have been destroyed) or use your garden to help insects will not work if the wrong plants are used.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><em>Proxy Nature<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like most nations, the UK has become progressively \u2018greener\u2019 as measured by awareness of environmental \u2018issues\u2019 including saving \u2018forests\u2019 and \u2018nature\u2019, or\u00a0 willingness to embrace choices such as renewable energy or greener consumer goods.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet at the same time the UK has become more nature blind: it is like a society which increasingly celebrates the importance of libraries and literature while simultaneously becoming less able to read.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s routinely assumed that because nature is green, and green is good, all that\u2019s green is nature, even chemically sterilised industrial farm landscapes.\u00a0\u00a0 Hence the political traction of \u2018Green Belt\u2019 and \u2018Grey Belt\u2019 discussed in Parts 1 and 2.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018Nature\u2019, \u2018the countryside\u2019 and \u2018the outdoors\u2019 have become increasingly synonymous, making it possible to be in favour of them as concepts, and not distinguish between proxies (such as \u2018green spaces\u2019) and the real thing.\u00a0 Launched by then Prime Minister David Cameron, the \u2018GREAT\u2019 campaign promoted the \u2018great countryside\u2019, and it\u2019s \u2018inspiring landscapes\u2019 as one of ten reasons to visit the UK.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/inspiring-landscapes-GREAT.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3388\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/inspiring-landscapes-GREAT.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"587\" srcset=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/inspiring-landscapes-GREAT.png 850w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/inspiring-landscapes-GREAT-300x207.png 300w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/inspiring-landscapes-GREAT-768x530.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/a>The official<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/prime-minister-launches-drive-to-maximise-economic-potential-of-london-2012-and-deliver-long-term-growth-as-a-key-part-of-britains-olympic-legacy\"> press release<\/a> encapsulated the essential \u2018greatness\u2019 of Britain\u2019s \u2018countryside\u2019 in these words:<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>\u2018Countryside: From Constable to Wordsworth, the British countryside has inspired some of the world\u2019s finest artists and poets\u2019.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">True but also indicative of the relative value placed on nature in C21st British culture: important for inspiring formal \u2018culture\u2019 as taught in History of Art or Literature courses, but not for itself, or for any direct social connection with nature.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So it\u2019s assumed to be important to know about Constable and Wordsworth but Bluebells or other wildflowers, perhaps not.\u00a0 Nature-inspired Arts are indeed, their own cultural form but they are only proxies for nature: we can keep the books, poems and paintings more easily than the real nature, just as Attenborough films may outlast their subjects.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The \u201chost\u201d of Ullswater Lake District Daffodils which inspired <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/I_Wandered_Lonely_as_a_Cloud\">William Wordsworth\u2019s poem<\/a> starting \u201cI wandered lonely as a cloud\u201d in 1802, are real Wild Daffodils.\u00a0 Once common, they are now rare (see \u2018Golden Triangle of Wild Daffodils\u2019 in the nature Events in Popular Culture section below).<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today Daffodils are the most commonly planted flowers in Britain but ornamental varieties, not the slighter, delicate wild ones.\u00a0 Each March hundreds of visitor attractions offer Daffodil Walks, often promoted by reference to Wordsworth but how many visitors realise they are looking at fakes, not the originals?\u00a0 Even in the Lake District, many roadsides are planted with fake daffs rather than the authentic Wild Daffodils which inspired Wordsworth and his sister.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here&#8217;s Wordsworth\u2019s poem summarised by ChatGPT:<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>\u2018The speaker describes a moment of solitude when he comes across a field of golden daffodils dancing by a lake, which brings him joy. The sight of the flowers, compared to stars, becomes a cherished memory that fills him with happiness during his reflective moments, highlighting nature&#8217;s uplifting power on the spirit\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Would we tolerate eradication of the authentic Wordsworth, and its replacement with something which gets the general gist? And if not for the real poem, why for the real plant?<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ask editors from the BBC, <em>The Guardian<\/em> or the <em>EDP<\/em> or even web editors at the Department of Education, if they are in favour of banning bee-killing pesticides or creating more wildflower meadows and they\u2019d probably say \u201cyes\u201d, as being in favour of nature in theory, has become a social norm.\u00a0 Hence all the media coverage, albeit often inaccurate.\u00a0 But in professional communications culture, getting nature wrong in detail seems less likely to be seen as shameful as a misplaced <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Serial_comma\">comma<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/politics\/theres-an-apostrophe-battle-brewing-among-grammar-nerds-is-it-harris-or-harriss\/ar-AA1oK5JO\">apostrophe<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 This only reflects how the importance of nature ability has dwindled in wider society.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/sunflowers-van-gogh-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3368\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/sunflowers-van-gogh-1-236x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"236\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/sunflowers-van-gogh-1-236x300.png 236w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/sunflowers-van-gogh-1-768x977.png 768w, https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/sunflowers-van-gogh-1.png 772w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 236px) 100vw, 236px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Sunflowers by Banksy?<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thanks to our more embedded social culture of food, architecture, art and sport, editors would not tolerate cakes labelled as bread, a white wine as a <a href=\"https:\/\/wickhamwine.co.uk\/blog\/what-is-claret-a-guide-to-bordeaux-red-wine\">Claret<\/a>, a Tudor house as Georgian, a Van Gogh as a Banksy, or mistaking Wigan Athletic for Manchester City, or US Football labelled as Rugby.\u00a0 But getting nature wildly wrong is trivial, or perhaps just seen as not being \u2018nerdy\u2019.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Conservation and environment groups should take nature-blindness and the de facto tolerance of it seriously, as it speaks volumes about nature\u2019s lack of traction in wider society, including in politics.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Without an intervention to increase basic nature knowledge, they face an uphill task, when every time they want to engage a wider public with a campaign, project or make a case for action, it has to involve trying to explain almost every bird, animal or plant they are talking about, or accepting that audiences nod but really don\u2019t understand.\u00a0 The net effect of constantly raising concerns about things people do not understand, is of course to create an impression that your concerns are esoteric and marginal.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>A Natural History GCSE Won\u2019t Be Enough<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The best known current attempt to increase Natural History knowledge through UK formal education is the <a href=\"https:\/\/schoolsweek.co.uk\/the-inside-story-of-the-new-natural-history-gcse\/\">Natural History GCSE<\/a> for 16 year olds, developed as a result of a campaign <a href=\"https:\/\/schoolsweek.co.uk\/the-inside-story-of-the-new-natural-history-gcse\/\">led by Mary Colwell<\/a>, UK, formerly of the BBC Natural History Unit. (More <a href=\"https:\/\/teach.ocr.org.uk\/naturalhistory\">here<\/a>).\u00a0 It has been quite an achievement to steer her proposal through the educational system, not least as many educationalists themselves lack nature knowledge. The earliest that teaching of the new qualification will take place is 2026.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mark Castle, of the small Field Studies Council which trains people in field skills, <a href=\"https:\/\/schoolsweek.co.uk\/the-inside-story-of-the-new-natural-history-gcse\/\">has argued<\/a> for natural history to be available to younger children as well.\u00a0 The Field Studies Council is calling for a national <a href=\"https:\/\/www.field-studies-council.org\/2024\/07\/08\/we-need-a-skills-for-nature-plan\/\">Skills for Nature Plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Any additional teaching of Natural History is to be welcomed as a contribution of overcoming the UK\u2019s deficit in nature ability but despite what many adults might hope, it is far from a silver bullet.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Numerous studies have found that formal school education has a relatively weak effect compared to family influences.\u00a0 A 2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/361269648_Knowledge_and_perception_of_common_local_wild_plant_and_animal_species_by_children_and_their_teachers_-_a_case_study_from_Switzerland\">Swiss study<\/a> of nature ability in teachers and primary children reported that \u2018contact with living beings\u2019 and \u2018support of family members\u2019 were important while \u2018their school education was rather insignificant\u2019.\u00a0 The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/355653133_Knowledge_of_Nature_and_the_Nature_of_Knowledge_Student_natural_history_knowledge_and_the_significance_of_birds\">Oxford study<\/a>mentioned earlier found that \u2018family influences, self-motivation and knowledge of birds, rather than formal education, best predicted students&#8217; overall Natural History Knowledge\u2019.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2007 Sarah Pilgrim, David Smith and Jules Pilgrim from Essex University <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/5932135_A_cross-regional_assessment_of_the_factors_affecting_ecoliteracy_Implications_for_policy_and_practice\">examined<\/a>\u00a0 ability to \u2018identify local plants and animals, name their uses, and tell stories about them\u2019 in four Lincolnshire villages, four suburban wards of south London, and three maritime towns in East Anglia. They found\u00a0 \u2018respondents with the highest ecoliteracy levels acquired it from parents and relatives, environment-based occupations, and hobbies\u2019.\u00a0 Those whose knowledge came primarily from TV and schooling were \u2018least competent at identifying local plant and animal species\u2019, with book-learning falling in between.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Knowledge of wildlife and in particular plants, is vastly greater in the few societies who still live a pre-industrial lifestyle. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/355653133_Knowledge_of_Nature_and_the_Nature_of_Knowledge_Student_natural_history_knowledge_and_the_significance_of_birds\">For instance<\/a> \u2018by the age of 8\u2019 Zapotec children in Mexico \u2018can reliably identify hundreds of wild plants and recall associated culinary and medicinal knowledge\u2019.\u00a0 We can be fairly sure that they acquired this knowledge from relatives, as would have happened in pre-industrial Britain.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My conclusion is that the adult community, including parents, grandparents and their friends, need to be involved in giving children nature ability, as well as teachers. More than this, \u2018children\u2019 should not be the only target in any UK campaign to enhance nature ability.\u00a0 We have generations of adults who need to be reached, and that requires a multi-channel social marketing approach, in the same way that public health, occupational safety, food and other social and cultural campaigns have worked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Contact: chris@campaignstrategy.co.uk<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Campaign For Nature In Culture download as pdf Chris Rose \u00a010 October 2024 This is Part 3 of a series of posts on Politics and Nature (Parts 1 and 2 were published on 27 August 2024 as Focus On &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3381\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3381"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3435,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3381\/revisions\/3435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}