{"id":3403,"date":"2024-10-11T17:39:04","date_gmt":"2024-10-11T16:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3403"},"modified":"2024-10-18T10:41:11","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T09:41:11","slug":"nature-politics-and-culture-summary-of-blogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3403","title":{"rendered":"Nature, Politics and Culture – Summary Of Blogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary Of Blogs on Nature, Politics and Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chris Rose October 2024<\/p>\n

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

Parts 1 and 2<\/a> of this blog series argued that real world political decisions show that in Westminster, politicians don\u2019t really believe voters really care much about nature, so it can be treated as politically disposable, optional extra.<\/p>\n

Consequently, the UK nature movement\u2019s efforts to change government policies, such as the June 22 Restore Nature Now march, will be subject to heavy discounting, and often ignored.\u00a0 Changing this requires politicians to encounter signs, signals, events and activities in everyday life, which convince them that nature really is valued as part of popular culture. This is not happening, yet.<\/p>\n

Part 3 looks at how nature could be better embedded in popular culture in the UK, in seven sections.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a pr\u00e9cis:<\/p>\n

Section 1: \u00a0Introduction: A Campaign For Nature In Culture<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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The nature movement needs to think about and work to build and promote public<\/em> nature culture, not just increase it\u2019s memberships, funds or build better arguments. Unless prospective politicians experience this, they will not, cannot, change Westminster culture. The UK\u2019s history changing culture of food, health and safety, inclusivity and protection of the built heritage, show it can be done.<\/p>\n

The first and critical step is to increase and rebuild Nature Ability (aka Natural History Knowledge, Eco-Literacy). \u00a0The ability to recognize and put names to species of native plants and animals is the most basic ABC level.\u00a0 A GCSE in Natural History is welcome but will not be enough, and studies show formal teaching has less effect on Nature Ability than social connections.<\/p>\n

We need a national promotional campaign and programme for nature awareness, ability and understanding.\u00a0 In 2012 the government spent \u00a3125m on adverts promoting the \u2018Great British Countryside\u2019 but to tourists, not UK citizens.<\/p>\n

The great majority of UK children and adults have become more in favour of nature as a concept but unable to put a name to it, or tell if a place is rich or poor in nature, or if it is real or fake.\u00a0 As a society it is as if we are increasingly in favour of literacy, while becoming increasingly unable to read.<\/p>\n

Most people are probably better able to tell one wine or type of architecture from another, than identify plants or animals, or distinguish ancient woods from planted ones. \u00a0Most children cannot identify a Bluebell (their parents have not been tested).<\/p>\n

\u2018Professional\u2019 communicators in the BBC, Greenpeace, Department of Education, The Guardian and local newspapers, and outside the UK, even the UN and science publishers, \u00a0have shown themselves unable to tell wild from ornamental flowers, wild bees from honey bees, one common bird from another, or bees from wasps. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As a result, the Honey Bee became \u201cThe Wrong Poster Bee\u201d in campaigns against pesticides, which led to a boom in Honey Bee (livestock, not at risk) keeping, which itself threatens endangered wild bees.<\/p>\n

UK culture places greater importance on knowing about references to nature in literature, such as Wordsworth\u2019s poem about daffodils, than being able to tell a real Wild Daffodil (the sort he saw), from a \u2018fake\u2019, an ornamental variety. \u00a0Editors and others would not tolerate such ignorance in covering art, sports or politics.\u00a0 This nature ignorance undermines attempts to protect nature.<\/p>\n

Section 2: \u00a0 Missing The Garden Opportunity<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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An incidental demonstration of both the potential of nature ability and its present disconnect from political machinery, occurred in Spring this year, when people in the UK noticed a marked absence of insects, especially bees.<\/p>\n

Mainstream NGOs and the media said very little about the UK\u2019s 2024 \u2018Silent Spring\u2019 while they were focused on an impending General Election and policy.\u00a0 A massive reduction in insects, especially bees and butterflies, was observed and discussed on social media by wildlife and nature gardeners (and evident even to visitors at the famous Knepp rewilding project) but it did not feature in either the policy asks of the Restore Nature Now march of 60,000 nature NGO followers\u00a0 (22 June), or in or around the Election itself (July 4).<\/p>\n

By the time organised ecological surveys intersected with the event, the opportunity to connect informed public concern (from people with a lot of very local nature knowledge) and a political opportunity, was lost.\u00a0 If the nature movement is to make the most of citizen constituencies with real Nature Ability, it needs to become more agile.<\/p>\n

Gardening is part of Popular Culture \u2013 things people do anyway. It\u2019s a huge opportunity and on the upside, most gardeners (a much bigger group than even the most optimistic estimate of\u00a0 NGO memberships) say they use their garden to feed, watch or encourage wildlife, 87% wanted to bring more wildlife to their gardens by feeding them or providing shelter, and 37% think wildlife is the best part about owning a garden, \u2018rating it ahead of growing their own plants or vegetables\u2019.<\/p>\n

Yet the changes people make to their houses and gardens to help nature go unrewarded.\u00a0 Each year \u00a32.4bn is given to farmers to produce \u2018public goods\u2019 such as soil conservation, water management or more birdlife yet nothing goes to gardeners who do the same.\u00a0 They should get a Council Tax rebate for garden and home nature features, such as Swift boxes, flower-rich lawns, green roofs and living places for insects.<\/p>\n

Garden Centres and Supermarkets play a huge role in shaping the choice-architecture of UK gardening.\u00a0 Yet much of what they sell damages nature.\u00a0 Large NGOs such should start their own Garden Centres and encourage their members to use them, to leverage change in the sector.<\/p>\n

Section 3: \u00a0Signalling Nature and Marking Moments<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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We live in a society estranged from nature.\u00a0 Perhaps the lowest cost, simplest and quickest way to start to elevate the perception or salience of nature is to improve the visibility of what\u2019s already there.\u00a0 We put up Blue Plaques for notable people but most important nature goes un-signed, un-signalled.\u00a0 We should, for instance, use existing Public Footpath signs to alert people to the locations of the many types of nature reserves and protected areas such as SSSIs, and include those on OS maps and apps. \u00a0We should also sign land with ecosystem functions \u00a0such as the US signing of water catchment creeks and forests (and in our case, peatlands).\u00a0 And we should have a national system to recognize important moments in nature, such as a national Bluebell Day, week or fortnight.\u00a0 The UK is the global HQ for Bluebells.<\/p>\n

The BBC could bring back it\u2019s historic live Nightingale Song Broadcasts, which from 1924 to the Second World War were hugely popular radio moments of truly popular culture.\u00a0 Light Music programmes were interrupted to enable the country to share the moment and hear the Nightingales sing live.<\/p>\n

Winter Starling murmurations around the Brighton Piers, Knot murmurations on the Wash and gatherings of Red Kites in Wales are examples of other other wildlife \u201cspectaculars\u201d which already exist as cultural touchpoints but deserve more recognition.\u00a0 Night-time \u201cdark sky\u201d experiences including using radar, as is done in the US and Netherlands to reveal over-head movements of millions of migrating birds, could also provide an \u201cexpansion of nature experience\u201d for the whole nation.<\/p>\n

Section 4: \u00a0Nature Events in Popular Culture<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Popular public activities and events which simply could not happen without nature say \u201cnature matters to these people\u201d, and so (unlike protests, marches, advocacy) are non-politically labelled opportunities for politicians and prospective politicians to see that \u201cnature matters to these voters\u201d.\u00a0 There are already hundreds probably thousands in the UK but many need (careful) promotion and help. \u00a0Examples:<\/p>\n

The Tenbury Mistletoe Fair in Shropshire is an example of promoting local identity (Tenbury sees itself as the Mistletoe Capital of the UK) and cultural reinvention (December 1st<\/sup> is declared National Mistletoe Day) around a nature-based business (the annual Holly and Mistletoe Auction).<\/em><\/p>\n

Volunteer-led Toad Crossings to help Toads across roads as they migrate back to their ancestral breeding ponds is an example of direct action to help wildlife which has become established as part of life and road-culture in hundreds of places around the UK.\u00a0 At Oxton in Nottinghamshire, Margaret Cooper campaigned for an early spring road closure to protect toads in 1999, won the support of the Council, and her 25 years of running it was recognized with a commemorative plaque from the AA in 2024.<\/p>\n

The Suffolk town of Harleston puts up flags to welcome Swifts back each May, as well as Swift nesting boxes and community activities about Swifts.<\/p>\n

In the commuter Market Town of Petersfield in Hampshire, PeCAN, a group which mainly formed from Councillors and others who met through Extinction Rebellion, turned their attention to local nature and environmental action which now includes regular Eco-fairs, housing improvements, distribution of thousands of free fruit trees for gardens and native hedging plants, a community cafe and work to reduce pesticide use in the town and increase wildflowers in road verges.<\/p>\n

In the \u2018Golden Triangle\u2019 villages of Gloucestershire, Dyfra works to bring back the native Wild Daffodils (ref Wordsworth) which made the area famous with Victorian and early C20th visitors who came by rail, and replace ornamental daffodils which threaten to eliminate the wild ones through hybridization.<\/p>\n

In a non-place-based example, Buglife and the Kent Wildlife Trust enlist car and van drivers to run a national insect survey \u2018Bugs Matter\u2019 by counting the number of insects \u2018splatted\u2019 on their number plates.\u00a0 This provides important nationwide data on the decline, and potentially any recovery, of our insects.\u00a0 Tens of thousands of drivers have taken part since it was started in 2003 by the RSPB, as the \u2018Splatomer\u2019 campaign.<\/p>\n

Since 2001 the Fairyland Trust has run magical-days out for families with young children, mixing with the entertainment, food, games, music and activities of traditional Country Fairs, with magical-make nature workshops such as Magic Wands, all to increase the Nature Ability of children (and parents).\u00a0 Hundreds of thousands of people have attended these \u2018Fairy Fairs\u2019, and since 2010, a resurrection of the original nature based autumn Halloween celebrations, in The Real Halloween, which also promotes dressing up without use of any new plastic (shop bought costumes being largely plastic and mostly used only once). It\u2019s aimed at a core audience of the \u2018esteem driven\u2019 and \u2018aspirational\u2019 mainstream, and the Trust now has a Wildflower Fortunes Caravan engaging young adults with wildflowers at festivals.<\/p>\n

Section 5: \u00a0Why Conservation Should Embrace Natural History<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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As the wildlife gardeners of Twitter showed during the \u2018Silent Spring\u2019 of 2024 (Section 2), Natural History is alive and well in the UK, and with new audiences not just established Natural History Societies.\u00a0 \u00a0But the Nature Ability of these groups is the exception rather than the rule.<\/p>\n

From the Celts and Anglo-Saxons, through 1066, Shakespeare\u2019s time and into the C20th, nature knowledge was far commoner in the past and has left its traces in traditions, speech and practices we no longer consciously associate with \u2018nature\u2019 or \u2018environment\u2019 such as \u201ctouch wood\u201d for luck. Modern psychological and cultural studies show this knowledge was acquired through the learning process known as \u2018prediction error\u2019, in which people notice anything new or different, such as the missing insects of 2024, and also how people learn to identify species with the help of relatives of friends with nature knowledge.<\/p>\n

In the C19th Natural History became hugely popular in the newly industrialised UK \u00a0and seen as important as part of citizenship by local and national politicians. \u00a0It was taught in schools and universities but in the C20th its learning methods were seen as inferior by the newer sciences testing hypotheses and Natural History fell from favour.\u00a0 Max Nicholson saw Natural History Societies as \u201cutterly useless for the new age of conservation\u201d compared to ecological science, when he engineered much of the modern nature NGO and government system from the 1950s-1970s.<\/p>\n

In tackling the modern epidemic of nature-blindness with Nature Ability, and embedding nature in popular culture to engage citizens, Natural History has far superior potential to teaching ecology, being socially accessible in time and space, and with a culture allowing emotional engagement rather than professionalised detachment.<\/p>\n

Section 6: \u00a0Organising Strategy and Ways And Means<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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This section makes three strategy suggestions, addresses what people need to know in terms of Nature Ability, and makes six suggestions for early political asks intended to prick the interest of politicians and align the nature movement to any campaign effort.<\/p>\n

It suggests:<\/p>\n