Tight Clothes, Nature and Angst

When I worked with the wise and delightful Monty Don on Radio 4’s Shared Planet, I remember him saying someone had asked him the secret to being happy and content. His answer struck me as worth spreading around – wear loose clothes and spend time outside. Now that is sensible. Wearing tight clothes can have the effect of making our brains feel constrained too, I certainly can’t relax or breathe so well when I am aware of edges, buttons, belts – things that inhibit.  I think it is harder to give out to the world when your body feels drawn in.

Monty Don

And going outside – well how much more evidence do we need to show that breathing outside air, feeling soil, smelling the scent from trees, grass and flowers, feeling rain and sun, seeing green and grey and blue – all calm our emotions and help healing.  I only wish major international meetings on war, weapons, refugees, the environment and so on happened outside in a meadow or wild garden, instead of inside constraining rooms.  I think we would come to different decisions.

Some trees are particularly good at helping.  In days gone by German village elders would hold judicial meetings under lime (linden) trees, and that is not a surprise.  Lime trees were said to evoke wise thoughts.  The scent of lime, particularly in the summer, is intoxicating and was said to help cure epilepsy, headaches, insomnia and bad nerves. This poem is by Wilhelm Müller

Der Lindenbaum

By the fountain, near the gate,
There stands a linden tree;
I have dreamt in its shadows
so many sweet dreams.
I carved on its bark
so many loving words;
I was always drawn to it,
whether in joy or in sorrow.

Today again I had to pass it
in the dead of night.
And even in the darkness
I had to close my eyes.
Its branches rustled
as if calling to me:
“Come here, to me, friend,
Here you will find your peace!”
The frigid wind blew
straight in my face,
my hat flew from my head,
I did not turn back.

Now I am many hours
away from that spot
and still I hear the rustling:
“There you would have found peace!”

The Japanese have a word for the sense of peace you get from a woodland walk -  “wood air bathing” shinrin-yoku, breathing in the healing, enriching oils emitted from trees that lowers blood pressure, boosts the immune system and calms thoughts. Throughout Japan there are shinrin-yoku walks where families have picnics and be together to de-stress.

Last week Iseemed to come across yet more horrible stories of  young children increasingly suffering panicattacks, depression, stress and low self-esteem and many other words for a mind in turmoil.  Teenagers too.  I know of a few young people now who have dropped out of university recently because of depression.  How much of this is related to the increasingly indoor, removed-from-nature life so many of us lead today is unsure, but it is hard not to draw some connections between the two. Children live virtual indoor lives, not real out door ones.

I watch the school kids from the local secondary school walk home each day along our very city-centre street right in the centre of Bristol.  They are bursting with that feeling of wanting to run, shout, mess around, kick balls or whatever.  But in the middle of the city there is nowhere to do that – just cans to kick, and swear and shout and lots of pushing each other around, which annoys middle-aged people who shout at them and complain to the school. I wish they had a big field to go to, somewhere to let off steam, and maybe even find something interesting to look at that for a short while takes the mind to other realms.  But this doesn’t happen, instead all of this youthful energy gets bottled up and who knows where it goes.

So – would a GCSE in Natural History help encourage kids to go outside? Get them to really look, smell, touch, sense the world they live in – even a local park? Would it help give their minds a break to think where swallows come from or how snakes shed their skin and why an egg is the shape and colour it is? And if it taught the connection between well-being and nature – would that help?  And if, through having access to nature-literature, they learned ways of expressing feelings that only natural things evoke  – would that go some way to stemming this awful spread of youthful angst? Concentrating on awe, wonder, joy, beauty, mystery, fear, trepidation, etc.  Those are the feelings that come from knowing the natural world.  Re-engagement with who and what we are on a living, breathing, vibrant planet can only ever be good.  We are a long way from that at the moment - let’s do something to try to change it.  Please sign the petition.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/176749

GCSE in Natural History - reply to Chris Baker

Chris Baker is a teacher and wildlife lover.  He recently wrote a blog criticising the idea of a GCSE in Natural History. This is the point of the petition, to get a debate going, so here is my reply.

The first point: It’s an interesting idea and one that has good intentions. But I do not think it is good idea. For selfish reasons I would love to teach natural history as a subject on its own. The joy! But to how many students?  Would it benefit them? And would it positively affect the effort to conserve the curlew – The campaign (and a worthy cause I might add) that seems to have led to the creation of this petition?

I personally think the uptake would be good, but that must be part of the development process. There is a great hunger for nature that is more buried, but is certainly still there.  More young people watched Planet Earth 2 than the X-Factor which was screened on the other side. Tapping into this interest in life on earth is a no-brainer.  I'm not sure where the curlew link came from.  I came up with the idea for this GCSE in 2011, but didn't start the curlew work until 2016 - although I think it would help, not least by introducing more children to the fact curlews exist -but the campaigns are not related.

Second point: The second sentence of the petition reads ‘Young people need the skills to name, observe, monitor and record wildlife’. I take issue with the word need here. I believe that young people can benefit greatly from learning these skills but they do not need them. They need to perform arithmetic so they can check energy bills, read competently and problem solve. Speaking as a science specialist, I would also argue that young people, in a time when internet memes and click-bait links are regarded by some as a valid sources of information on issues as serious as health and disease, need the ability to distinguish good science from pseudoscience. But they don’t need to know how wildlife is recorded. To some children, learning how to do so would be irrelevant and a waste of time. We can’t let our own passions and interests dictate what children must know.

This is where I fundamentally part company with Chris Baker. I think it is vital we know the world around us, that we can name what is in our lives everyday, know the seasons and the movements of life on earth.  Young people increasingly live in an indoor world of ideas, not an outdoor world of senses.  The visceral, earthy world is more remote than ever.  We are mammals with senses attuned to taste, smell, touch, sight, hearing - all of those are brought into play when studying nature, but used for screens?  Surely we must have an education system that fits who we are?  If you can record wildlife, plot the data, work out trends - then I bet you can cope with an energy bill.  A GCSE in natural history brings together maths, english, geography, biology, history - merging them into a subject of fascination and relevance to life. It is not some quirky subject that only a few geeks will like - that simply isn't true.  Nature has inspired some of the greatest thinkers, writers, artists, musicians, poets and scientists - why sideline it and treat it as an irrelevance? Let's celebrate our unique heritage, teach it and encourage the next cohort of inspirational naturalists.

The rest of the blog argues that the content of a GCSE in Natural History is present in other subjects anyway - so it is already being taught.  If that is true, then they are failing.  My son is doing triple science at the moment, including biology.  I can't see any natural history in his work - he doesn't have to have any of the skills I outline in the proposal.  He does some academic work on extinctions etc, but that is not what I am talking about.  Of course biology is a fundamental subject - but to say natural history is simply a part of it is like saying geology is just part of geography. Neither is natural history the same as environmental science - it is a subject in its own right.

Studying nature is rich and rewarding - and the skills gained are increasingly being lost.  We cannot be complacent about nature today and assume all is fine because we teach biology . The system as it is is not working for wildlife.  Britain was highlighted as one of the most nature depleted countries on earth in the 2016 State of Nature report, we are losing our natural heritage and there is no time to waste. Young people think this quiet, threadbare tapestry of nature is normal - it isn't normal, it is slipping away under our noses - we cannot and must not be complacent. Britain has a truly wonderful history of nature recording, writing, art and music and so on - now is the time to regain that and produce future naturalists who will fight for the natural world, not just through conservation work but through inspirational creativity.  Nothing that Chris Baker highlights in his blog has changed my opinion.

A GCSE in Natural History - now.

A GCSE in Natural History – why it is needed.

I would like you to sign a petition for a GCSE in Natural History - and here is why.

The idea for a GCSE in Natural History came to me while chatting with Tony Juniper back in 2011.  Tony then wrote a piece for the Guardian, and I produced a flyer to sell the idea, and wrote a blog, for my own site and for Mark Avery. Despite a flurry of interest nothing much happened, and I became distracted by life. 

Then, in 2013, the first State of Nature Report was published.  It sent shockwaves around the media.  60% of wildlife has declined over the last 50 years, and out of those species assessed, one in ten faces extinction. Much loved creatures were slipping away – hedgehogs, skylarks, lapwings, cornflowers, curlew, common lizards, many butterflies, all of them edging closer to the edge of the abyss. 

There is often a spurt of activity following announcements like this, but it fades after a while.  We absorb the bad news, get a little more hardened, and carry on.  After all, what can an individual do when the pressures facing wildlife are as huge as methods of agriculture, increasing human population and climate change?

Scroll on another three years to 2016, to the second State of Nature Report.  The decline continues.  It showed that the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.  More than half of our farmland birds are in danger of extinction for example. This report highlighted some good news stories too, showing where targeted conservation has worked, but on the whole the picture was just as dispiriting, and getting worse.

These reports came at a time when it was also increasingly clear that we are disengaging from the natural world as never before.  We are in a new territory, British society has never been so hands off and ignorant when it comes to nature.  We can no longer name common species or know the basics of their life cycles and what they need to survive. It is therefore not surprising that as nature thins out we hardly notice. It is a perfect storm.  As we lose species we lose interest. 

It hasn’t always been the case.  For generations, the British Isles were the best studied islands in the world.  In the 2013 report it says:

For over 200 years, amateur naturalists have been investigating the birds, plants, bugs and every other form of life that shares the country with us. For most of these enthusiasts, their primary motivation has been simple curiosity and fascination with the natural world. This world is indeed fascinating, and incredibly diverse. Most people have no idea that they share the UK with 4,000 species of beetle, 7,000 species of fly or 17,361 species of fungus. A detailed study of most British gardens would reveal hundreds of different types of moths. And our countryside is surrounded by seas full of enormous numbers of species even less well known than those on land.

Yes, the natural world is indeed utterly fascinating.  It is the source of wonder, joy, astonishment, mystery, sometimes fear. It is both beautiful and raw.  It challenges us to the heart. It makes us human.  It is irreplaceable. So why are we losing interest? 

The same report then goes on to say:

Worryingly, there are signs that people are becoming increasingly disconnected from nature. But scratch beneath the surface and there is a huge interest in nature – almost every child is interested in animals, at least when young. How can we bring this interest even further into the mainstream? What can we do through our schools, for example, to help city kids learn the pleasures of getting muddy while hunting for bugs? This is one of the big challenges we need to tackle if we wish to continue our tradition of volunteer wildlife recording. If we can inspire the next generation, we will create a huge force for nature.

OK – so here’s one solution. Let’s launch a GCSE in Natural History.  Let’s teach young people to name the world around them, to follow it through the year, to monitor numbers and to record it so that we can see changes over time.  Let’s teach them how to listen to and identify birdsong.  To know what flowers you can expect to find where and at what time of year.  Let’s teach them what feeds on what - to understand the web of interdependence that is all around us.  Let’s teach them the common trees and what they provide, not just for our benefit, but also for the wildlife that lives on, under and in them.  And so it goes on.  Let’s teach about spiders and earthworms, beetles and butterflies and why they are so vital to the functioning of our planet. Why you won’t find a Heath Fritillary in woodland or a guillemot on a river.  Let’s show them that a city park is full of wonder, as is an estuary or beach or oak woodland.  But that is not all.  Let’s introduce them the wealth of wonderful literature that has been inspired by nature, from ancient times to today.  Let’s celebrate Silent Spring, A Natural History of Selbourne, The Goshawk, Last Child in the Woods, the poetry of  John Clare; as well as the works of Robert MacFarlane, Richard Maybe and the many other superb writers today. And what about the influence of nature films and radio documentaries? More youngpeople watched Planet Earth 2 than X Factor.  This is what GCSE in Natural History could look like, and it should be compulsory for anyone who wants to go into politics.  It isn’t a silver bullet, but it is a concrete idea for putting nature back onto the agenda. 

Many people are enthusiastic about the idea, but I have also had objections.  None of which I feel are sound.  Some of them are:  It is too middle class, too esoteric, too late (better in Primary school).  It will not be accessible to everyone.  It should be spread through the curriculum rather than singled out.  Here are some responses: It is not too middle class, no more so than history or geography.  Nature is for everyone and we need to instil that.  Yes of course nature should be part of education from day one – but it is sorely missing from secondary schools.  It is a t secondary school where it seems youngsters lose interest in the natural world.  A GCSE allows rigour. too and structure, rather than being soft.  No, it may not be as easy to study it in a city as in the countryside, but that is not a reason for dismissing it.  Nothing is the same everywhere – there is no level playing field.  And some cities have excellent green spaces.  Surely it is better to teach it where it is possible, rather than nothing at all?  And yes, it should be spread through all subjects, but for those who want to take it further and go deeper, it could be an inspirational course.   At the moment that is not an option.  I did an O Level in Geology, not available everywhere, fell in love with the subject and did a degree.

If we can teach GCSEs in Politics, Economics, Business Studies, why not Natural History? It is just as important – some would argue even more so.

This course will also require the assistance of the wildlife organisations throughout the country, get them into the classroom and out in the fresh air, helping with teaching and inspiring and thus building community relations. Museums too.

Nature deserves better than resignation and negativity.  The natural world needs us to be positive and forward looking like never before.  We have to do something that is long term and solid, and we have to do it now. This will help.

It will take time to reverse declines and to build a society that is nature literate, so we have to start – this is for the long run.  We are in the Great Age of Forgetting, forgetting what it is like to live surrounded by an abundant and fascinating natural world.  We need to get back to a richness and variety, and the joy and wellbeing it brings.

Please sign the petition.  Thank you. 

Pioneering Woman and Talented Girls

Last week I had the honour of giving the keynote speech at the Loreto Grammar School for Girls centenary event. Here is a copy of the speech.

Mary Ward was the founder and inspiration of the Loreto schools which are now all round the world. She lived in the 17th Century but was light years ahead of her time. She was passionate about the education and development of women - horror. She was imprisoned by the Inquisition for her heretical views and Pope Urban V111 forced her to abandon her plans and order. She died when all she had worked for had been disbanded - but still hoped her vision would come to be. Her followers carried on her dream of "no half measures, no half women" - and that was evident from the night in Manchester.

We had a wonderful concert, singing, dancing and soloist performances. The girls were truly inspirational. Well done Loreto, what you are doing is very important.