Thoughts from influential nature conservationists…
Sam Rose
Career Highlights
I played a pivotal role in helping The Flow County in Scotland become a World Heritage Site – the UK’s only mainland WHS inscribed for its ecosystem values.
This will give continued restoration and protection to the 180,000 ha of blanket bog and raise the profile of peatlands, and the role they play in climate resilience, in a global context. Going to Delhi to represent the UK at the World Heritage Committee in July 2024 when the decision was being made, was a rare privilege.
I also helped build a small, landowner-led nature conservation charity, West Dorset Wilding, from scratch, and leading a successful bid on behalf of the charity for a Landscape Recovery project. I am currently in the early stages of delivering this and firmly believe the collaborations of farmers and landowners like this is our only chance of wholesale nature restoration in this country.
A highlight of my podcast, ‘What if you just leave it?’ was interviewing Issy Tree and Charlie Burrell and being given free rein to take nighttime and dawn photos in the Knepp Wildlands.
Looking back a bit further…
Managing a natural World Heritage Site – the Jurassic Coast – for 15 years and helping it become an important and nationally and internationally recognised location for conservation and sustainable development.
Managing a conservation project to undertake the first biodiversity research in a National Park in the south of Chile.
How do you define nature conservation?
People recognising that they are part of nature, not masters of it, and choosing to do something positive to increase parity between people and all other species.
What’s the good news about wildlife and nature at present?
Errr… Honesty, this is difficult. Yes, Environmental Land Management schemes will potentially be good, yes people are sitting up more and starting to recognise the problems, yes rewilding is giving people hope, and yes, we have brought back beavers and sea eagles, but really, we are still scratching the surface.
The Flow Country WHS status is a genuine acievement. 40 years ago people realised that they were destroying an amazing and vast natural ecosystem and decided to do something about it. 40 years later, the bog is in such a good condition overall to be given the greatest natural accolade in the world – a rare UK nature success story.
I would also say the Eurasian beaver being recognised and protected, and now running free in so many places. Roll on a ‘legal’ release, followed by the lynx please – we need balance back in our ecosystems.
Beyond the obvious of habitat loss and species decline, what’s your greatest concern in UK nature conservation at present?
Many people simply don’t recognise or know about – through no fault of their own – the role that nature, and ecosystem services, play in every moment of our lives, and how we take so much of nature’s different benefits for granted.
Those of us in the sector need to work out better how we can communicate this simply, effectively, and without piety or appearing patronising. We are good at showing our passion, but sometimes this puts off people who don’t share the interest. Everyone is busy and because so many people don’t see nature as directly affecting their lives, some just see it as something good to watch on TV or on their phone, or some awkward weeds in the garden. if they have one. Thus nature can be viewed by many as somebody else’s problem. Climate change concerns may be alerting that a little, but as governments are not taking a strong lead in this, people feel ‘why should they make an effort’, and what can they do about it anyway.
The media has a massive role to play in this, and negativity from certain parts of the media around subjects like rewilding or nature-based farm subsidies are deeply problematic, often reinforcing stereotypes about ‘tree-huggers’, ‘boffins’ and ‘hippies’. It is not helpful, and incredibly disrespectful.
If you had a limited budget on nature conservation in Britain, what would you prioritise and why?
An impossible question, but I have a few ideas:
· Use the evidence that exists to lobby for more money for the sector.
· Establish full cost accounting for nature so that the polluter, producer and consumer all pay for the ‘free’ nature that has been used in their products or services- and that people know what they are paying for.
· Integrate natural history into the primary curriculum, start compulsory annual school trips to farms and natural spaces, and launch a Natural history land management GCSE as compulsory alongside English and Maths.
· Pay people who work in the nature industry a fair and proper wage for the incredibly important work they do. There is a view across many industries that workers will accept less money because it is a passion project, and ‘they would do it for free’… this is so wrong. Yes, we love our work, but we should not be penalised for that, and the work is world-changingly important! We all have to eat, and it should not be the preserve of the better-off families who can perhaps help their children who start work in nature conservation either volunteering on such poor wages.
How do you feel about your input to the subject – what if anything has it achieved and would you do it differently if starting again today?
I would like to think that my input has played its part.
Certainly, for the Flow Country WHS inscription, and for management of the Jurassic Coast as a nature-led destination.
With West Dorset Wilding and the Landscape Recovery project, let’s wait and see!
With my Podcasts, photography, films and writing for the Marshwood Value Magazine (the ‘R-Word’), I hope that I have helped some people understand wilding better and inspired some people to change their minds on the subject and take action.
What would I do differently? I would have started my photography/film/podcast work earlier rather than waiting until I was 49, and really focused on using mixed-media to bring nature to the attention of more people, but in a creative and thoughtful way.