Thoughts from influential nature conservationists…
Simon Fairlie
Career Highlights
I worked variously for 20 years as an agricultural labourer, vine worker, shepherd, fisherman, builder, stonemason and general dogsbody before being ensnared by the computer in 1990. I was a coeditor of The Ecologist magazine in the early 1990s until I left in 1994 to help found Tinker’s Bubble, a farming community where I managed the cows, pigs and a working horse. My experience with the tortuous process of obtaining planning permission for the community inspired me to write a book on the subject: Low Impact Development: Planning and People in a Sustainable Countryside (1996). I am a founding editor of The Land magazine, and now earn a living by importing and selling scythes. My other books are Meat: A Benign Extravagance (Permanent Publications 2010) and a memoir called Going to Seed (Chelsea Green 2022). For the last 14 years I have run a micro dairy at Monkton Wyld Court, a charity and cooperative in rural Dorset, but over the last year incoming trustees have evicted most of the workforce, including myself, and eviscerated a functioning sustainable community of 40 years standing (see www.monktonwyldcourtcase.co.uk). Now I am off to pastures new.
How do you define nature conservation?
“Working towards maximum biodiversity and natural resilience consistent with a sufficiency of food and fibre production, and with environmental justice.” I am more of a social ecologist than a field ecologist, more interested in land-sharing than land-sparing, at least in an overpopulated country like Britain. My recipe for reversing the decline in biodiversity that has occurred over the last 70 years includes farming more like we did 70 years ago with fewer artificial fertilisers, pesticides and 300 hp tractors, and more people working on mixed farms. I would be keener on setting 30% of land aside for nature conservation or rewilding if there were a just and equitable way to reduce global population by 30%, but I don’t suppose there is one.

Photo: Simon Fairlie
What’s the good news about wildlife and nature at present?
The quite good news is that many farmers are consciously aiming to improve the habitat for wildlife and the health of the soil. The really good news is when they manage to do this without lowering yields.
Beyond the obvious of habitat loss and species decline, what’s your greatest concern in UK nature conservation at present?
My greatest concern is the predominance of an urban focus that views nature as an alien world, a spectacle, rather than as the highly competitive ecosystem that we are part of. There is too much focus on charismatic species such as beavers and “wildflowers”, and charismatic concepts such as rewilding; not enough on exploring ways that humans can engage productively with an abundant natural world liberated from fossil fuels. There are some encouraging currents, notably regenerative farming, and the concern for soil conservation, though it would help if the min-till movement weaned itself off glyphosate and 250hp gas-guzzling tractors. I worry that the 30 x 30 movement (protecting 30% of land, waters and oceans by 2030) could turn out to be a goldmine for green land grabbers.
If you had a limited budget on nature conservation in Britain, what would you prioritise and why?
With just a small nibble out of the £116 bn UK education budget, I would introduce “land studies” — comprising nature study, ecology, land management and farming — as an obligatory subject in all primary and secondary schools; and twin all schools with local farms or nature reserves.

Photo: Simon Fairlie
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?
My main input, in respect of BANC, has been to remind those whose main passion is nature conservation of the importance of maintaining agricultural production. I wrote the following passage for ECOS in 2001, and I still stand by it.
“Much as I am happy to witness the waning of industrial agriculture, I do not consider the environmental subsidy option to be a healthy vision for the future of England’s countryside. It is not simply because this scenario will help maintain the unjust levels of land concentration that exist in this country. Nor is it simply because much of the impetus for sustainable farming and forestry will come from newcomers with a fresh outlook — you can’t always pour new wine into old bottles. Above all it is because unproductive land management, in the present global context, is unsustainable.
The only reason that the UK can allow itself to contemplate a shift from production-orientated agriculture to environmental and amenity land management is because goods arrive cheaper from other parts of the globe. In other words, we are able to protect our own environment because we are happy to buy commodities that destroy other people’s environments: grains and soya from the monocultural prairies of the New World, old growth timber from Russia or Indonesia, pesticide- saturated cotton from Africa or Asia, and so on. Not only is this an objectionable neo-colonialist approach to global resources; it is also one that may not be sustainable when people in other countries start demanding the same levels of environmental protection as we do.
I am glad to note that ECOS is the quarterly journal of the British Association of Nature Conservationists, and not of the Association of Conservationists of British Nature. This leads me to assume that the majority of readers will agree that we urgently need to develop forms of agriculture that are both productive and environmentally sustainable.”
Nonetheless my only real contribution to nature conservation must have been to reintroduce the scythe to the UK, from 2004 onwards. No other tool is so effective at bringing people into contact with the world beneath their feet.
Scythes have several advantages for conservationists over machinery. You can reach places machines can’t get to. You can work on land that is too wet for machines. You can be more selective about what plants you cut, and you can spot and spare small animals such as frogs and slow worms. Scythes can tackle a not-mown-in-May lawn much better than a lawnmower. They are the tool of choice for clearing vegetation out of chalk-streams, from drainage ditches and around beehives. Conservation groups often favour scythes because volunteers can use them, whereas anyone employed to use a brush cutter should have a certificate.
What a fascinating interview! Definitely agree on the need for ‘land studies’ and noted a while back there is BTEC International level 3 qualification in ‘Land-based Studies’* but UK equivalent seems to focus on use of land management technologies (ie machines rather than scythes). https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/btec-international-level-3/land-based.html