ECOS 40(2): Editorial: Nature conservation – the questions of meaning

Editorial by Geoffrey Wain As several authors note in this issue, we’re a broad community in the nature conservation camp. Our missions vary through work which spans restoration, protection and creation. The natural world can be categorised in many ways, across species, habitats, ecosystems, and more, with different management methods, [...]

Birdbox in nature
ECOS 40(2): The meanings of nature conservation: eco-engineering or letting go?

Giving meaning to nature conservation means pursuing a diversity of practical ways to conserve wildlife. How do we conserve nature? When the Guardian published a grey squirrel recipe recently, among the responses in its letters page was a plea to leave grey squirrels and all animals alone, to “allow them [...]

ECOS 40(2): Nature custodians – facing our great paradox

The nature conservation sector has gained resources and influence, yet wildlife continues to decline. Where do we go from here? Nature’s fortunes – all bad news? In ECOS’s 40 years the nature conservation sector has thrived and grown beyond our wildest dreams. Unfortunately we are suffering from the dystopian nightmare [...]

ECOS 40(2): Nature conservation’s future – back to basics?

Protecting priority sites and species should remain our key concern. In the digital age we can exploit new ways to help achieve this. Sticking with site protection There will be some who will regard me as a dinosaur. I believe that the protected sites approach has been the main reason [...]

ECOS 40(2): Prudential value and the meaning of nature conservation

Land managers’ motives for caring for nature may be more deeply personal than we realise… Landowners on a mission? Being in nature tends to be good for people [1]. Exposure to vegetation and other elements of natural environments have been associated with such benefits as healing, increased energy, reduced stress, [...]

ECOS 40(2): The meaning of nature conservation – a personal journey

Reawakening nature on your home ground – lessons from a collective effort in Dumfriesshire. Looking back over our 85 years of life, my wife Myrtle and I realise how far we have travelled in our attitude to the living world around us. We were not pioneer thinkers, but responded to [...]

ECOS 40(2): ECOS revisited – the early 90s melting pot

Editions reviewed:ECOS 12(1), 12(2), 14(1), 14(3/4) In 1991, James Robertson writing about his own official history of the near-defunct Nature Conservancy, observed that despite judicious edits one uncomfortable truth remained evident: “that ‘the system’ has failed nature conservation”.[1] The same issue of ECOS contains numerous other examples of how this [...]

ECOS 40(2): Book Review: Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Portfolio 28 Natural History Museum, 2018, 160 pages£25 Hardback, ISBN 9780565094287 Review by Rick Minter I’m a regular at my local wildlife art gallery. I can vouch for the buzz created by the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition – a highlight which brightens up the winter months. The [...]

ECOS 40(2): Book Review: Underland: A Deep Time Journey

Robert Macfarlane Hamish Hamilton, 2019, 496 pages£20 Hardback, ISBN 9780241143803 Review by Rogelio Luque-Lora One of the challenges of UK nature writing, claims Robert Macfarlane in his introduction to JA Baker’s The Peregrine, is that practically every square mile of British soil has already been written about. In this remarkable [...]

ECOS 40(2): Book Review: The Red Kite’s Year

Ian Carter and Dan Powell Pelagic Publishing, 2019, 158 Pages£25 Paperback, ISBN 9781784272005 Review by Barry Larking It is possible once again to see red kites gliding overhead, sweeping on motionless wings against the sky in many parts of the UK and now Ireland. Several generations of British and Irish [...]