ECOS 40(3): Editorial: The designer wild

Editorial by Geoffrey Wain There’s a snake in our eco-paradise according to Richard Smyth in The New Statesman – looking amongst the wildlife movement, is that snake our sometimes bossy, doctrinaire attitude? If we are too pushy in our campaigns, perhaps this is why others refer to the Green Blob [...]

ECOS 40(3): ECOS Revisited – Nature with benefits: well-being and conservation

Editions reviewed:ECOS 24(1), 24(3/4), 26(1), 29(2) Imagine you had the evidence to present to the Government department with the biggest budget of all, that spending relatively small sums of money nature conservation could actually reduce its overall expenditure and at the same time make people healthier, recover from illness more [...]

ECOS 40(3): ECOS Revisited: 1991-2010 sustainability slowly emerges

Editions reviewed:ECOS 24(1), 24(3/4), 26(1), 29(2) In 2001, and mid-point of this ECOS review period, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins addressed the former Environment Foundation on the theme of “sustainability doesn’t come naturally” [1]. Whilst not erstwhile a Dawkins fan, I have to agree with him about the time since 1979: [...]

ECOS 40(3): Nature’s place – what should live where?

What are our reference points for taking a stance on whether something belongs in the ecosystem…? Ordering nature Why do we give introduced species such a hard time? Or at least those we dislike, or consider a threat to other species, whether or not this is justified. Perhaps, deep down, [...]

ECOS 40(3): Post-Nature writing?

A personal view of what nature writing might break in case of an emergency. Gritty nature – taking notice There’s a big clump of royal fern, Osmunda regalis, growing in the railway cutting at Edgeley Junction just outside Stockport. Seeing it from the train window in the morning has become [...]

ECOS 40(3): Book Review: Working With Nature

Jeremy Purseglove Profile Books, 2019, 271 pages £14.99 Hardback, ISBN 9781788161596 Review by James Robertson After a decade working as an environmentalist in the water industry Jeremy Purseglove wrote Taming the Flood and presented a TV series of the same name. It became an instant classic. He showed that there [...]

ECOS 40(3): Book Review: The Wild Remedy

Emma Mitchell Michael O’Mara Books, 2019, 192 pages Hbk £14.99  ISBN: 9781789290424  Review by Janet Mackinnon “I understood at a very early age that in nature, I felt everything that I should feel in church but never did.” This quotation from the American novelist Alice Walker concludes an introduction to The Wild [...]

ECOS 40(3): Book Review: Rebirding

BENEDICT MACDONALD Pelagic Publishing, 2019, 300 pages Hbk £19.99 ISBN 9781784271886 Review by Peter Taylor Reading this book as both a rewilder and a birder, I expected that an author with a media background would hardly do a good job of rewilding, let alone cover the science of Britain’s historic [...]

ECOS 40(3): Book Review: Rewild Yourself

Simon Barnes Simon & Schuster, 2018, 198 pages £14.99  Hbk  ISBN 978 1 4711 7540 4 Review by Rick Minter This is a cheat of a title. Rewilding yourself should mean becoming skilled in bushcraft and foraging as well as engaging with nature at deeper levels. The book is about [...]

ECOS 40(3): Book Review: The Land of the Brighton Line

David Bangs Published by David Bangs, 2018, 396 pages Pbk  £30  ISBN: 9780954863821 Review by Marion Shoard In A Freedom to Roam Guide to the Brighton Downs, published in 2008, David Bangs, a long-time resident of the Brighton area, amateur naturalist and access campaigner, took his readers through every stretch of [...]

ECOS 40(3): Book Review: How to See Nature

Paul Evans Batsford, 2018, 176 pagesHardback £16.99 ISBN 978-1-84994-493-9 Review by Ian Rotherham Paul Evans is a nature writer, poet, broadcaster, and senior lecturer in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has written a number of books, including Field Notes from the Edge (which takes the reader on a [...]

ECOS 40(3): Book Review: Around the World in 80 Trees

Jonathon Drori Illustrations by Lucille Clerc Laurencecking, 2018, 240 pagesHbk  £17.99  ISBN 978 1 78627 161 7 Review by Rick Minter There is a constant output of books celebrating trees. Here is another offering with strengths and weaknesses to add to the list. The book is a mixture of economic [...]