Poundbury Nature for Wellbeing Project
a new nature blog
by Miles King
10M ago
Cornfield Annuals in The Swale, Poundbury. ©Miles King I normally keep my job and this blog separate but it’s one of those moments when I think it’s worth making that crossover. I set up People Need Nature in 2015 with a couple of friends, having become somewhat disillusioned with working in the nature conservation sector. I was interested in how best to promote the sensory, emotional and even spiritual values of nature, rather than taking the scientific approach. It’s fair to say the Summer of 2015 was not the best time to start a new charity, when one looks back over the last 8 years. One pr ..read more
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Ten Years of A New Nature Blog
a new nature blog
by Miles King
11M ago
It was ten years ago today that I started this blog. And for me, at the time, it was new, it was about nature, and it was a blog. You can see I put zero effort into thinking up a snazzy title. In that first year, all the way back in the unimaginably deep past of 2013, I wrote 93 posts. I was really enjoying writing a lot, for the first time. I had written blogs previously for The Grasslands Trust (RIP), but naturally they were more constrained (though not that constrained) by topic and the need to fit into Charity rules. The number of readers was inevitably small back at the beginning but eve ..read more
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Dartmoor’s Blanket Bogs
a new nature blog
by Miles King
1y ago
Reading Tony Whitehead’s piece in West Country Voices today, exploring some of the realities behind the outpouring of protest from the farming industry; and lurid claims that Natural England has a secret (and no doubt cunning) plan to “rewild” Dartmoor, has enthused me sufficiently to write a blog. I don’t intend for this to be a long a discursive blog (of the kind I used to enjoy churning out) as I am still struggling with chronic migraine and I just won’t be able to do so. Another annoying thing is that it has affected my typing. So apologies in advance if you spot any typos, or more likely ..read more
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Update and Request
a new nature blog
by Miles King
1y ago
I very rarely cross post between this blog and the People Need Nature website, for obvious reasons. I don’t want to tangle up my personal views about things, with what can and cannot be said on behalf of a charity. As this blog gets a wider audience than the People Need Nature one, I thought it would be good to put this update on here as well. For some unknown reason wordpress isn;’t allowing me to copy/paste the text from the PNN blog so I have saved it as an image. Alternatively you can read it on the PNN website here Thanks ..read more
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Truss and the Attack on Nature
a new nature blog
by Miles King
1y ago
How long ago it seems when I was writing my last blog considering what impact a Liz Truss prime ministerial reign might look like. Now, just a few weeks later we have a clearer idea – and the vision is an apocalyptic one for the environment. The Truss plan is radical, and, as a number of commentators have noted, it’s come straight out of the “Tufton Street” Neoliberal libertarian think tanks, about which I have written many times over the last ten years of blogging (12 if you include my Grasslands Trust blogs). I don’t particularly want to go over that ground again, suffice to say the Institu ..read more
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Will Prime Minister Truss abandon Johnson’s Green Legacy
a new nature blog
by Miles King
1y ago
It’s a long time since I’ve written anything remotely long form – as opposed to the extremely short form of a tweet, occasionally extending to a thread, which might add up to 3000 characters, perhaps 300 words. This has been in large part down to my ongoing health problems, which I wrote about, coming up to a year ago now. Since that formal diagnosis of chronic vestibular migraine, I’ve been on a fairly powerful medication amitriptyline. I went up to the maximum daily dose recommended by my neurologist, of 100mg a day. Then I gradually came off it. And all the familiar symptoms flooded back ..read more
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Book Review – Wild Fell by Lee Schofield
a new nature blog
by Miles King
2y ago
This review has been rather long in gestation. Lee originally sent me a copy in early February. I started reading it in March, then had to stop half way through. My Migraines (which I wrote about here) were returning as I started to reduce the medication I’ve been on. After a few weeks I was able to return to it and finished off the book quite quickly. So apologies if this review is a bit disjointed! I think I am now realising that the medication, while helpful, has also affected my capacity to write. Whereas before the creative juices would flow freely, now it feels much more like an effort ..read more
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On Gallows Down: Place, Protest and Belonging
a new nature blog
by Miles King
2y ago
As I have mentioned recently, I’ve had a long standing health problem which has stopped me from doing much work, and even less writing. Reading became difficult to the point where I had to stop after about half an hour. I’m still having some of the symptoms, but I am glad to say that things have gradually been improving (thanks Amitryptyline) and I felt well enough to read a book from cover to cover. It has taken me a while but I was glad to have done it. The book is On Gallows Down by Nicola Chester, published last October by Chelsea Green publishing. The subtitle has changed since the proof ..read more
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Eat wilder meat for the climate
a new nature blog
by Miles King
2y ago
White Park Cattle, Dinefwr Park ©Miles King Meat is on the agenda at the Glasgow Climate Conference. Meat and its climate impact is now at the forefront of public debate about how we the people can do our bit to Stop Climate Chaos. Naturally everybody is claiming that their answer is the right one. The Sheep lobby is putting up a stout defence for lamb – claiming it’s the most climate friendly food. The Beef and Dairy industry are doing the same, in the teeth of claims from the vegetarian and vegan lobby that meat is climate enemy Number One. Claims and counterclaims fly around like the flies ..read more
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Poetry for Climate Action at COP26
a new nature blog
by Miles King
2y ago
Poet Louisa Adjoa Parker in the climate poetry workshop at Damers School ©Damers School I’ve mentioned before about People Need Nature’s work with The Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network. We’ve been working together for five years now, getting poets to write challenges that inspire young poets (across the world) to write about different aspects of nature and what it means to them in their own lives. You can see the challenges and read the winning and commended poems on the PNN website. This year, in the run up to COP26, the big climate conference, we set a challenge written by Devon poet Loui ..read more
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