In a recent post, I mentioned how ‘I’m still struggling to articulate a suitable spatial scale for bioregional praxis in the Atlantic Archipelago’ and part of this struggle will be identifying particular bioregions within the Archipelago. Today I received a message from Kate Swatridge who had attended Ed Tyler and I’s session on bioregions at the UK Permaculture Convergence asking about this issue. She wrote: Continue reading “Defining bioregions in these islands”
I had a dream last night: I was tasked with capturing a wild black beast that was inside a suburban home. I stood outside the porch of the house with a small dog – as it had been determined that the dog’s presence would calm the beast. I opened the porch door and Continue reading “Super Blood Wolf Moon”
At the Oxford Real Farming Conference I attended the session ‘Shaping our future together’ organised by CTRLShift and facilitated by Andy Goldring. Rather than a presentation from the front, this session was designed to create a space for collaboration and planning between organisations, practitioners and networks building on the process started in Wigan, March 2018 at the initial CTRLShift: An emergency summit for change event.
The session began with a brief introduction and then encouraged participants to introduce an area of focus they would like to discuss. Folk then clustered according to which area they found richest and most relevant to them at that time in order to discuss that topic through the lens of three questions: Continue reading “Landscape Scale Land Management”
It’s now ten days since I wrote to my District Councillors (Peter Elliott and Ron Pratt) asking why Maldon District Council has no current Environment and Climate Change Strategy despite the Climate Emergency and I’m still waiting for a reply. I recognise that they may be busy, that it’s not a salaried role and their time may be stretched, so I think I’ll give them a month before I follow up with another letter seeking an update on progress. I’m also thinking about other ways I can raise this issue – ask the leader of the opposition on the council to raise it?, seek recognition at the town council level? Again, learning how local politics works is proving to be a case of just try stuff.
The urgency of the emergency was brought home last week with Continue reading “High (Tide) and Dry”
Yesterday I attended the Oxford Real Farming Conference, primarily to attend the session on bioregions which featured a panel chaired by Isabel Carlisle of the Bioregional Learning Centre and included Green Party MEP Molly Scott Cato, the writer John Thackara, and my friend Andy Goldring – the Permaculture Association CEO. I’ll try and capture more of what I learned in a subsequent post, but hearing Molly Scott Cato speak reminded me that I had reviewed her book The Bioregional Economy; Land, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for Permaculture Magazine back in October 2014, but that they never ended up publishing it.
Here’s that review: Continue reading “Bioregional Economy”
Dengie Bioregion 