The Urban Birding, Lost Words Spell Songs and Land in our Names.
Individuals, organisations and events which inspire us, give us hope or drive us to make/create change. We hope to share more of these over the coming months.
Someone to Follow
David Lindo has been named as the 7th most influential person in wildlife by BBC Wildlife Magazine. Where there is a tendency to assume that nature can only be seen in the rural countryside, David challenges this by advocating for the vivid and brilliant array of bird life that can be found in urban settings. With so much depending on human connection with nature including health and climate change, David is a beacon of hope. I start and end most days with a pair of binoculars out of my small terrace house window and this morning was graced with a great spotted woodpecker for my trouble. His two blogs are well worth a visit particularly to see the world through the eyes of urban birders old and young. And with the need for systemic change around construction, this article was particularly poignant for us; “The Benefits of Constructing Buildings with Spaces for Nature”. We more recently still, discovered his extraordinary Instagram account so do follow him, go on a tour or watch him speak. He demonstrates that it is possible to both live in an urban setting and be deeply connected to the natural world.
Something to Watch
Katie had the privilege of seeing the first ever live performance of The Lost Words ensemble back in 2019 and she maintains it was the most moving musical performance she has ever seen. Last week, the team behind The Lost Words and Spell Songs books, including illustrator Jackie Morris and writer Robert Macfarlane as well as a mind-blowingly talented cast of folk musicians performed at the Natural History Museum. In doing so they raised over £50,000 for the Urban Nature Project and the recording is online until 31st May to view whilst some of Jackie’s original artwork is also auctioned for the cause. The Urban Nature Project and Lost Words are a synergetic partnership with one aiming to bring back nature into our cities and the other to bring back words from nature into our vocabulary. It was David Attenborough who said, “No one will protect what they don’t care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced”. This is two hours of your life; you will not regret dedicating to the pursuit of nature.
Someone to Support.
Land in our names is a grass roots Black-led collective addressing “land justice as a centre point for issues around food insecurity, health inequalities, environmental injustice and widespread disconnect from nature.” It aims to disrupt oppressive land dynamics relating to BPOC communities in Britain and works to “transform the current narrative around land in Britain and how it relates to intersections of race, gender and class for systemic change.” We’ve quoted this statistic before, but it needs repeating that BAME communities are 60% less likely to be able to access green space and natural environments than their white counterparts (Natural England). If you are a person of black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) origin you are more than twice as likely as a white person to live in areas in England that are most deprived of green space. Almost 40% of people of BAME backgrounds live in England’s most green space-deprived neighbourhoods, compared to 14% of white people (Friends of the Earth). We need land justice to create sustainable food systems, racial justice, climate justice and eliminate health inequalities. Watch this video to learn more about the relationship between Land and race in the UK, follow them on Instagram and if you have it in your means, donate here to support the vital work they are doing.