I attended the fifth New Networks for Nature meeting in Stamford on Friday and Saturday. It’s a different type of meeting – refreshingly different. Where else would you get organic food for lunch, haikus, a panel debate with leading thinkers on environmental matters, the President of the SWLA, three talks about non-native/introduced/alien species, some young people, an ex Environment Minister, some NGO Chief Executives, journalists, loads of poets, a sprinkling of scientists, a youth or two, publishers and some fairly normal people as well.
It made me think – and I like being made to think.
One of the things it made me think about was ‘to whom are we talking?’. I think that one way of looking at it, just one way, is that we are talking to three groups of people; the convinced, the partially convinced and the unconvinced.
At this meeting, in Stamford, we were mostly talking to ourselves – the convinced. We were all nature lovers. We were telling each other that we are right-thinking people and doing a bit of moaning about why doesn’t everybody think like us. That’s what usually happens when the like-minded gather together.
Chris Baines told us that we should talk to those who would listen – the partially convinced – and clearly he is right. Examples of the partially convinced are many industries who would do a little more for the environment if they were wooed – Chris is a good wooer.
I guess that I have spent a lot of my time talking to people who are not convinced – politicians, some members of the shooting community, some members of the most uncaring end of the farming industry etc.
I think we need to talk to everybody – but we need different language to talk to different people. I wonder whether some NGOs think that every time they open their mouths they are talking to government and forget that they are talking to us too. And sometimes it feels as though NGOs think that everyone is partly convinced – whereas many are wholly unconvinced.
It was good to hear the NFU getting a couple of gratuitous verbal swipes – and not from me. It was good to hear the 40 million pheasants released into the countryside being given a verbal broadside – and not from me. It was good to hear the madness that is badger killing being castigated widely – and not from me.
Less good was a bit of moaning and back-biting about NGOs – not that wildlife NGOs should be immune from criticism, of course.
Did I really hear it suggested that we needed to fix the CAP – well, there’s a novelty! I hope the RSPB, Wildlife Trusts and others found that a helpful and novel suggestion. And is it fair to say that the Wildlife Trusts have under-performed on the badger issue – quite harsh I would say?
The solutions to many of the problems faced by wildlife require either lots of people to change their ways or governments to change theirs. To achieve either, or both, we need the right language, but we also need our voices to be raised, to be speaking in unison and to keep on speaking up for nature.
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Interesting that someone accused the Wildlife Trust of under performing on the badger cull issue, I thought they did a great job. The RSPB seemed relatively quiet on the issue, certainly compare the the Wildlife Trust, did they get complained about by the same person?
Picking up Neil’s point. I do feel that NGOs can never actually win in these debates, there is always someone that will want them to do something differently. Interesting to see Neil’s comment that the RSPB seemed quiet on the badger issue. On this blog and elsewhere there have been comments that the RSPB was saying too much about badgers and it wasn’t in their remit. As I said NGOs can’t really win in these wider issues.
Bob – you are right. Tell me about it!
I think the point is that NGOs should realise that too – and not try to please everyone. As Dennis correctly points out here, the NGOs have a large membership, but it is still a minority membership. You can’t please everyone but there are lots more people out there who would be your supporter if you find them. Maybe the limit to membership of a principled wildlife NGO is around 500,000 – 1,5000,000. After that every time you gain a member you lose one too?
It was good to see you and the missus last week. I saw a polecat on my way home.
How do you do it then. I have sat up at a known polecat site locally and still haven’t seen one. Mind you an otter would be nice.
Bob – pure chance!
Fully agree with Bob and your response Mark.
Any chance of a blog about polecat populations and distribution? I have never seen one although I believe that they arevresident here in North Somerset.
Trevor – I’ll see what I can do
Trevor,
I’ve recorded two polecats (real ones, not ferrets or ferret/polecat crosses!) in the North Somerset/Bristol area over the past month or so. Both unfortunately were road kills.
They are about!
A lot is down to the reactive vs proactive question and what these terms mean to NGOs. By that I mean that it is a perception issue. If the Wildlife Trusts or the RSPB publish a position statement on their website about badger culling, would we see that as reactive or proactive? What about a press release? The RSPB tends to carpet-bomb compared to other NGOs but it is staggering how few press releases are actually taken up and published. This can lead to the impression that an NGO has chosen to be passive about any given subject if that particular release was not picked up. Arguably, social networking should counteract this but I am not convinced it is fit for purpose. There is so little moderation on Twitter and Facebook that anything controversial can quickly descend into a slanging match and not in a polite and respectful way either. Therefore, I can understand why NGOs do not get into debates and of course, do not present their policy in such a way that it can be debated. It is not that they do not care about opinion but impressions are everything and once an argument develops, it can quickly run out of control. Even disengaging from a debate can look (from the outside) as though the point has been lost.
I have to confess that I do not really have any answers to offer and I have seen conservation from so many angles over the years.
Another “Conversation” Talk shop?
Oral swipes
It was good to hear the NFU getting a couple of gratuitous verbal swipes – and not from me.
It was good to hear the 40 million pheasants released into the countryside being given a verbal broadside – and not from me.
It was good to hear the madness that is badger killing being castigated widely – and not from me.
The Fifth Meeting? Blimey! So what’s new and why?
“This ‘coming-together’ in New Networks for Nature is what we desperately need to realise what the natural world means to us – now when we are facing its loss”
— Michael McCarthy, Environmental Editor The Independent
I suggest that when the same folk get together next time – they do something for one of your related posts: Natural History GCSE – Mary Colwell
Maybe – if they all concentrated very very hard they could achieve something worth having
No – they prefer blaming the NFU – it’s so much easier!
Trimbush – see you there next year?
Mark – I think I’m busy for those days
We could, of course, try talking to each other – a lot of the divisions are artificial and I’ve found a lot of the reaction to what went on around the forest sales fiasco over the last couple of years frustrating and uninspiring – and yes, I do blame a narrowness in NGOs and their supporters: a failure to recognise the power of connections across activities that have so much more in common than divides them, and a degree of outrage that ordinary people rather (like the Archbishop of Canterbury) were expressing their own views rather than the NGOs acting as their mouthpiece. Also, that another actor on the environmental stage was getting credit for its positive approach – which, perhaps, might have been something to celebrate. Worth thinking about. I wish I’d been able to be at the meeting which sounds great !
There is a fourth group: the ‘convinced of something else’. These need to be talked to slightly differently than simply ‘unconvinced’. They have their position and if you show it no respect you will never get respect back. Where a conservationist sees habitat they see resource or infrastructure. If that infrastructure has both a commercial value and a wildlife potential then the commercial value must be respected, it being why it was made, and any wildlife-friendly management proposals should work around its functionality (which requires finding out what that is), and be logistically plausible. There are examples of this working extremely well and examples of it failing.
Also, it’s hard to argue against a Badger cull when you are trying to gradually convince people a deer cull would be beneficial enough to be acceptable. Do we have to balance Badgers against Nightingales?
A great post Mark, and one I thoroughly agree with. I love the idea of NNN, but its very much preaching to the converted.
You classify three groups ‘the convinced’, ‘partially convinced’, and ‘unconvinced’ and Hugh above has commented further on this but they can be subdivided further still. As Hugh mentions there can be a category of those who rely on nature/destruction of nature for a sole source of income, but may be willing to change if financial incentives are available (i guess class these as partially convinced?). Another group worries me the most. These are the ‘Me Generation’. The 10’s, 20’s & 30’s who live in a world of social networking, and are often city-based, where self-depiction is paramount and the environment expendable and alien.
Being early 30’s myself I am very aware of the attitude of some of my peers towards the environment and frankly its terrifying. There is no thought, no awareness, and no interest in being a responsible human being, and respecting the natural world.
So the question is how do we begin to start tackling this demographic?
NNN has a major responsibility in trying to implement changes at a governmental/curriculum level (?) in order to encourage a suitable response from younger people (I should also stress that there are some particularly pro-active young naturalists around as well, not to mention many more-countryfide young people who need no convincing) to respect the environment. We can sit around discussing it until we are old and grey, but that won’t have the desired effect.
And in response to the other comments on divided opinion – the large the organisation the larger the polarity of opinion, you will never be able to please everyone – FACT!
Looking forward to going down to NNN next year!