THE GREEN MAN PROJECT

2011-09-04T17:59:00.008+01:00

A PROLIFIC PEAR TREE IN AN OLD ORCHARD

I found this wonderful crop of pears on a very large tree in an orchard which apparently has not been cultivated for over fifty years. The plums in my previous post were from the same site, which has also produced great amounts of other varieties, including greengages, various types of apple and a great abundance of damsons.

2011-08-03T20:41:00.007+01:00

VICTORIA PLUMS FOR THE FEAST OF FIRST FRUITS

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle "The Feast of First Fruits" was celebrated at the beginning of August as a Christian festival. The festival of Lammas, associated with the wheat harvest, is also celebrated between 1st and 2nd August.

2011-06-25T17:05:00.004+01:00

Sand Lizards Courting - Great picture from the Ukraine by young phographer Alexey Timoshenko

2011-06-08T15:15:00.006+01:00

POLITICAL ECOLOGIES, PARLIAMENTS OF BIRDS & TWITTER

The above image is taken from the Wikipedia entry for "The Conference of the Birds", a twelfth century Persian poem whose central metaphor of a feathered political congress was tweeted around the medieval world. Geoffrey Chaucer's "Parliament of Birds" takes up the theme in fourteenth century England.

I want to use this theme of avian concourse to explore the modern concept of "political ecologies", a term that I shall use with reference to the work on deep ecology of Joanna Macy and John Seed. A Buddhist scholar, Macy developed the notion of "A Council of All Beings" as a means of a extending human spirituality and political accountability back into the natural world, in the manner of many indigenous peoples.

In fact, the provenance of animal councils, bird congress and natural governance in general can be traced back to the dawn of civilisation, and extends from ancient times to the present day. Moreover, in periods of political and religious oppression, the use of creature conferences to air grievances and suggest alternative forms of secular and spiritual governance is commonplace, with the species represented usually having particular national cultural resonance

The advent of the social networking facility called "Twitter" can, therefore, be interpreted as providing the masses with the means of such avian and animal concourse, and it is most appropriate that the facility has been activated around the world by people seeking progressive change in local and central governments. More specifically, it was this "new conference of the birds" which heralded the so-called Arab Spring of 2011.

2011-05-23T12:15:00.005+01:00

THE POETRY OF BIRDS - EDITED BY SIMON ARMITAGE & TIM DEE (VIKING PENGUIN)

A family of fledgling tits who, having outgrown the nest roost rather precariously by the roadside, remind me of Emily Dickinson's poem "Hope" from "The Poetry of Birds" anthology.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

"The Poetry of Birds" is an excellent collection: a veritable aviary of verse.

2011-05-02T20:33:00.000+01:00

"Botany Bay", South Worcestershire, 1 May 2011

2011-04-13T15:12:00.009+01:00

CLIMATE CHANGE, TRANSPORT AND MODERN LIFE

Last Sunday afternoon, I took a cycle and walk around Kempsey Common, several miles south Worcester, with my camera: please see pictures in my photo-post of yesterday. Notwithstanding its "deep rural" appearance, this area is actually bisected by the M5 motorway, which is a mere stone's throw from the beautiful thatched cottage shown in the second photograph.

My first visit to Kempsey Common was in 2002, when I met an elderly man pushing his bicycle, on which he had travelled from Worcester for recreation. He also enjoyed allotment gardening. However, whilst there is some indication that during the past nine years the latter activity has grown in popularity and that demand for allotments exceeds supply, I do not detect much increase in cycling to nearby beauty spots amongst Worcester folk. Indeed I saw very few people at all on Sunday afternoon, although there seemed to be a lot of traffic on the motorway.

Also noteworthy was the heat of the day and the dryness of the ground, almost as if Winter had passed rapidly into Summer. Nevertheless, observable climate change and the underlying need to conserve energy for the environment and domestic economy do not appear to be reducing people's desire for motorised travel mobility.

One reason for this, I would suggest, is the modern psyche's need for distraction of the kind provided by the car journey together with England's main weekend leisure activity: shopping. Self-directed unstructured activity in natural surroundings is, increasingly, not just beyond the capacity of the young to enjoy, but also many of their elders, which is a great shame.

2011-04-12T17:53:00.009+01:00

Kempsey Common and environs, near Worcester

2011-04-02T16:38:00.006+01:00

From the Worcester Standard newspaper 1 April 2011 Archbishop dedicates eco-friendly church

The Archbishop of Canterbury paid a visit to the County to dedicate a new eco-friendly church at Mucknell Abbey. Dr Rowan Williams dedicated the church, which has been built from locally-sourced sustainable materials, on Friday (25 March) at the Abbey near Stoulton....

Abbot Stuart said: " We have a lovely new building. Now we are setting about developing the 40 acres of land in a way which will model that loving care for the world. Already we have planted an orchard and several thousand trees as part of the restoration of Feckenham Forest*, and we have begun work on our own large kitchen garden".

*Also known as the Forest of Worcester - please see my subsequent post @ http://woodwose.wordpress.com/

2011-03-29T10:18:00.003+01:00

Crookbarrow Road, Brockhill Village, Worcestershire (2010)

2010-11-01T10:35:00.002Z

The numinous landscape of South Worcestershire, shown here in the Malvern Hills, has long been the inspiration for music, of which Elgar's is the outstanding example, and poetry, including the less well-known Poly-Olbion - please see my other post for today @ http://woodwose.wordpress.com/

However, the wider landscape context created by the Malverns, the Severn Valley and Bredon Hill, an outlier of the Cotswolds, has perhaps not received the cultural attention it merits. I have, therefore, resumed a longstanding personal project focused on Crookbarrow Hill, at the edge of Worcester, as the starting point for an exploration of this cultural landscape.

Incidentally, the slow progress of this project is largely due to my involvement in various spatial planning sagas - see
www.crookbarrow.com/
http://crookbarrow.wordpress.com/
http://smartlimits2growth.wordpress.com/
In case the slow pace continues I've decided to publish the introduction :

MESSAGES FROM THE MOUND

A Cultural Study of Crookbarrow Hill

Introduction
For some years now I have intended to write a history of Crookbarrow Hill, but the time has never been right. Today, 30 October 2010, I resumed “The Green Man Project” blog with a post (see below) on “The Story of Silbury Hill”, a book recently published by English Heritage which suggests that Europe’s largest man-made mound may have been developed over many centuries as part of an even more extensive landscape project in what is now the Avebury World Heritage site in Wiltshire. My own intuition is that the man-moulded mound known variously as Crookbarrow Hill, Brockhill and the Whittington Tump, next to Junction 7 of the M5 Motorway in Worcestershire is also part of a much larger ancient landscape discourse, I shall call it: a “big conversation” extending back into prehistory circumscribed to the west by the Malvern Hills, to the east by Bredon Hill, and with the Severn River providing the north-south axis.

Having at last set the scene for “A Cultural Study of Crookbarrow Hill”, I shall explain why I have chosen this intellectual form of inquiry rather than a more straightforward historical account, or the cultural history which I also considered. The reasons for this in part reflect my academic education in both English literary and urban and regional planning studies, and the fact that I am neither a historian nor an archaeologist. I also have a strong interest in depth psychology, particularly Jungian, in contemporary green spirituality, in the historical relationship between the Christian religion and Britain’s pagan legacy, and in what are widely known as “earth mysteries”, including ley lines. More mundanely, I am concerned with how modern society, and more specifically government agencies, value and protect the historic environment in different parts of the British Isles, especially in England and Wales. “A Cultural Study”, therefore, seems to lend itself best to the diversity of my interests and, indeed, to the intellectual plurality of perspectives inspired by the visual panorama from Crookbarrow Hill itself.

The study is intended to cover the following issues and themes:

Description of Crookbarrow Hill at the present time
The numinous landscapes of South Worcestershire
Seasonal festivals, religious events and local folklore
Wider interpretations of the role of hill barrows etc
Depth psychology and Earth Mysteries movement
Future management of Crookbarrow and environs*

* These are presently used for horse pasture: see my recent post @ http://horsework.wordpress.com/ In short, there is no management of Crookbarrow Hill and environs by the relevant agencies, in sad contrast to the attention given to ancient sites elsewhere. Perhaps the main reason for this is that Crookbarrow Hill falls within an area identified for urban development at the present time.

2010-10-30T11:46:00.004+01:00

THE STORY OF SILBURY HILL is a new publication by English Heritage which explores the development of the largest prehistoric mound in Europe. Latest research suggests that construction of Silbury Hill may have taken place over many centuries as part of the unfoldment of an "unconscious collective" master plan for the wider landscape of Avebury. As such, "The Avebury Project" might be interpreted as the co-operative work of prehistoric society's "Collective Unconscious"*, and a message in a mound for modern man.

* A term coined by Carl Jung

2009-01-30T16:30:00.000Z

New Green Man Projects Website Launched

Please see www.greenman-projects.co.uk

2008-09-30T15:02:00.000+01:00

WHY I'VE LATELY BEEN BOUND FOR BOTANY BAY

The sea shanty "Botany Bay" is one of my favourite traditional folk songs, and, for anyone unfamiliar with it, here is the first verse :

"Come all ye young men of learning,
And a warning take from me,
I would have you quit night walking,
And shun bad company,
I would have you quit night walking,
Or else you'll rue the day,
You'll rue your transportation, lads,
When you're bound for Botany Bay".

Now let me reassure readers that I'm not due for "transportation" downunder, even if some of my blogs are critical of the powers that be.

No, I've lately been bound for Botany Bay in South Worcestershire, and the purpose of my journeys has been to pick sloes to make sloe gin.

Some may be aware that sloes are in very short supply this year, so my discovery of a bush with sloes on it the other day, naturally led to further journeys.

As it happens, Botany Bay is one of my favourite spots and you're probably wondering, as I did, how the place came by it's name.

According to "The Place Names of Worcestershire" (Cambridge University Press 1922), the name "Botany Bay" is derived from "Botenaysse" or Bota's Ashtree.

However, the authors of the above also note that : "The modern form of the name is doubtless due to the fact that that it (Botany Bay) is in a remote corner of the parish".

In fact, Worcestershire's Botany Bay lies nearby the famous Spetchley Park and Gardens, and I like to think the name derives from its rich flora, as does that of Botany Bay in Australia.

Nevertheless, it seems that the label "Botany Bay" was in common use at one time, and the place which is now home to Worcester College in Oxford also went by this name.

Interesting stuff, and I'm looking forward to enjoying a drop of sloe gin later in the year, and maybe a bit of "bad company" and "night walking" too !

2008-01-25T15:42:00.000Z

The Urban Rural Fringe

The followings abstract refers to "Prospects for the Rural-Urban Fringe in Australia : Observations from a Brief History of the Landscapes around Sydney and Adelaide" by
Raymond Bunker and Peter Houston, published by Blackwells in 2003 :

Despite being a major site of recent population growth and, arguably, a key arena for sustainability concerns, the rural-urban fringe has received relatively little attention in the literature concerning Australian cities and urban policy. To address this shortcoming the authors review post-World War II efforts to plan the rural-urban fringes of Sydney and Adelaide and find a number of issues for contemporary policy-makers. First, the fringe is becoming increasingly complex due to multi-faceted demographic change, a broadening economic base and demands for better environmental management, all within the context of an evolving understanding of sustainability. Second, water resource management, partly under the auspices of integrated natural resource management, is assuming a much higher priority than in early fringe planning endeavours, which emphasised urban containment, agricultural land protection and landscape conservation. Third, and partly as a consequence of this shift of priorities, there is also evidence of changes to the nature and focus of policy tools used in the fringe, with land management concerns now cutting across traditional land use planning. Finally, and fundamentally, these observations raise questions about how future governance of the fringe should be organised. Together these four themes pose an enthralling series of challenges for policy-makers for which much more research and discussion are needed.

2007-03-21T10:47:00.001Z

This Blog is Relocating

Due to Gremlins (of a technical or censorship nature, possibly both !) this and my other blogs (see below) are relocating for a time to www.witchofworcester.wordpress.com.

2007-02-06T15:17:00.001Z

2007-02-06T14:37:00.000Z

The Green Woman

This is the first of a series of blogs on the theme of the "The Green Woman", but first I would like to say something about a green man, Professor David Bellamy.

Some years ago, I attended a series of "Master Classes" on environmental issues run by The Conservation Foundation, a charitable organisation set up 25 years ago by Davids Bellamy and Shreeve. At one of these - I think the theme was biodiversity - I had the opportunity to speak to Professor Bellamy and during our conversation he mentioned the importance of human population management. Now I haven't a great deal of personal experience - although I have some - of less developed countries, but David Bellamy has worked throughout the world. He told me that the issue most frequently raised by women during his work in in less developed countries was that of family planning, and their ability to choose how many children they had.

Recently, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a very moving programme about illegal abortion in Ghana. Many - if not most - abortions there are illegal because there is something of a taboo about the termination of pregnancy not only in Ghana, but throughout most of Africa. Consequently many women die or suffer serious health problems as a result of abortions which are improperly carried out. The programme included interviews with a number of Ghanaian women who had endured such "back street" terminations. All these women spoke of their need to postpone pregnancy or a to limit the size of the families for economic reasons. Marie Stopes International is currently in the process of developing family planning facilities in Ghana.

The above radio programme made me revisit the subject of human population management, a theme which has been somewhat "off the air" in recent years is now, I think, returning to the mainstream environmental agenda. Some excellent work is indeed being done for individual women by organisations like Marie Stopes, as well as in the wider context by the "Population and Sustainability Network", for instance. This work has often been undertaken in spite of major political and religious power blocks, such as the United States and the Catholic Church. However, "liberals" have also fought shy on this issue, not wanting to tell people what to do, and thereby failing to support those who desperately need family planning services for individual and social, as well as economic and environmental reasons.

I was delighted, therefore, when Sian Berry, the Principal Female Speaker of the UK Green Party, responded constructively to the matter of family size and population on the radio last weekend, in the context of our own planning for the "management" of climate change.

2007-01-31T15:38:00.000Z

Stonehenge : Settlement Found

The discovery of an ancient settlement near Stonehenge is a timely reminder of the importance of archaeological conservation :

Neolithic site found near Stonehenge
31/01/2007 06:11
By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - Evidence of a large settlement full of houses dating back to 2,600 BC has been discovered near the ancient stone monument of Stonehenge, scientists said on Tuesday.
They suspect inhabitants of the houses, forming the largest Neolithic village ever found in Britain, built the stone circle at Stonehenge -- generally thought to have been a temple, burial ground or an astronomy site -- between 3,000 and 1,600 BC.

2007-01-04T10:46:00.000Z

The Proper Scope and Role of Local Studies

"Local Studies" is usually taken to mean "Local History". However, this definition is too narrow, in my view, and, I would argue, has hindered development of a more broadly based and dynamic approach to the study of localities which can be practically applied to different situations and requirements eg interventions in the planning system. As consequence, the take up of "Local Studies" in some places - but by no means all - tends to be limited to those with a professional or amateur interest in historical research either for publication or, perhaps, a family or community archive. Whilst these are worthy enough ends, I would propose that a much greater opportunity exists to develop "Local Studies" in both the academic and non-academic contexts and to significantly broaden participation in what can be a professionally, personally and collectively an immensely worthwhile and fulfilling intellectual and practical pursuit for diverse people and communities.

Before exploring an expanded concept of "Local Studies", I would like to compare and contrast my experience of resources for the study of localities and associated local projects in different places. My own professional background is in area regeneration, and I would propose that some of the most successful regeneration initiatives are closely associated with local studies "communities", such as those with an interest in conservation of the built and natural environment. In London, my experience suggests that, in the recent past anyway, opportunities for linking conservation and "development" have been good, although most recent contact suggests that conservation is losing out to development again. Elsewhere, opportunities for a more holistic and applied approach to local studies seem, with some notable exceptions, to be more limited. Worcester/shire has excellent archive and library resources, but their user communities seem fragmented, and there appears to be a lack of appreciation of the value of conservation to sustainable regeneration, notwithstanding the good work of English Heritage.

Moving on the scope of "Local Studies", Worcester's "History Centre and Library" and the "Local Studies" section in the City's Main Library (Art Gallery and Museum) have a fine and wideranging collection of publications. Indeed, these excellent collections probably circumscribe the proper scope and role of "Local Studies", ranging as they do from miscellaneous local history publications, to historical (as well as more recent) plans and associated documents for Worcestershire and the West Midlands Region. The latter cover subjects from economic and transport planning, and housing development, to conservation of the natural and built environments. In addition, there is a wealth of cultural material linked to both locality and wider region, all contributing to a veritable treasure trove of knowledge and recollection. Nevertheless, the focus of "Local Studies" remains rather narrowly defined in the naming of the "History Centre and Library", and, although this facility, and the City Library, both provide an excellent service, the full extent of their collections goes unappreciated, in my opinion, by the
wider community, and their "collective wisdom" is mostly unapplied in the present day context.

A proposal by the University of Worcester, the City Council and Worcestershire County Council to co-locate existing " Local Studies" resouces in a new "Mega-Library", attached to the University, on the site of the former Royal Infirmary may go some way to tackling the concerns which I have raised. In principle, the co-location of local studies resources with the County Council's archaeology service seems a good idea. On the other hand, I have some reservations about the value of mega-projects, having been involved in quite a few. These can consume large amounts of resouces, not least money, without creating a better service for user communities.
However, I will give the Worcester proposal the benefit of my doubt for the time being. Instead, I would suggest the organisations involved with project consider the possibility of developing a broad "Local Studies" curriculum, which might be adapted to the requirements of different stakeholders, such as schools, higher and further education students, the voluntary sector, researchers etc. This curriculum should be linked to a range of accreditations and qualifications, as well as encouraging those who wish to engage in informal study and research.

The "World Heritage Sites" division of UNESCO (United Nations Education Science and Cultural Organisation) sponsors two Masters degree programmes in "World Heritage Site Management". The syllabus for the course in Dublin (for links see the UNESCO website), could actually be adapted for a more local context, possibly in conjunction with an organisation such as English Heritage. The University of Worcester might offer a Masters programme with a "Local Studies/Heritage Management" focus at some point : now would seem to be a good time to be thinking about this. The UNESCO experience of managing World Heritage Sites is certainly relevant to Worcester. Development pressures continually threaten conservation. Indeed, had conservation played a stronger role in the post-war development of Worcester, it is possible that the city might have been eligible for "world heritage" status itself. The 1940s "Civic Survey for the Planning of Worcester", copies of which are available from Worcester City Libary and in the History Centre, emphasises the fine City's fine architectural and landscape heritage. Much of this - alas ! - has now been developed and even more is currently under threat.

To be continued....

2006-12-22T10:19:00.000Z

Carry on Communities
Act 4 : The Charter of the Forest
Draft 1

Much good had been accomplished by Simon Hobbit, Boris Cat and the Witch of Worcester, but much more remained to be done. One concern was the fate of the Deputy Prime Minister, when he and his comrades awoke from hibernation. The timing of the awakening was also in question.

In the meantime, the Witch and Boris had been charged by higher powers with "cleaning up" the City of London. Fear not, this cleansing was not required as a result of some catastrophic deluge or other environmental catastrophe, although fog had been a problem of late and air pollution levels certainly needed reduction, for both local and global considerations. However, the greatest concern of our hero and heroine just now was the poor ethical condition of London as one of the world's great financial centres. Unfortunately, London was known globally as the World's No. 1 Money "Laundry of choice". Nor was money laundering limited to the Capital, but it was here that the Witch and Boris would earnestly begin the process of cleaning it up.

Meanwhile, Simon Hobbit had been charged with sorting out some of the more unruly parts of Middle England, a task by no means small. A key challenge was what to do with the large number of people who had been employed or otherwise retained by quangos and other unproductive enterprises of that ilk during the rules of the wicked Blair Wizard and the Big Clunking Fist. "Hard labour for them, restoring the great forests !" Boris Cat had advised. The Witch also sympathised with this view : "They have lived off the fat of our land, now let them do some real work for a change. I want to see those former Queens of the Quangos sweat !". Simon, however, was a compassionate hobbit and wished to deal gently with the quango people. Mention of labouring in the forest had, nevertheless, given him an idea. He vaguely remembered an ancient "Charter of the Forest" which had apparently guaranteed basic subsistence to the people of these lands in earlier times. Simon had therefore acquired agreement in principle with the powers that be on the introduction of a type of "Citizen's Income", which would be available to everyone engaged in some kind of productive enterprise, subject to certain basic requirements.

For the purpose of piloting this project in the Birmingham conurbation - something Simon believed would provide a major catalyst for its sustainable regeneration - the services of one Sir Digby de Br'm had been procured (at no little cost in cash and other benefits, it had to be said).
Now Simon also knew that Sir Digby wanted to see Birmingham made the home of a newly to be created English Parliament. This would involve a major downsizing of government in London -something which would liberate much needed space for more important uses - and the relocation of a number of departments of state to Birmingham and other regional cities which could better accommodate them. As a simple man, all this made total sense to Simon Hobbit, and, whilst he sometimes thought Sir Digby de Br'm was a pompous loud mouth, he also believed that, with the right incentives and supervision (from the Witch and Boris, as well as himself), Sir Digby was the man for this particular job. "One day Birmigham will be the apotheosis of the long prophesied sustainable community !", Simon forecast, and so it transpired.

Epilogue : Britain 2107

When the Rt Hon John Prescott MP, Deputy Prime Minister of HM Government of Britain, awoke on the morning of 1 January 2007, he was somewhat surprised to find himself rather more modestly accommodated than when he had fallen asleep. He was also surrounded by rather fewer people than he remembered on that fateful foggy night in December.... Moreover, he was still recovering from a dreadful nightmare in which a disembodied Big Clunking Fist was chasing him through the London Underground. "Must have been that reception at the Irish Embassy", he thought to himself : "The Bishop of London - or was it Woolwich - told me he thought someone had spiked our drinks...."

However, the Deputy Prime Minister looked out of his window, everything looked much better than he remembered it, and he gave a loud snort of satisfaction. "Everything runs much more more smoothly when I'm in charge !", he said.

2006-11-08T15:21:00.000Z

Crookbarrow Farm “Regeneration” and Battenhall to Norton “Green Corridor” Proposals

This paper summarises 2 possible “rural-urban fringe” projects, to the south east of the city of Worcester, and adjoining areas of Wychavon district. These projects are :

“Regeneration” of Crookbarrow Farm, Whittington
Creation of a Battenhall to Norton “Green Corridor”*
* The “Corridor” is focussed on the area between the A44 (to the north) and the railway line (to the south). The M5 roughly bisects this.

1. “Regeneration” of Crookbarrow Farm
Crookbarrow Farm is home to the “Whittington Tump” or “Crookbarrow”. According to Jabez Allies “Antiquities and Folklore of Worcestershire” (2nd edition 1852): “Cruckbarrow Hill is rather larger than Silbury Hill in Wiltshire. Silbury Hill is said to be perfectly artificial, but Cruckbarrow only partially so”. Noakes Guide to Worcestershire (1868) also notes that Crookbarrow Hill is “one of the largest tumuli (supposed) in England". Before World War II, and prior to the construction of the M5 motorway (Junction 7 is a few hundred metres from the Crookbarrow), the Tump (or mound) was an important focus for the local community. A history of Whittington by Michael Craze, published in 1977 to celebrate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee (which involved a night time gathering with torches at Crookbarrow Farm) mentions that “the older recalled similar crowds on Good Friday…when the Worcester custom was to walk out and picnic on the top” as well as “…the Whit Monday Fair on Whittington Tump”. However, in recent years both Tump and Farm have suffered the “degeneration” typical of rural-fringe areas, with the added problem of noise/pollution and severance caused by road construction/traffic.

2. Battenhall to Norton “Green Corridor”
Current proposals to build a bus park and ride facility in Battenhall, and a rail park-way in Norton (ie at either end of the “Green Corridor”), and associated plans to increase the capacity of the local road network, would compound existing pressures on Crookbarrow Hill and Farm, and adjoining areas which also have important archaeological and historic environment value. Indeed, the “sub-text” of transport proposals would seem to suggest plans to expand the City of Worcester into these areas, as happened with Warndon Villages (also a place of high landscape value, although much of this is now subsumed under residential and – rather poorly designed - commercial developments). It is proposed here that the relevant authorities re-consider their transport proposals (the objectives and status eg funding of these is anyway unclear), and consider instead sustainable “regeneration” (as broadly defined, for instance, by English Heritage) of the Battenhall to Norton Green Corridor. This would involve investment in measures to improve conservation of the historic landscape, including its ongoing management, and to enhance public access, in ways compatible with such conservation aims.

version 1 1.9.2006

2006-10-20T10:54:00.000+01:00

"Small is Still Beautiful"

This book, by Joseph Pearce, appeared in 2001, one of a number of visionary works published around the turn of the millennium, which somehow seem to have been lost in the culture of size matters which has grown evermore in recent years. "Small is Still Beautiful" has a foreward by Barbara Wood, the daughter of E F Schumacher, who wrote the better known and certainly more influential "Small is Beautiful" in the 1970s. Yet Joseph Pearce's book is very well written, and endorced by key figures from the green, co-operative and social enterprise movements. In short, it is definitely worth a read, and it will certainly make you think.

For this reason (ie incitement to serious thinking), "Small is Still Beautiful" would not be welcomed in New Labour circles. As a the previous editor of the New Statesman, Peter Wilby, noted after his tenure there came to an end :

"New Labour welcomed ideas only within very tight boundaries, most of them technocratic rather than inspirational. New Labour is a tightly-corseted suburban party, and almost everyone connected with it - in academia as well as in Westminster - keeps the curtain tightly drawn lest the neighbours catch them running wild with ideas..." (Guardian 12.9.05)

However, this observation, I would suggest, applies not only to New Labour but also to wider society, including much of the environmental movement, with regard to green issues today.

Last year, whilst attending a planning inquiry a serious green man, whom I have known for many years, expressed the view to me that it was easier before the concept of "sustainable development" came into being. Whilst I find this concept useful, on the one hand, as something which encourages joined up thinking about environmental issues, and their relationship with economic and social considerations, I also found myself agreeing with my aquaintance.

I will use this analogy from the area regeneration context. On the radio last week, it was reported that representatives from UNESCO (?the United Nations Educational Science and Cultural Organisation) were to visit Liverpool to ascertain whether development proposals for the waterfront area were compatible with this part of the city's status as a World Heritage Site.
A man from the local preservation society spoke very eloquently on this theme - in fact the society had "called in" UNESCO - and also said, with some passion, that whilst he greatly welcomed "regeneration", funding associated with this seemed to have brought with it "a load of carpet baggers". The same, I feel, is true of funding associated with "sustainable development".

My feeling is that the "sustainable development" community (if there is such as thing), which began with strong links to the environmental and green movements now also plays host to "a load of carpetbaggers", which is not to say that, as with area regeneration, some excellent work is not being done.

Many environmentalists and greens have been suspicious - rightly so in my opinion - of large funding streams, whether from public or private sources, which may divert their "resources" from core areas of work. This is not to say that large projects and funding streams do not have their place.

However, in my view "Small is Still Beautiful" whether - and perhaps especially - in an over developed country such as our own, or in developing/less developed countries still very much applies. With regard to the latter, the award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006, divided into two equal parts, to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below would surely have won the approval of E H Schumacher, and be hailed as good news by Joseph Pearce. Mohammad Yunus, an economist from Bangladesh, and the Grameen Bank which he founded, are world leaders in the provision of micro-credit.

2006-06-09T11:34:00.000+01:00

Aims of The Green Man Project

The aim of The Green Man Project is to offer examples of good practice in "local conservation" (broadly defined) throughout the world, and to carry out studies/projects in my local area.