Wow – 2011 is moving at a fast rate of knots. So far CLIF researchers have submitted 3 grant proposals for future funds, 1 proposal for internal selection and managed to develop our plans for future work quite significantly. This is no mean feat in a mere 1.5 months of 2011. With Kate busy as head of human geography research at the moment, I am taking time to transcribe the remaining interviews we conducted with farmers in 2010. Boy, I had a lot of fun – getting lost, spectacular coastal views, cups of tea, (don’t forget) the cake and a great time listening to how farmers on the Lizard imagine their farms to change as a result of climate change. It has been one of the best things I’ve done.
Sitting around the various tables with farmers (and often their wives), I learnt that climate and the ways it might change are experienced in a variety of ways: climate is weather; weather updates are listened to all the time; the climate can change from one farm to the next; some are farming for 5 seasons; there is a monsoon season in July/August; climate change? what climate change?; snow up to the eaves; burning the heath is vital… the list goes on.
And so does the transcription. I had a break yesterday in the form of a meeting with the National Trust in Birmingham. It was internal and I cannot disclose Trust secrets but it was exciting and confirmed my longheld suspicion that the work the National Trust does IS for the benefit of people today and in the future, and that the National Trust – like other nature conservation professionals I have encountered – do it for the love of it. Enthusiasm at the National Trust is in abundance!
I’ll leave the final (warm and fuzzy) word to this nature conservation advisor:
I suspect that we all roughly share somewhere in the back of our heads the same ideas and visions but we’re going to get there in slightly different ways aren’t we. … They all love the environment [of the Lizard] … because we have stories, they have, you know, everybody has stories and we think we’re moving in this direction if climate change is one of the things influencing that but it’s trying to engage with that in a way that we can understand each other’s positions as to how we move from here to there. And you mentioned about tomatoes and people’s gardens, well, that’s exactly, we’re talking about the same thing because it is food and it is local food and it comes from the local landscape.
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