Happy 2020 !

I decided that 2020 can't just be another new slog. After basically bumming around the world last year, consuming nature like it was on a roll back in Asda, while waiting to get some direction on Brexit- it's now time to start this new decade with a bit of purpose and perhaps even a little bit of meaning.

I think my biggest lesson from the last decade was discovering the nature and weaknesses of community structures and the enormous inefficiency of a conservation model like a multi-stakeholder group at Beddington Farmlands, especially when the lead stakeholder is not particularly interested in nature or nature conservation. Another revelation was that most nature conservation charities are being funded by organisations that destroy nature as their day job and hand over bits of loose change to make them feel like they are saints instead of cunts.

This got me thinking about what the most efficient model for nature conservation is. Ideally it would be for an organisation or individual to have vast amounts of money and for them to buy up land, turn it into nature reserves or nature friendly environments (nature friendly farming, housing developments, business parks etc) and then engage as many people as possible into those environments. So basically exactly how a capitalist corporation works but instead of the global oligarchy being comprised of someone who destroys nature and turns it into mansions, super yachts, prostitutes and crack for that to be switched on its head and  an enormously wealthy and powerful organisation or individual to use that power  to buy up forests, wetlands and land and manage it for nature and people. 

The national and global conservation community is fragmented and weak. The argument for fragmentation is specialisation e.g. Plantlife campaign for plants, Buglife for bugs, the RSPB for birds etc etc. However large corporations that control the planet have fucking departments- hasn't anyone heard of them?? There must be a strong argument for maintaining specialisation but merging effort into fewer more powerful organisations? 

We are not going back in time so contrary to some of hard environmentalists fantasies, western societies are not about to collapse into dystopian paradises where trees and birds reclaim the streets and our pet dogs start forming wolf packs and start hunting fat bastards who have lost the skills to farm due to binge watching Love Island reducing the human population to pre-industrial age and we see out eternity in a return to Eden, agrarian vegan societies powered by composting toilets set in the ruins of western civilisation and everyone sharing farming techniques, vegan recipes and selfies through iphones powered by small energy recovery units plugged into your arsehole.  

Time only moves forward, one tiny branch emanating from an existing branch, an enormous timeless organic structure, intrinsically and infinitely complexly dependent on the past from which there is no going back as the energy flows and time move unidirectionally which means we are heading to two fundamental possible futures for nature. One where nature is reduced to tiny pockets and humanity overcomes any problems of detachment and ecological imbalance by technology, bioengineering and just basically existing in depressed lack lustre states propped up with happy pills or one where nature is firmly embedded into the algorithms and value systems of the future and modern corporate and power structures. We need global nature conservation corporations. 

Ok so that puts the problems of world conservation to rest. Now I need to work out how to either become a global oligarch or be part of an organisation that does the same job. Therein lies the rub.

Tomorrow I'll try and scribble down some thoughts on here of how we can help to achieve that at Little Oak Group. This decade has to be the turning point for nature- something colossal needs to happen.