08 Rich Yates on leading Essex Wildlife Trust and the social values of nature recovery

At Abbotts Hall by the Blackwater Estuary, chief executive of Essex Wildlife Trust, Rich Yates, chats about the 67 years of county wildlife action. We sit in sunshine by a pond, and hear about the Trus’s many reserves and visitor centres. And how the focus on nature has shifted from protecting and conserving to improving. This puts people at the heart of it all. The Trust relies on a dense network of 2000 volunteers to manage their 100 reserves and engage with the public. 

We talk of the timescales of conservation and nature recovery: 60+ years (so far) for Fingringhoe Wick, 24 years for saltings after coastal realignment, 15 years for Mucking waste tip to reserve, and 1-2 years for the ghost ponds of Essex to come back. 

Rich says, “The story of conservation is the story of people.”

Rich recommends Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics.

Rich’s object is a guitar plectrum. 

His heroes are local education leader Gary Horne and EA Festival organiser Joanne Ooi.

His recommended action: go on, join a Wildlife Trust local to you. 

Website: https://www.essexwt.org.uk/

My new book will be supporting this podcast, and will be published in March 2027. It is called "Bamboo and Butterfly: Transformative Stories for Climate and Nature Recovery."

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

We're here at Hubbard Hall Farm in Essex on the coast at the headquarters of the Essex Wildlife Trust, and I'm here with Rich Yates, the Chief Exec of the Wildlife Trust. So Rich, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Jules.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Very pleased to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Lovely, lovely day for it. So I thought we'd just kind of jump straight in and talk a bit about the Wildlife Trust and the role it's played in nature recovery for six decades plus. So tell us a bit about the trust then.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah, yeah, thanks, Jules. So we've been um we've been a trust since 1959, so we've been going for 67 years towards the end of this year. Um, and uh we manage about 100 nature reserves, so it's a huge part of the county. Um and over the years we've done lots and lots of quite bold things. I think we're quite a brassy trust. We've done some very pioneering things. Um I've been part of the trust for about seven years, and I've been chief executive about two years. Um, but I'm very conscious that I I've joined a long line of uh of you know, long line of people and volunteers and and staff in the past and and sort of keeping the tradition alive in Essex. But um yeah, we've got about 2,000 volunteers, we've got about 200 members of staff. Um so uh yeah, so we're we're pretty big considered to be one of the biggest wildlife trusts in the in the country, yeah, which I think is Essex needs a large wildlife trust. You know, there's lots of uh lots of pressures, we're a very populous county as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Um the wildlife trusts sit with with lots of partner organisations, 47 across the UK, yeah, um, as part of a sort of federated structure. So in each county or in several places, multiple counties, there's similar organisations focusing locally. So you've both got this local focus and and bigger focus.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Bigger focus, yeah. I think that that that's that's the real power of it. So we all started off as completely independent charities with our own governing documents, our own unique provenance. Um, and over time, over those decades, we've we've collected we've worked together collectively, and we have a memorandum of cooperation, which means that we agree to kind of work under the Wildlife Trust banner together, we agree to exchange ideas and information and work in partnership, and we work very closely with all of our neighbouring trusts, and it means that we can constitute ourselves at the size that's most relevant to whatever it is that we're doing. So, you know, we we are very hyper-local in Essex Wildlife Trust. We've got local groups across every district, um, but we can operate at county level and then we can operate regionally with Suffolk and Norfolk and Hartson, Middlesex, and and and Cambridge, and then we can also kind of constitute ourselves as this big national body that's kind of got lobbying, um, you know, kind of real real influence through lobbying and and uh and other things. So it's a really fantastic system.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Um so it's kind of track it's tracked in some ways, if we could put it this way. The the the the establishment of the Wildlife Trust here was um one site, um uh fingering ho, um, an old gravel works, sand and gravel works. Um and with a focus in those days, everywhere really, a focus on on species and particular habitats and then particular reserves. Yeah, but then over time, kind of that spreads to a focus on nature recovery across landscapes, absolutely, across counties, yeah, and the the kind of organizational structure allows for that sort of collaboration. It does say, well, let's do something across East Anglia together. There's a way of kind of thinking about nature on that scale.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yes, yeah, exactly, exactly. So we we we see we have a that dual role of you know managing nature reserves and and those being the foundation for nature's recovery in the county, but working outside of that, so that sort of 99% of Essex we don't manage, so we need to work with landowners and farmers in particular, because it you know we're a rural county, there's about 70% of the land in Essex is agricultural land, so it's really important that we have that dual function and that we're managing our own stuff, but we're also working as far as we can with in partnership. Yeah, um, and we're very we're very fortunate in Essex. There's lots of great organisations, amazing farm clusters, there's lots of people that are really up for nature's recovery, so it's a fairly open door for us. But yeah, our structure allows for both of those things, and education, of course, is a another really big thing that we do.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about the volunteers because uh the the members of the organisation help to resource it and give their support to the to the organisation, um, and there are kind of volunteers right across the county who are doing what sorts of things? I mean they're kind of helping with the work of the Wildlife Trust enormously.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

They are, yeah. So we're we're about kind of 11 or 12 volunteers to every member of staff. Um so our our kind of our workforce is mostly volunteer-led, um, and we've always been a volunteer-led organisation, so it kind of that's that's very, very important. Um, but the volunte you know, the volunteers enable us to kind of operate at scale and to kind of amplify what we do. But they do all sorts of things. Almost every reserve that we have will have a volunteer warden who's responsible for looking after that particular reserve. So we we couldn't have a hundred staff looking after the reserves, it's just not cost-effective. You know, we we even though we've got a really solid membership base, it's a very expensive thing managing land. So we have a volunteer warden generally managing that reserve, and they will have a volunteer work party who will be responsible for um you know that enacting the management plan. So a reserve will have a management plan and you'll get a team of volunteers, maybe 10 to 20 people that get together once or twice a week. Um, yeah, under the uh not the supervision, but um in collaboration with our staff, we'll manage that reserve. Yeah, so it's it's a very community-led thing. Those volunteers will tend to be people that have got a very local attachment to that site or have got some sort of vested interests. Local knowledge. Local knowledge, exactly, exactly. And we would manage them partly for the the unique habitats they have, the unique species. Um, every management plan would be slightly different, but it the intention is to get them the very best out of the land, really, for wildlife.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

So uh you've also been involved in the development of through the local nature partnership in the local nature recovery strategy, which is something that's kind of appeared on the UK landscape in the last three or four years, two or three years, even kind of more recently. Not everywhere has got one yet, but they're coming. Yeah. Um tell us a bit about local nature recovery strategy as a as a as another mechanism to link up places and and kind of interest and care for nature in particular places and how to make a bigger.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Yeah, I mean I think it's I I think the local nature recovery strategies are something that's been bit really been missing, and I think is a re is a really positive thing. It essentially gives um everybody who's who's got an interest or um has got a responsibility to manage nature's recovery, and there is the biodiversity duty in the um in the Environment Act, which means that any kind of public body has some responsibility for enhancing and um sort of protecting wildlife, but it gives all of us a common uh blueprint that we can work to, and it's a spatial strategy, so it kind of sets out the county where the really important parts of the county are for nature's recovery, um, and it it kind of it's it sort of bridges that gap to a land use framework where it sort of says this is the best use for this piece of land, this is the best use for this piece of land, but taking account of all of the different priorities that we've got as a county, because of course we've got lots of development needs as well. Um, you know, there's big development pressures in in Essex, so there's lots of things, but it essentially says this is where we can reach our 30%. So it's kind of predicated on the idea of 30 by 30, which is having 30% of the land and sea in Essex protected for nature's recovery by 2030, and it sort of gives us that that roadmap and that blueprint for how we can do that in the county.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

So the priorities are identified, and then in each of those places, there's the hope to for kind of maintenance of the good stuff that's already there, but to do what, to connect up other places, to create new habitats, to get existing landowners to do something different.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Yeah, all of those things, all of those things, exactly. So I think um, you know, kind of sites that are already high in biodiversity, like nature reserves, are um it's about kind of maximising that and protecting that and buffering those and connecting them, um, and it's about bringing more more land that's in the that's best placed uh to get the most, I hate to use the phrase bang, bang for your buck, um, but it's about kind of where are we going to get the best return for wildlife in the in the county basically, but through all of those methods that you said. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Um and where we are is uh at the site of one of the first large, so one of the first large-scale um uh kind of reclamation of the land by the sea, if we can kind of put it that way. Managed retreat, as it was called, but creation of habitat, yeah. Just in the background here, we can see just just down here. Just behind us. Um and so uh tell us what what kind of happened when um when when we're thinking, oh, we must do something different with farmland here. I mean it's not going to happen in every place, but it's a symbol of a kind of transformation that can happen through intent, you know, through desire and intent, and we need to do something in this sort of way. So that managed retreat here's a symbol as well as a reality.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

It's a symbol, yeah, it is, yeah. And and even now, so it was a it was 24 years ago, next year will be our 25th anniversary of that. And I know that you were you were there. I was there today, weren't you? Yeah, so you know, you know, you know about it firsthand. And actually, it's really interesting now when I speak to people, loads of really incredible people in the county were there on that day. So it was a bit of a um, it was a bit of a kind of like a threshold moment, I think, in the in in the county. Um so many of sort of well well-known and high-profile people within the county were there, were there. So um, but anyway, so it was um it's something that we still look to as a trust to remind us of our pioneering heritage. I think it gives us inspiration still, but essentially it was um just on the on the uh the Blackwater estuary, some of the sort of villages upstream like Solcot, where Solcock Creek is just um just across the way, um, that village would periodically flood, uh flood. So every year it would it would flood, the creeks would flood, um, and we were you know we were struggling to maintain the the seawall here because it had been reclaimed many years ago from the sea, and um what the managed uh realignment or the coastal realignment did essentially was was re-profile the estuary and it and it did so by you know what seemed to be quite an sort of an act of violence at the time, which was to destroy parts of the seawall very deliberately. So in five places along a three and a half kilometre stretch, just to breach the seawall and uh allow the water to inundate the land and to turn it into tidal habitat, which is a brilliant for um, it's brilliant for plant life, it's brilliant for birds, it's brilliant for fish, acts as a sea nursery, um as a as a as a fish nursery, sorry, and more importantly, it helps to take some of that power uh out of the out of the estuary as well. And uh and I know for a fact that the village of Silkot hasn't flooded since. So it's a classic kind of example of co-benefits to people and wildlife. It's got so many benefits to to the natural world, but actually it's solved an engineering problem essentially. It was an engineering solution uh to a kind of a very human problem. So it you know, I don't I'm not sure what the economic benefits are, I'm not sure whether that's been calculated, but they would have been significant as well. So lots and lots of benefits.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

I think it's kind of rare if you establish a new nature reserve, or if we go back to the to the you know the beginnings of a of a reserve at um uh fingeringhoe. I mean that's a moonscape. It was a moonscape, yeah it was, yeah. Almost nothing line on it. Uh uh, so it takes some years for uh you know the plants to re-establish and to re-invade and scrub to come up and trees and so forth. And now, of course, it's one of the highlights for nightingale.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

It is, yeah, it's probably um the the mesapopulation that it's part of, uh, fingering ho, we think is probably the most uh is probably the biggest mesopulation of nightingale in the UK, possibly more so than Lodge Hill in Kent. Um so it's absolutely brilliant. But you're you're right, Fingerinho in just kind of 60 years has become probably our most biodiverse site. And interestingly, all of the disturbance caused by the quarry and has made it more biodiverse than it was at any point in its natural history, which is a really always a really interesting dynamic. Um but we've got examples, other examples within the trust, like Thameside in Thurrock, which uh 15 years ago was Northwest Europe's largest landfill sites. And uh if anybody had been there, they would remember what it was. Yeah, I mean the you know local people just I mean it was Muckin Marshes was um was the name, and it was um just absolutely heaving heaving with rubbish and uh through some ingenious but fairly simple engineering that that was capped um and covered with topsoil and uh and all of the methane as it's as it's kind of well as as as the waste is degrading, it's being captured uh by by substations and put into the national grid. And uh and that the land above the surface, above the pie crust, uh has become an incredible nature reserve in just 15 years. So in a decade and a half, not six decades like fingering ho, but in a decade and a half, um the the return for wildlife has been incredible. So it's a real symbol of nature's recovery, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Interesting. So we've got different patterns of pace for these things. Fingering hoe over 60 years, um uh Abbotts Hall at the bottom here, 24 years um going from farmland um rather kind of on the edge of things and prone to flooding and so forth, and now into tidal uh martian marshes and saltings and so forth. Um, and then faster in in other places. And well, let's take one more example because we're sitting right by a pond. So talk a little bit about the the pond, the Essex Ponds project, because that is something working with landowners where um actually we're talking on kind of one or two year scales where you can make dramatic changes to biodiversity by doing some little bit of engineering on the farm.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I mean it's again it's a very uh it's it's quite quite a sort of simple thing that you can do create a pond, but it's probably the best possible thing that you could do for biodiversity, you know, with it if you've got a small piece of land. Um so we're doing something called the Essex Ponds, the the Ghost Ponds project. So uh so so if you go back a few hundred years, Essex would have just been a county of ponds, really. You know, because we're we're quite flat and low line, but we're you know, there's there's kind of lot of a very arable, and there would have been lots and lots of natural kind of pits and and um and and and forms, um, and so it would have been a bit of a pond scape, really, Essex. And uh and Darren Tansley, who's one of our fantastic, um uh fantastic colleague, um, he and a team of volunteers have mapped all of the ghost ponds in Essex using very old maps um and uh identified about 30,000 ponds that are no longer with us.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Um except that you might be able to see them as slight impressions of the edges of fields.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Exactly, or with lidar data or anything like that, or from the from the air. Yeah. Uh if you if you if you kind of had some drone footage um of fields, you probably see the ghost ponds like that. So so they're there as kind of shadows in the landscape, and uh what Darren's been trying to do with landowners is to bring them back. And the great thing about ponds is that there is um you can get funding from organisations like FWAG, um, which is the farming and wildlife advisory group, and um and then you can get countryside stewardship uh agreements to to get income for your pond. So you can you can you can make it work financially both in creating the pond and keeping the pond, which is great. Um but um we've been working very closely with the Essex um with the North Essex farm cluster uh to create as many ponds as we can in in North Essex, and there has been you know tens of hundreds of ponds, so that's that's the kind of trajectory that we're on at the moment, and hopefully we'll just build momentum over the years.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

So tell us, I mean you can see the difference we had um in the early part of this year, two months of of you know a lot of rain. The heaviest rain for January and February, probably on record, but I'm not sure of the detail there, but certainly a lot of of rain one month after the other. Um and uh old farm ponds by roads will cause flooding on roads because that's the way the water runs to it. Exactly. And if they has to go somewhere, it has to go somewhere, and if it goes on roads, that's a cost to people, they can see it. Um but if ponds are formed, they're holding the water and then the landscape, which is a change. But then there's a then there's a um a range of biodiversity that comes in quite quickly on the back of that.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Yeah, absolutely. Paint a picture of typically of what happens. Yeah, I mean you've very quickly, I think with we we've we've created some new ponds uh at Abbotts um in the in the last few months, and you you the life comes very, very quickly within hours often, and you know you essentially you'll get insects and then very quickly you'll get um you'll get the bird life come in, and we've had some where we've um I think one of our ponds we've had otters already. So it just it happens very, very quickly over the space of a few weeks or or months. Um so I think it's another great thing that you can do because um you can see that you can see the transformation in front of your eyes, really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

So we talk a lot about rewilding, but this is re-wetting. Re-wetting, yeah, absolutely. It's letting the holding the water in the landscape when it when it does come. Um fantastic. Um so a question that you you've often been asked as chief exec of the trust is how did you come by working in conservation? And it might be a young person saying, Well, how do I get into this? Um if it's somebody in the community, you might say, Well, you know, join the cadre of volunteers, that would be a place to start. Um but if it's a young person looking for a for a way into a career around conservation and wildlife, and there are lots of charities and there are lots of organisations involved in this these days. Um what what's what's your own story behind that?

SPEAKER_00 18:52

So my yeah, so thanks, Jules. My so my own story is um I I when I look back on it, I I I like to think it was purposeful, it was deliberate, but I'm not sure it was really. Um but I think that's the case for everybody, actually. It probably is, yeah. I mean, so I was working and we we we knew each other from from years ago um because I was working in the university sector and worked at the University of Essex for for many years, and uh and absolutely loved it, and then moved to a couple of other universities and uh always enjoyed working in a university because I'm a bit of a sort of Peter Pan student. I just I just want to learn all the time, so it's the perfect environment for me. But I think I'd always as as a as a when I was younger, I'd always wanted to work in conservation. So I'd been part of the Young Ornithologist Club when I was at school, and uh I did a really interesting mix of ailables actually. I did I which now I look back and think actually they're really kind of relevant now, but I did a mix of um business studies, environmental science, English and classics, ancient history. So it's a sort of a bit of a weird mix, but but I got to my mid-30s, I think, early to mid-30s, and I'd I I really felt the pull of of going into conservation. And so what I did was I I focused on trying to move sector first. So I got a job at the time I was the head of marketing and communications at the University of Suffolk, and I essentially got the same job-ish here at the trust. So the first step was was move sector, yeah, move into the environmental sector, and then once I'd got established, the second step was was kind of broader my remit, uh, work on the specialism. So it's kind of sector first, then specialism. And then I started to kind of build build up my understanding of the um of the organisation. And um, and that I think that's been really effective, and I think that I'd probably suggest that as one strategy, because I often get that. Lots of people will come to me and sort of ask um how they how they get into conservation, and they if they see what we're doing in the county and want to be part of that. But as you said, George, I would always say, well, volunteering is the best thing that you can do as well, because it we you you'll you'll be able to test how much you do, you know, you do enjoy it, um, but it's also invaluable experience, and you'll get to understand how organisations work and trusteeships as well. You know, often organisations, particularly conservation organisations, are looking for younger trustees. So if you're you know, if you're a university lever or early career, um actually trying to find a trusteeship, it's not necessarily out of reach at all. Very good. The doors are often very, very much open for young younger people.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yes, that's a really good point. I mean, uh there are options for young people to become kind of ambassadors for organizations and to kind of play a linked role to them, um, but still kind of somewhat, you know, at a distance. Um so maybe, yeah, trustees would bring in a a voice of the public that is often missing. Um, lots of conservation organizations are heavier with older people who've got more time, um, uh, and maybe that's Always going to be the case, but um I mean in terms of kind of volunteers and members and so forth, yeah. Um and uh that that kind of um opportunity to bring in different voices, which I mean you're what you've all focused on a lot is public engagement. I mean, how do you get engagement? How does an organization like the Essex Wildlife Trust or indeed other Wildlife Trusts engage with the public enough that they know that you're here and doing good stuff, and also just down the road here and over there and so far.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Yeah, I mean there's lots lots of I think it's a kind of a it's a it's a sort of a multi-channel strategy in effect that we're we're very fortunate to be a membership organisation, so as well as um as well as being a charity, we are a membership organisation, so we have about 40,000 members who support what we do, which is which is absolutely brilliant, um, and we we wouldn't be able to operate with it without our members. Um so we've already got that base of um supporters and advocates, which is great, and then we have 11 visitor centres in the county as well, which means you know we're we're getting quite large audiences, so we get about 1.2 million visitors a year through our centres. Um so that's another great way of we we see those as gateways to to great wildlife experiences, so they're they're there to give people access to to great, you know, to great nature reserves. Um but then we do lots of citizen science campaigns as well, lots of uh public engagement campaigns. And and probably the big thing, one of our sort of second charitable uh aim is is to educate. So we have lots of education programs, uh almost all of our all of our visitor centres will have um events and activities uh and outdoor-based education at every age and stage of life. So, right from wild babies or nature tots right through to sort of adult classes. Um and we also have lots of nature reserves, we we run programs as well, so it's a really big mix. So um so we try we're very inventive about how we try and engage people. But um, yeah, the the the the most important thing you can do, I think, is to have is to give people great experiences and for them to then go on and be ambassadors for you. So that's what we try and do, the future stewards of the natural world.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

So some of that is through formal educ, some of that is inviting people into the 11 centres and kind of engaging in all sorts of different activities to come in specifically or as part of just coming along with the family to do something for a few hours. Yeah. Um but some of the activities, some of the educational activities is formal woodland school type of activities, uh, forest school type stuff, yeah, where that is something tied into the curriculum, or it's part of a it might not be part of the curriculum, but it's part of the activities of say primary schools and so forth. So how how how do though how do those work? What's what do you see with those?

SPEAKER_00 25:01

So effective. So we tend to do quite a lot of curriculum mapping. So um we we try to make what we do as relevant as possible to both primary schools and secondary schools. So we we we will look at curriculum and we will uh devise um sessions that are outdoor or uh sort of nature-based that that deliver against those um intended outcomes, those learning outcomes. Um and we have some sites which are particularly brilliant at that. So the nays in in uh in Walton is one of the best places in the UK to see, to sort of get it a kind of a cutaway of geological time, really, and and to and to find fossils. Um coming from the eroded cliff. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So you've got the red crag um in at the naze, and and also to engage with things like coastal erosion and sort of very kind of um, you know, some of those big issues that are affecting all all of us, uh, you know, rising sea levels, things like that. Um, but also just absolutely brilliant for um looking for sharks' teeth and uh and whale ribs and uh megalodon teeth and stuff like that. So absolutely brilliant. But yeah, we we will always try and uh make sure that we are mapping against the curriculum as part of what we do. And um we tend to take a mixed mode approach to education as well. So some of what we do is is is forest school, and the the sort of the methodology of that is that it's very much kind of pupil-led, learner-led. So in sort of education terms, it's quite constructivist, you'll let the learner um lead and and discover, and then we also have uh a more kind of traditional delivery type approach, which is just outdoor, outdoor learning, which is much more um just about teaching people about the natural world and trying to you know trying to bring things to their intention and support them in that discovery. So we tend to kind of work with different uh different methodologies, different pedagogies, but the education is is is really important, it's a key part of what we do.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

So it's interesting to look back over the over that kind of period of 60 years for kind of wildlife trust approximately, 110 years plus for you know likes of National Trust, or a bit, you know, a bit longer for RSPB as one of the kind of first organisations in the late 1800s. Whereas, as we were saying earlier, very much a focus on on saving wildlife specific um organisms, birds or mammals, um, as specific habitats that are under threat, expected to kind of be threatened, um, uh and and mobilising around what needs to be done for specifically for wildlife. Whereas over that period of time you see an evolution towards dealing with education priorities, working with farmers, working with planners, working with businesses, other actors in the in the kind of wider social and economic landscape. And seeking to not just to work with them but to have an impact upon them. Yes, you know, and so so the role of of wildlife organizations is to do very much more than wildlife. Yeah, it is, yeah. I mean they're still trying to circle back and to say, well, that has led to more nightingales or turtle doves or whatever the kind of you know cause or concern is. Yeah. Um, but the the the the drawing of the uh sphere of influence is much.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

It is much bigger, yeah. That's really interesting, Jill. So we tend to um we tend to talk about the story of conservation being the story of people. Yeah, okay. Um, and it's um even though we are a science-led organisation, we are not a science organisation, we are very much a people-powered movement, which you know you can see in the volunteers. But uh, wildlife is the why, but the how is entirely people. We can do anything without people, and that means people in every industry. We work very closely with businesses as well, so we have about three and a half, um, three and a half, three, three, and um, three hundred and fifty corporate members as well, who we work very closely with. Um, but we we're all about widening the tent. So um, so essentially, you know, conservation needs the best people rallying around its cause, and that is people from every possible walk of life, every every background, every discipline. Um, I see conservation as inherently interdisciplinary. That's the kind of way that I see it. So, as you say, it means working in partnership with with everyone, really. If you if you if you make it, if you you if you approach things in an adversarial way, um pitting yourself against people, you're you're very unlikely to have much impact. So it's all about working in working in partnership as far as possible. Um so we do that across we do that across the board, and we've got fantastic partners. And I mean Essex is it is a it's a county that does have a lot of development pressures, but um it is a county where there's lots of uh lots of goodwill, lots of collaboration, you know, lots of social capital um at every level. So um yeah, I think I absolutely agree with that. I think it's not we can't just um manage our own reserves and try and protect them. You can't have you can't have a defensive position, you've got to have a proactive position.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Well, let's move on to a few questions uh uh uh about about some thoughts from your side, something you're you're proud of achieving, you know, that um uh against the odds perhaps, but it might be something that you're pleased that that you were involved with in some sort of way. Yeah, it's okay. Pride and identity are quite important, um, and in kind of modern life, very often our kind of pride that we have in particular places that we feel a part of them is undermined and damaged in ways, and people's identity starts to feel fractured in some sort of way. So I'm not against the term, although sometimes people are a bit sniffy about it, but you know, we should feel kind of like, oh, this is something we we've you know, is we're glad that that thing happened.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Absolutely, yeah. And I think as a you know, working in conservation sometimes it can be um it's it's it's endlessly inspiring, but it's also you know, you're you're you're up against it a lot of the time, it's challenging, so you need to feel that pride. That pride fuels, you know, and and actually looking back and seeing things we've achieved in the past is really important to kind of just keep you buoyant sometimes in it in a sort of difficult, difficult time. So um lots of things I'm really proud about. I think that the thing I'm possibly most proud about, um, because it it's it's so much a part of my own ideology, is is that we we continue to make um our nature reserves free at the point of access. So um, you know, we we know that access to the natural world or access, public access in the UK is or in England, sorry, is really limited. I think it's about seven or eight percent, isn't it? And can compare that to Scotland where you know it's access, um it's no access by exception. Um it's a totally different model, and if you know, if we've got about seven or eight percent of Essex that we can access, and we we manage about one percent of that, it's more than ten percent of the accessible land in um in our county, and making that free when so much of it isn't is really important to me. Um and that for me that's what that's what the membership is doing, it's enabling the rest of the county to access these you know critical places. We know that they're health-giving places and that they're so important for sort of mental and physical health.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Um, so for me that's really how what's in a sense, kind of we could look at this also by saying that that you're creating in the in that that kind of transitions to um uh a large number of reserves that people are able to access and visitor centres that they're able to go to. You're creating a new commons, a public realm that plays against um long period of privatization of common resources, um, back to the enclosure movement. I mean, it's not just something that's recent, but it's happened over a long period of time and maybe accelerated recently. But um it's an important role to play creating places, um, and especially if they can then become large scale. I mean, the Rothbury estate in Northumberland that the Wildlife Trusts are also currently raising resources for, that will be acres of that. 9,000 acres. So that will go from being literally private and exclusionary to becoming public. Yeah. I mean, let's kind of also say there are places that the low numbers of people would be really helpful, and sometimes no people would be helpful to look after um uh vulnerable habitats or to make sure that people aren't trampling ground nesting birds and so forth. But yeah, setting that little bit aside, the general principle is one of we need to do stuff to allow all people to come.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Exactly, yeah. Yeah, and I I don't definitely see it in the in those terms as I think it is it is parts of a of a of of the of the of the new commons. Um and you know for for me, I think most of the people that work in in the trust would say that um that nature is a human right. Yeah, and I think that's the sort of fundamental point, really. We we we should all have access to nature for free. Um and so uh and it's it and it it's not always easy to do that, you know, managing land well is not cheap, um, and it's it's a very it's a very involved process, and uh, you know, we we need our 2,000 volunteers, but um, but the the result is that we are giving um the people of Essex um yeah access to nature so that that is really important to me. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Yeah, um uh a hero or a heroine, um somebody that you look up to, somebody who may have had kind of significant influence in the past, um, or it might be somebody that you look at from a distance. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Um how many can I choose? Those many. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Two of them can be. Can I do a couple of things? Can I do a couple? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Well, so one of them I was gonna I think so. This bench is from Colchester Institute, and um we have a partnership with Colchester Institute, and uh and one of my heroes that I that I that I know is is Gary Horn. And Gary is the deputy chief executive of Colchester Institute, and he is I mean, Gary is brilliant. You I you'd struggle to meet anyone that wouldn't say, Oh, Gary's amazing. Um, but he um he he absolutely wants uh Colchester Institute to be a premium provider of education, yeah. He's absolutely focused on them being the best they can possibly be. Um, and I should say they're a multi-campus organisation, multi-campus college. So they also have Braintree College, which is the college I went to because I went to um Alec Hunter High School in Braintree and then went to Brainetry College. But um, but Gary is absolutely focused on that, but he's got such a clear vision for how the institute need to be, should be, need to be a leader in sustainability. He sees all future jobs as green jobs, which is such a great, you know, such a great lens to look at everything through. They've got uh a biodiversity plan and environmental strategy, they they manage hiddy fields, um that every single member of staff is working on a sustainability project. They've just, you know, that they are completely redoing their supply chain. Um, and uh this bench was one of the sort of many things they've done for us um over over the last um year or so. They've they delivered these, they were made by students, they've got our insignia on them, um, and they just delivered them a few days ago. It's very comfortable, isn't it? It's a great bench, yeah, exactly. Very sturdy, very sturdy, definitely. Yeah, so uh so I think Gary Horn is one of those, and um and I I really another person I'd probably want to give a shout out to is um is actually Joanne Ui from EA Sustain. So I know that you know Joanne as well, Jules. And um Joanne has um yeah, she's sometimes kind of um considered to be the unofficial mayor of culture in East Anglia, and um I was at EA Sustain at the weekend and did a sort of book talk with uh with an author, Harriet Ricks, and um and Joanne is just such a force, force of nature, and such a force for nature. She's just brilliant at convening people. She's introduced me to lots of unlikely people that we've formed really good organisational partnerships with. So um I I love the way that she just has taken it upon herself to to assume that role and and to make things happen in East Anglia. So I really, you know, I really kind of admire her, really. Lovely.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Um uh I asked the guests to bring an object if they have an object. Um yes, yeah, if they dig in your pocket for your object.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

I do, yeah. So it's it's it's that. Yeah, it is uh so it's a plectrum. It's a pletrum, it's a plexum, yeah. So I think um I was uh one of the things that I I love the plectrum. I mean I'm a really keen guitarist, and outside of work my main passion is probably music and and making music and I'm I'm in a band. Um and uh yeah, but I I've always I've played the guitar since I was a teenager, always had a plectrum in my pocket, and I love the fact that they they're kind of heart-shaped, which is kind of nice, isn't it? So they're always lying around the house, these kind of heart-shaped um things, and I I just fidget I'm a terrible fidget, I'm an investor at fidget, and I just do that all the time. So it's one of those things that kind of keeps me calm. It's like a fidget spinner in my pocket, but it's also a symbol of everything I love. You know, music is really important to me.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

So and it literally produces the music. It produces the music, exactly, exactly. Fantastic. Um, a book or cultural item that you want to recommend?

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Yeah, I I think um I mean there's so many because I'm a um very keen reader, but I think in the context of sort of talking about uh sort of nature's recovery and and climate and and um some of some of those challenges that I face in my professional job, I would probably choose donut economics from uh the Kate Ray work. Um because um it just it it draws to attention um the the the the fact that so much of the so many of the problems that we that we see in terms of sort of climate and and uh biodiversity loss are because of the economic system that we're operating within. And um and it's one of those things I think the economy is it's uh it's too big to see. And actually, you you need somebody to kind of help you behind the curtain to say this is what's going on. It feels normal, but it's not, and it feels inevitable, but actually there's lots of different ways of doing it, and I and I think um I'm I'm really I'm excited to see uh increasingly talk about um the the the limitations of neoliberal capitalism. Um and um and I think her her book is I would recommend it to anyone who's kind of coming into conservation because it will help you to see where the pitfalls are and what nature isn't actually really part of the current economic model, it's it sort of sits outside of that. But also it just helps you to think about systems, you know, the you know, the conservation is is and and and our day-to-day life in the UK is is dominated by the systems that we are part of, and one of those is the food system as well, but the economy is the sort of the really big one.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

So um probably very good, very good choice. Yeah, it kind of points towards the systemic problems, the structural problems that we don't have to take for granted, but but many would like everyone to take them for granted, but they're not delivering, yeah. So that's why there's a lot of anguish and conflict because they're not delivering. Um so that kind of points a way forward. Um before we get to the final question, uh tell us the story about uh about the importance of wildlife to the the members of the organization here, your first day when you come. Yeah, we're looking beyond the camera at the back of Abbotts Hall, uh the headquarters of the trust. Um and so actually the importance of wildlife to people.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Yeah, of course, yeah. So so so behind behind the camera is the is is the building, is is Abbotts Hall, uh, and it's a wonderful, it's a wonderful place to work, but on my first day, and it was it was it was in April, so it wasn't um no, it wasn't, so it was a bit it was a bit um a bit later on, but it was a day very much like this. Uh I was busy doing some work with uh with some colleagues in in one of the rooms upstairs, and we've got a tanoy system, and over the tanoy somebody just said white letter hair streak in the garden. And I'd never seen anything like it. Everyone just stopped working, didn't matter what they were doing, and everyone just emptied the house and went out into the garden over to there, the the sort of the hedgerow around the back there, um, where somebody had seen the first white letter hair streak, which is a butterfly, uh the first one for 25 years at Abbot's, and that that was you know that was the priority. Fantastic. Everything else just stopped, and for for 15-20 minutes, everyone was just looking in the bramble was up there. So I kind of I just got back to my desk and thought um this is this is a different type of organisation to one that I've been part of in the past.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

A fire alarm, but a butterfly alarm. Yeah, a butterfly alarm. Building OTs for a butterfly. I think that's a brilliant story. It's brilliant, yeah. Let's finish with a recommendation. What would you say for viewers and listeners? One thing that they can do. Um there are lots of things they can do.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

If I if I'm permitted, I would say become a member of Essex Wildlife Trust. Um, or another trust, yeah, any any of the wildlife trusts. I think um, you know, you you will be supporting access to nature, uh, you'll be supporting nature's recovery, um, supporting so many great um projects that uh that we do that kind of focus on on protecting really important Essex species like the nightingale and and turtle dove and uh water voles and and uh other species. Um but also by being a member you you are then drip-fed all of these great ideas and inspiration, and um and it means that you get to um you know I I think I think we we help you to find ways that you can make a difference, yeah, both as an individual and collectively as part of the trust. So that would be my strong recommendation. Become a member, yeah. Yeah, very good, excellent.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Well, Rich, Rich H thanks very much indeed, Chief Executive of Essex Wildlife Trust. Uh lovely sitting here in the sun and having a review of the trust. and uh a real pleasure to have you on. Thank you. Thank you, George.