Heat! Camera! Action!
The planet’s losing.
We’re in a hole. Climate, nature and social inequality crises. Story with a swerve gets us out. It’s the shape of all our lives. Up-down, down-up. And this shape of slantwise story, it creates hope and agency.
In this podcast, we hear from culture leaders and wanderers, the crossers of boundaries, the story-tellers. They share their ideas on how we get out of holes. Good story is not just a hiding place. It’s a finding place.
The podcast vibe is the warm-dark daguerreotype photograph, invented at the start of the industrialised era, before human-induced carbon pollution of the atmosphere.
My guests are writers and poets, artists and scientists, environmental and business leaders, farmers and landowners, local and national activists, festival directors, therapists, religious leaders. All are storytellers too.
The music clips at the start and end of episodes were recorded at public dances in Punakha and Thimphu (Bhutan).
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."
Heat! Camera! Action!
20 Simon Lyster on the Local Nature Recovery Strategy and bringing joy to conservation
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In his farmhouse kitchen in central Essex, Simon Lyster chats about local nature recovery. He is Chair of the Essex Local Nature Partnership that comprises 40 organisations. Like all counties there is now an obligation to produce a statutory Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS). This is a spatial map of the whole county, where the aim is to protect and conserve 30% of the land and sea are by 2030 (30 by 30). It’s about making nature “bigger, better, and more connected.”
Over several decades, we have lost bio-abundance. We can recall the moth snowstorms driving at night. Now they are gone. Simon tells of personal stories of being in a hole, and getting out.
Simon recommends The Moth Snowstorm by Mike McCarthy.
He says on action: “Bring joy. We need to talk more of joy.”
“If you’ve got a bit of garden, let it go wild. Make a little pond. If you don’t, then plant a window box for insects.”
Local Nature Recovery Strategy: https://www.essex.gov.uk/about-council/plans-and-strategies/environment-and-planning/local-nature-recovery-strategy
https://essexnaturepartnership.com/lnrs/
My new book will be supporting this podcast, and will be published in March 2027 by Unbreaking/5m. It’s called "Bamboo and Butterfly: Transformation and Story for Climate and Nature Recovery."
Welcome to Heat Cameron. Todd about change for climate and nature recovery. Well, a great pleasure to welcome Simon Lister to the podcast today. Simon, welcome. Here we are in your kitchen in the house that you were born in. We're going to talk about nature recovery. So tell us a bit about yourself and your background.
SPEAKER_00Gosh, Jules, well, I've always been passionate about nature, largely through growing up here, which is a farm on the edge of Hattieville Reservoir. And my dad was a tenant farmer. And I grew up with snakes in my pockets, and you know, as one of those horrible children who used to enjoy teasing my sister's friends when they came around by producing a grass snake from behind my back and scaring her and all the rest of it. And it was here that I suppose I developed my passion for nature. And you know, as you know, I've you know worked in nature conservation most of my life, but we lived all over the place. You know, my wife's Brazilian, we've lived in Brazil, but we came back here about 15 years ago now. And being back in Essex and trying to focus on what's going on in terms of Essex nature, having spent a lot of my life worrying about global conservation, is just a joy. And so, you know, I'm at a very sort of happy stage of my life doing what I like to do, and also for the first time in my life, I think we've got a real opportunity to have more nature in five years' time than we've got now, and I hope we can talk a bit about that and why.
SPEAKER_01So we're in a bit of a hole when it comes to climate and nature, and it feels like anxious, difficult times for lots of people. But we are going to be talking about a thing called a strategy, which is actually a path, a route towards this kind of nature recovery. So, could you say a little bit about how these things called local nature recovery strategies have come about? There are not that many across the country, but there will be 48.
SPEAKER_00No, that's that's right, and Essex is one of the first. I mean, there was a thing called the in 2021, there was a new Environment Act that was passed, and that requires every county to come up with a local nature recovery strategy to show how can there be more nature in the future than there is now. And Essex was one of the first to do so, and I chair the Essex Local Nature Partnership, which brought together different sectors to help produce this strategy, which uh here it is right now. Whoops, uh, this Essex Local Nature Recovery Strategy, which of which I am quite proud, because, as I you know, said um this was not just a bunch of greenies producing this. You know, we had the chair of the Essex Developers Forum representing the House Builders was on our board who signed off on this. We've had the chair of the Essex Planning Officers Association who was on our board signing up to this. We've had a whole lot of uh local community groups that have been represented here, had farmers uh part of this. So the whole idea was to try and bring every relevant sector together to come up with something that's actually going to work. And um, for the first time ever in this strategy, we've got a map that clearly sets out where the highest priorities for nature recovery are. And of course, as we all know, to have more nature, you know, so much of it is these little isolated pockets here and there, and we've got to have more nature so that it's bigger and more connected, um, and that's what this strategy is all about. But as you rightly say, you know, what's you know, it's just a strategy, and uh, and hopefully in a minute we'll we'll share a bit about why we I think for the first time ever actually this strategy's got a good chance of working.
SPEAKER_01Amazing. Um, and the the the idea of the strategy of bringing together lots of people, there's a central theme about bigger, better, more connected. Just just explain a little bit about the thinking behind that.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Well, there was a Professor Lawton who used to be Told me, yes, yeah. Who came up with the Lawton principles as they're called about sort of uh must be 10 or 15 years ago now, and and essentially said exactly that as I was saying, you know, that too much of nature is in in the UK is these little isolated spots that are great, but they're very vulnerable because they're so small, and that if you want nature recovery, we need to have these good spots for nature more connected, joined up. So they need to be bigger, they need to be better in terms of better managed, and more most importantly of all, I think they need to be better connected. So you've got these green lungs going through the county of Essex, and that's what's at the heart of this strategy to get more connectivity and to make uh nature areas uh better. And indeed, in this map, about 15% of the county is in pretty good shape now. Um, we've got on this map about another 30% of the county, which has been defined as the highest priorities for nature recovery. And even if we don't get all 30% and can double the amount of area being managed for nature in Essex within five years, and I think we'll come onto this, we've got a good chance of doing so. Uh, you know, that will make a significant difference.
SPEAKER_01Uh people will live closer to green spaces, to biodiversity-rich areas, to nature recovery areas, so they'll be more accessible. The nature itself will bounce off each other, being able to be part of larger systems rather than small broken-up ones.
SPEAKER_00That's absolutely right, but you make a really good point there about access. You know, nature is so important to people's health and well-being. I think we saw that in the in the in the COVID pandemic. Um, but it's not only important for its own stage, it's say it's really important to our our lives and livelihoods. And um there's also a you know a new sort of tool that's coming, which is why I'm quite optimistic about the future. But essentially, it says that we need development, we all know that. You know, Essex needs more housing, we know that. Um, but we also need more nature, and and the this this tool is known as biodiversity net gain, and that essentially means that from now on, again, this comes out of the 2021 Environment Act, you know, if you're gonna produce more housing, then you've got to come up with a plan for how actually nature's gonna benefit, and there's gonna be at least 10% more nature as a result of that development from what's been lost. And and the theory behind that is that we need these developments, but we we need a nicer and more nature for people to be to enjoy living in, to have access to, because it is essential for our our health and well-being.
SPEAKER_01Uh and that BNG, the biodiversity net gain, is in law, it's uh as of this time. Um it will be channeling resource to farmers and other landowners to help.
SPEAKER_00That is, I mean, you can do biodiversity net gain in in two ways. I mean, you can do it within the scope of the development. So if you're gonna have a housing development, you can have some flower meadows, wildflower meadows, you can have some ponds, you can have you can have create a bit of woodland, you can do it within the scope of the development if you want, but often there isn't going to be space for that. So the law allows you to make a deal with a neighbouring landowner to um deliver your biodiversity net gain in the vicinity but and in an area that you can have access to and enjoy, um, but isn't actually on the scope of the development, and that's really important because you know the key to nature recovery is in many ways what happens on farmland, because in Essex we're still nearly between 60 and 70 percent of Essex is still farmland, and it's that's where the nature has been lost because of intensive farming that's that's you know we all know about has happened over the last 60-70 years. Um but if we can start farming in a more nature-friendly way, and if farmers have more incentive to have wildlife habitat on their land, then that changes the whole mindset, and and then that's where the real sort of opportunity is to make a difference. Um, and if I'm allowed to go on just a little bit, I mean biodiversity net gain is one of the incentives that farmers and landowners now have to provide uh more enhanced natural habitats on their land, but also there are government schemes out there as well. Um, and what used to be the old subsidy system that would subsidize intensive farming has been switched, um, and now those support schemes for farmers are almost entirely to farm in a more environmentally friendly way or to leave a little more space for nature in those corners of their fields that are less good for production but could be great for nature. And we're already, because of this change in incentives for farmers, we're already seeing some changes uh, in fact, significant changes happening in Essex everywhere. Uh, not in every farm, but but in the great majority, we are starting to see some change now, and that's why you know the change in a way for the positive is already happening, and um, and you know, there's every prospect of that continuing. Fantastic.
SPEAKER_01Well, when the looking forward, well we'd hope to have this conversation in two or three, five years' time and look back and say, this is what's been achieved. So, looking forward, a lot of the pieces are in place to get quite significant change, but there are going to be some challenges, there are going to be some difficulties. Um, people find it difficult to change practices. Um, you you're sitting with 40 different organizations on the local nature partnership and sharing them. What's it like bringing those different interests to a effectively a single table? Um everyone's we want we want almost all of them to be pulling in a similar kind of direction.
SPEAKER_00I would say that hasn't been the that that's been the easy bit. I was I've been amazed. I mean, I confess, you know, I I was very surprised how the developers, for example, they want a nice natural environment to live in as well as new housing. They've been incredibly supportive. The planners have been very supportive. And, you know, the chair of the Essex Planning Officers Association assures me that Essex planners will do their very best to avoid these areas that have been identified as priorities for nature recovery when it comes to development. Um that's a signal that goes to the developers as well, isn't it? Absolutely. Don't put in a case for planner unless it's in that bit of the map that's that's not in a priority area for nature recovery. Absolutely. So I think bringing the different sectors on board and farmers are you know are very keen to farm in a more nature-friendly way. So that has been the easy bit, but there are challenges. No, I think the real challenges come from government and some of the incentives and politics, if I can, to find in a wide in a wider way. Um, you know, we've had, for example, cross-party support for this local nature recovery effort and the local nature recovery strategies. Um, but there is a risk uh now with some of the new sort of political parties coming on the agenda, and I think all parties are starting to row back a bit from environmental commitments, and that worries me. That's a worry, doesn't it? Um I think that as we all know, the government is stretched for money, and so the budgets that are available now for farmers to farm in a more nature-friendly way, are they going to stay quite as as much? The answer is they probably are gonna stay, but the budgets will probably be reduced, which is which is a little bit of a worry. And then there are some other sort of annoying things. I mean, the the the the 2021 Environment Act uh came up with this this requirement for 10% biodiversity net gain. Great. But people like me always want more, don't we? And and 10% is is good, but you know, if it was 20%, it'd be even better. And the law allowed local planning authorities to require a higher percentage of biodiversity net gain if they wish to do so. And we actually did some work in Essex and did got some consultants to come in. And although it's quite expensive getting to the 10%, you've got to do it, that's the law, and everybody accepts you know, we need development, we need nature. Um, but going to the extra 20% costs almost nothing extra. And um, these consultants did a study and concluded that more or less the the the extra cost of the developer of going from uh 10% BNG to 20% was about £100 a dwelling. Now, in exactly, I mean that is not a significant figure in the grander scheme of things in terms of financial viability of new development. And Uttelsford, one of our districts in Essex, said, okay, we're going to require 20%. And that is now in their local plan, passed, got through the planning inspector last summer. Great. Government comes along, says they've just issued this consultation saying we're thinking of forbidding anybody to go beyond 10%. And I'm going, oh that's digging the hole again, isn't it? It is. So just when you think you're doing well, there's you know, there's something that comes along that makes you go, oh my goodness, you know, so it's two steps forward, one step back.
SPEAKER_01Well that's all that kind of that theme a little bit, if I could just jump in. The the we make a bit of progress, but it's difficult. You know, there's not a straight line, the nature recovery, the climate recovery work that we're all thinking about. There got to be setbacks and vulnerabilities as we make that process. So jump topic now and tell me a little bit about an example, a quick example of one where you've come across uh in in your nature conservation um experience where there looks like everyone's fallen in the hole and then there's a way to get out of it. Because this is the real experience. So I'm making change.
SPEAKER_00I spend my life in holes just when I think we're making progress and something comes along, you know, which which sort of uh makes you think, oh my goodness, you know, and you've then got to work to how you get yourself out of that hole. And and it's true, I've just uh you know, I I do still do some international conservation. I chair an organization called Conservation International, which is global, but I chaired the UK bit of it. And um I I won't give you names and and and and even maps the name of the country, but but somewhere in the southern half of Africa, um, I uh was told about a very exciting nature recovery project over a vast area of land that was trying to link up two big protected areas, and um, and then I was told that the people involved in this had got themselves in a little bit of a financial muddle. And I was asked, do you know an investor who might come in and help? And amazingly, I made one call and it worked. I mean, these things don't often work, but uh you know, I felt all pleased with myself because you know the investors come in, they're now able to you know go forward with, or at least I thought they were gonna be able to go forward with all their grand plans, and then about six months later, the investor and the original owners of this place fell out, and of course they both blame me. You brought them together, you brought them together, and then they fell out. Um in the whole looking up, so I think, oh my goodness, what do I do now? But essentially I spoke to both of them because they both sort of thought, you know, got very suspicious of the other and they suspected their motives. They thought one was interested in money and one was just not very good at doing stuff, and and and I said, come on guys, I didn't do this together, I did it with each one. I know the other one, they have absolutely the same vision for nature as you do, um, and you've got to find a way of making this work, and um and by sort of saying you've you've just got to make this work, and I promise you, because I know each of them, you know, that you're both really good people and you're very aligned with your visions because I know you both, and um, and I think you can make this work, give it one more try. And miraculously, they're now friends, and it's all I think it's all come together again.
SPEAKER_01This is a lovely story because it is a story. I mean, you've got you've got to find you've got an impasse in you know individual relationships or institutions or whatever it is, um, and then you need somebody to come along and talk differently to the people in the system and find a way. We're not going to solve nature or climate crisis without collective action, without working together.
SPEAKER_00So that's that is the key. You are right. I mean, you know, as an ecologist, you think it's all about ecology and nature and how can we make it better. Actually, it's all about people. Um, you know, you have to bring people with you, and you have to listen to people and you know, listen to their complaints, even if you think, come on, you know, it's real to them, and you've got to find a way through that. So you have to bring people with you. And one of the reasons why, you know, I'm A, excited we've got this strategy, which I think is a very good one, but B, why I think it's gonna work, is that we have got all the relevant people, more or less behind us, but you can bet your bottom dollar that those challenges that you talked about that will come up will be around people. Some new political person will come in and start saying, Well, what's all this? I want to change it. That's gonna be our threat. Um, and we're always gonna have to be alive to that. You know, people aren't easy to deal with.
SPEAKER_01So let's bring this together a little bit and say we've got four questions to finish the pod. First of all, um, a hero of yours, um, who would you hero or heroine?
SPEAKER_00Well, I do know I've thought about this, and you know, I you know, and I nearly chose David Attenborough because he is a hero. Hundreds. Um and a hundred in May, yeah, exactly, incredible. Um, and it's amazing what he's done. But you know, my real hero was my dad. My dad was a tenant farmer, we didn't own anything here, and um, and he farmed for his uncle, but he was passionate about birds. And even before the word ecology existed, I'm very old, you know, so we're going back to the sort of mid to late 60s here. Um, I remember my father, A, sort of getting me enthusiastic about wildlife, um, and B, him telling me one day when he was bemoaning the fact that some of the birds he was interested in, like redback shripes, which were nesting at the top of the lane here, um, when he first came here in about 1950. Gone. He he has a little book that he kept of things that he saw. Says, flushed a family of corncrakes making hay today in 1955. Now, no corncrake has been in Essex for 60 years. Um, and he, you know, there was lots of things that were getting less. And I remember him coming home one day and saying, Oh, I don't know how many yellow wagtail nests I destroyed today making silage or whatever he was doing. So he was very aware of what was going on, and he said to me, even then, it's us farmers, we're the problem. And that has stuck with me ever since. Very right. Because it is true, it's also true that farmers are part of the solution, and if we can get more regenerative, sustainable farming going, which is happening thanks to these incentives I was talking about earlier, and it and Essex is very much playing a leading role, or Essex farmers are in showing you can have food and have nature, it can be done. Um, and they're doing it. Uh, as I say, not every farmer yet, we still have a lot of work to do, but we're definitely going the right direction. But my dad was the one who inspired me to sort of do what I do, and so I think of him every day. Um, a book that you recommend. Well, what are you going to recommend? It's got to be this book here. Um, it's it's called The Moth Snowstorm, it's by Mike McCarthy, who is a wonderful writer and used to be an environmental journalist. And it's called The Moth Snowstorm, because I think probably many of us of our age, not maybe a younger audience, can remember those days in the end of the summer when you were driving along a country lane and your windscreen was just covered in moths. And and the Moth Snowstorm, which is the title of this bit, is all about that and showing that not just have we lost sort of biodiversity, but we've lost bioabundance. And um, and it's a lovely book, but it emphasizes the importance of, as I said, yeah, not just having biodiversity, but trying to have more, more abundance, particularly that abundance of insects that that would have occurred a hundred years ago or even less, and that we need to try and get back if we possibly can.
SPEAKER_01It does strike me that abundance is a really critical term, as a principle that we can be thinking about now, uh, bringing this into the conversations about nature recovery. Um, it's the small bits, isn't it, in ecosystems. That's what Mike McCarthy is saying with uh with the insects. If you destroy the small bits, the bigger things are gonna go. It's all gonna go.
SPEAKER_00And it's also it's also got rather a nice subtitle. It says Nature and Joy. And he talks a lot about the joy of nature and how being in a natural environment, you know, it goes back to how important nature is for our health and well-being. It it brings, it certainly brings me great joy, and I think it brings lots of people great joy. And you know, I feel that for those who are younger and less exposed to nature these days, you know, there's so many mental health issues that we need to, and probably not too much joy, that if we could somehow through nature being bring joy back to people, especially young people, you know, that would be a fantastic thing to do.
SPEAKER_01I completely agree with you, exactly. Um, uh a recent creation of yours, I guess it would be the local nature recovery strategy. Yes, I'm not gonna, this is not just me.
SPEAKER_00I'm not a whole team of people involved. You chaired the local nature recovery. But I chaired the local partnership which sort of helped guide the production of this. And um, so yeah, I mean it it is, yeah. I am very happy about it.
SPEAKER_01There will be 48 across the country. There will be mostly in single counties, but some combinations of smaller ones. Yes. When that's all joined up, I mean that it really is bigger, better, and more connected nationally.
SPEAKER_00No, it is, and and and and natural England, which have sort of been very much involved in this, you know, talk about their national nature network, and and that is what this is going to be a part of. Because a little just as we need it bigger, better, and more connected in Essex, we need it bigger and better and more connected in the country as a whole. So the fact that all countries are doing these, even if we were a bit of a front runner, um, you know, is is really important.
SPEAKER_01Uh, one key action. What do you recommend to our viewers and listeners that should that people can do, not something that's kind of out of range, but something they can do, perhaps in their garden.
SPEAKER_00Well, I was gonna say, I mean, there are there are lots of things that that that people can do, and you have to work out something that works for you. But if I had one message, I would say that if you've got a little bit of a garden, then if you could just let a bit of that garden go wild, just let it alone. And it doesn't matter if it's one square metre, excuse me, or ten square metres, you know, just let it grow wild. And if you can make a little pond, even if it's one square meter, uh water is incredibly attractive for nature and helps nature. That's what I would do. And if you don't have a garden, then if you've got a window box or something like that, if you can put some lavender in it or a budlio or something that is going to attract insects and bees, that again is something tangible, physical, that hopefully most people can do either through their garden or a window box, you will be helping nature. Of course, there's a lot you can do as well, but that's my starting point. Fabio.
SPEAKER_01Thank you very much indeed. Uh Simon, let's do it. Real pleasure to have you on the year.