Kate has done something quite wonderful. She has written a lovely book about her garden and how she has worked with it to share her space with nature ... which is at the same time a furious critique of the failings of governments and corporations to take the threat to our shared world seriously. Please - read it.
'If you ever doubted that you can help change the world, READ THIS BOOK.' CAROLINE LUCAS
'The greatest existential crisis we face distilled into the crucible of a tiny piece of paradise.' CHRIS PACKHAM
Five years after writing her first nature memoir, The Bumblebee Flies Anyway, Kate Bradbury has a new garden.
It's busy: home to all sorts of wildlife, from red mason bees and bumblebees to house sparrows, hedgehogs and dragonflies. It seems the entire frog population of Brighton and Hove breeds in her small pond each spring, and now there are toads here, too. On summer evenings, Kate…
This is a short book - I say that at the start as the topic could be daunting - and would have been had it not been presented in such a brilliantly distilled way. The book is vitally important - giving a deep critique of the overarching economic and social systems that have brought us to where we are now. It is impossible to challenge the wrongs of the world if we are to just focus on the fluff - we need to head deep into the heart of it, navigating the distractions of culture wars and lies. Then we can be equipped to start to turn things around.
'Explosive and beautifully told ... these truths can set us free' - Danny Dorling
'This book is dynamite - shining a spotlight on the evils of neoliberalism, shattering the myth that 'there is no alternative', and laying the foundations for a new politics' - Caroline Lucas
How can you fight something if you don't know it exists?
We live under an ideology that preys on every aspect of our lives: our education and our jobs; our healthcare and our leisure; our relationships and our mental wellbeing; the planet we inhabit - the very air we…
I do not normally devour books of poetry - I tend towards dipping in and out of them. But this work - well, I have been a fan of Katrina's for years - this is just stunning. Ideas cover time, deep time - and her deep connections to the place - her place in Northumberland on the north east coast of England. You do not need to know her home to become utterly absorbed in the stories she tells.
330 million years ago what is now the rocky shore close to Katrina Porteous's Northumberland home was a tropical swamp inhabited by three-metre long predatory fish with huge tusk-like teeth. They belonged to a family of lobe-finned fishes which evolved to move on land as well as swim, and which are the ancestors of all four-limbed vertebrates, including humans. The fossil fish found in Northumberland is called the 'rhizodont'.
Porteous's new collection begins with a lovingly-observed contemporary journey through these ancient landscapes, from the former coal-mining communities of the Durham coast, where the coal-bearing Carboniferous strata are overlain with younger…
LONGLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR WRITING ON CONSERVATION
Investigating the ethical and practical challenges of one of the greatest threats to biodiversity: invasive species.
Across the world, invasive species pose a danger to ecosystems. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity ranks them as a major threat to biodiversity on par with habitat loss, climate change and pollution.
Tackling this isn't easy, and no one knows this better than Hugh Warwick, a conservationist who loathes the idea of killing, harming or even eating animals. Yet as an ecologist, he is acutely aware of the need, at times, to kill invasive species whose presence harms the wider environment.
Hugh explores the complex history of species control, revealing the global movement of species and the impacts of their presence. Combining scientific theory with gentle humour in his signature style, he explains the issues conservationists face to control non-native animals and protect native species - including grey and red squirrels on Anglesey, ravens and tortoises in the Mojave Desert, cane toads in Australia and the smooth-billed ani on the Galapagos - and describes cases like Pablo Escobar's cocaine hippos and the Burmese python pet trade.
Taking a balanced and open approach to this emotive subject, Hugh speaks to experts on all sides of the debate. How do we protect endangered native species? Which species do we prioritise? And how do we reckon with the ethics of killing anything in the name of conservation?
