Farming, Ecology and Lanscape Recovery in the Brecklands of eastern England Talk
The Farmer-Ecologist Research Circle, a partnership of local Hudson Valley ecologists and farmers supported by the Hudson Valley Farm Hub and Hawthorne Valley’s Farmscape Ecology Program, has organized a free talk at Bard College titled: Farming, Ecology and Landscape Recovery in the Brecklands of Eastern England. The event is hosted by the Bard Center for Environmental Policy.
Richard Evans, co-founder and lead farmer in the Breckland Farmers Wildlife Network, will describe his experiences and motivations to protect and enhance the biodiversity of the Brecks, (a geographical region in eastern England). He’ll also share about his efforts to help shape future policy to benefit this area, and consider its current balance of food production and ecology. Chris Sharpe, an ornithologist who has helped gather avian data in the same region, will provide an ecologist’s view of the interaction of bird life and agriculture in that landscape.
East Anglia, England—and Breckland in particular—is one of the most intensively managed regions of the UK for food production. Its landscape and environment are consequently highly modified. Although these changes have often reduced biodiversity, some historical human practices have created the very environments upon which now scarce, often threatened, local species depend. The last few decades have seen significant efforts to document and understand the region’s biodiversity with a view toward restoring nature on both agricultural and non-productive land. A growing number of contemporary farmers have enthusiastically adopted nature-friendly management practices.
Evans and Sharpe will recount more than two decades of farming and wildlife interactions in the Brecklands and share lessons that they hope will shed light on how to organize a community around the values of conservation, both in England and beyond.
“Many of us here in the Hudson Valley are working to find our own balance between the need for our farms to succeed as profitable enterprises that feed our community, and as places that shelter and nurture native wildlife,” said Will Yandik, a member of the Farmer-Ecologist Research Circle. “I think our visitors from England will provide us the opportunity to evaluate our own lands with a fresh perspective.”
The talk is free and all are invited. It will be recorded and made available at research-circle.org.
The Farmer-Ecologist Research Circle is an initiative of the Hudson Valley Farm Hub and Hawthorne Valley’s Farmscape Ecology Program for both farmers and ecologists who are interested in supporting biodiversity in a variety of ways across the farm landscape. If you are a farmer involved in producing crops and crop planning, or an ecologist who works on farms, please consider joining us as we create a community centered on biodiversity conservation in the region. You can find more information and get in touch with us or by visiting the Farmer-Ecologist Research Circle.
