The Ancient Crop Providing Hope to Islanders and Humanity - Inkcap Journal

“Locked away in bere is a genetic richness that provides some answers about how we might live in balance with the world.”

Bere barley may be the oldest variety of barley in Europe, cultivated in Britain since at least the Bronze Age. While it has been pushed out by modern cultivars in most places, it still thrives in the Outer Hebrides, adapted to its poor soils and wild weather. Now a combination of traditional crofting practice and cutting-edge science suggests it may also hold a clue as to how we navigate the future.

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Published in Inkcap Journal, February 2024

Photo: Sophie Gerrard

https://www.sophiegerrard.com/

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All At Sea - Sunday Times

“It was the best job in the world. The things you’ll see in the early hours of the morning - it’s beautiful”

Working with the photographer Colin McPherson, who has been documenting the last of the wild salmon netsmen of Scotland for three decades, we travelled the country to see how these men have survived since the fishing moratorium of 2015. Once an industry that built many coastal communities, we found a story of lost culture and lost fish, and a strange, uncertain future.

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Published in The Sunday Times, January 2022

Photo: Colin McPherson

https://www.colinmcpherson.com/

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Six Kilometres - Granta

“White beach blue sea white village blue sky. One half of a Greek flag. A single orange life jacket, washed up on the tideline.”

The Greek Island of Lesvos lies more than 100km from mainland Greece, but just 6km from Turkey. The stretch of water that separates these two countries is one of the most dangerous on earth. Each year, thousands of migrants risk their lives making the crossing, migrants who will ultimately find themselves detained on the island for years. Yet only a hundred years ago, the island was under Ottoman rule, and there are the remains of mosques and minarets across the island. Living on Lesbos for almost a year, I explored the island's history, and how blurred borders can be.

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Published in Granta, November 2019

Why Big Banks Are Accused of Funding the Climate Crisis - Huffington Post

“We’re pushing back against that desire of corporations to put profit above all else. We are asking them to put people and planet above profit.”

This autumn, climate strikes swept across the globe, inspired by the school strikes led by Greta Thunberg. Increasingly, activists are uniting under the cause of following the money, looking at who is funding the climate crisis. This is going beyond divestment, and aiming to directly target the corporations, banks and insurance companies who are enabling fossil fuel development. By speaking to those on the frontline, this piece asks, if you stop the money, can you also stop emissions?

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Published in the Huffington Post, September 2019

Picture credit: 350 Seattle

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Ex-cons for Conservation - DW

"These villagers are just eating the leftovers from the table. Those people who are above, in power, they are the ones who did this."

The Mulanje Cedar is Malawi's national tree, and it is practically extinct. Endemic to the Mulanje Massif, just 7 mature trees remain on the mountain. Last summer I spent several weeks on Mulanje with a group of ex-prisoners devising a play about the cedar. Neither government nor NGOs have been able to prevent the destruction of this most beautiful of trees. Touring their play around the country they aimed to provoke discussion about how to save the cedar, in one last attempt to make a difference before it is too late.

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Published in DW, April 2019

The expedition and performance were supported by a grant from the National Geographic Society.

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Europe by Train with Young Kids - The i Paper

“A summer holiday bookended by three days of travel time each way isn’t the obvious choice for a family with two young children.”

Not wanting to fly and wondering what adventure meant with a young family, my wife and I and our two kids (6 and 4) travelled Europe by rail and ferry, first from London to Greece, then from London to the Swedish Arctic.

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Published in The i Paper, August and December 2024

Photo: Ulli Mattsson

http://www.ullimattsson.com/

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Survivors - Granta

“'But there’s no point in a good net,' he mutters, 'if there are no fish to catch.'”

Since returning from Alaska, I've come to realise that there are similar stories much closer to home, where the decline of the salmon is changing lives and cultures. In this piece, I spend time with Nigel Mott, who was one of the last commercial fishermen of salmon on the River Severn, and with Sally Barnes, the last smoker of wild salmon in Ireland, and look at how salmon are part of ecosystems that include people’s ways of life as much as the other species that depend on them.

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Published in Granta, November 2020

Photo: Chris Chapman http://www.chrischapmanphotography.co.uk/

Nigel Mott passing up the salmon putchers, Lydney, the Severn Estuary © Chris Chapman 2002.jpg

The Island Communities Fighting Back Against Absent Landlords - Huffington Post

“If our local police are not catching criminals, they don’t tell us to run the police ourselves,” he says. “So why’s our land system failing? Why had it led to this situation where the only option we have is to own this land ourselves?”

Scotland has the highest concentration of private land ownership in the developed world. Two men own more than 2% of the country between the,. Now Ulva has become the latest in a string of Scottish communities to raise enough money to buy back their land and to kick their landlord out. I speak to those living in some of those communities to see what life is like now, and what it means for the future of land reform.

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Published in the Huffington Post, August 2018

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When Global Warming Kills Your God - The Atlantic

"If Yup’ik people do not fish for King Salmon, the King Salmon spirit will be offended and it will not return to the river"

In 2013, with salmon numbers crashing across Alaska for reasons no one could explain, a fishing ban was placed on King Salmon in the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta. 23 Alaskan natives defied the ban, and in their court case they claimed that their faith, centred upon a subsistence life style, had given them no other choice. Can such traditional beliefs be upheld in a rapidly modernising world?

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Published in The Atlantic, June 2014

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Fairbourne - Granta

"Climate change, I realise, is already here. Not the drama of it, not yet, but in the mundane."

In 2014, the residents of Fairbourne, Wales, discovered that they had been listed for managed retreat, and that in 40 years the council would cease to defend their town from rising sea levels. The subsequent insecurity has taken its toll on the community, with house prices crashing and businesses collapsing. I went to see how the future effects of climate change are having an impact now on peoples' daily lives.

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Published in Granta, February 2016

Climate Change and the Paris Conference - Lacuna

"We are the frontline. We are the red line. And we will protect our blood lines."

In December, in the wake of the Paris attacks, I covered the protest at the 21st UN Climate Talks. Despite the city being under a state of emergency, and all demonstrations banned, there were coalitions forming under a banner of climate justice that seemed to be shaping mainstream dialogue as never before. The official Agreement, hailed as historic, lacked teeth, but there is much to be inspired by in the movement that will take the fight forward from here.

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Published in Lacuna, February 2016

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Where Wolves Could Soon Return - BBC News Magazine

“'In a country where you haven't got a wilderness, you have to play God.'"

In 2014 I spent a month walking 200 miles across Scotland, from the Alladale estate, where Paul Lister hopes to reintroduce wolves, to Killiecrankie, where the last wolf in Britain was killed in 1680. On the way I spoke to gamekeepers, shepherds, biologists and hikers about how they would feel about once again living alongside this most notorious of animals.

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Published in the BBC News Magazine, 14th October 2015

For a much more in depth account of the walk, Lacuna have run it over three parts, starting here...

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And I have spoken about this journey further, and looked at other ideas behind rewilding, with James Taylor of 21st Century Permaculture.

Hosted by 21st Century Permaculture, September 2014

Photo by James Morgan

Photo by James Morgan

What's The Hitch? - The Land

“Until human nature changes for the worse,” Chapman Milling wrote in 1938, “rides are going to be given to decent-looking people who ask for them”

Everyone will tell you that it's impossible to thumb a ride these days, but that has never been my experience. And whilst a hitchhiker is now a rare sight out on the roads, the car share websites are booming. What is the state of hitchhiking in Britain these days, and if it's vanishing, does it matter? I try and find some answers, with the help of a robot that hitchhiked across Canada.

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Published in The Land, January 2015

The Taboo of Sex and Age - Lacuna

"At the root is that we don't accept - we all want to stay young, be young, perform young, do young. Talking about sex isn't about trying to get us to do that. It's about getting us to accept where we are, and celebrate where we are."

Lois Weaver's alter ego, Tammy WhyNot, is on a mission to find out why it is that we seem unable to discuss sex and age. Spending time in care homes, getting residents on stage as her backing singers, she has developed a show both raucous and intimate that explores one of the last sexual taboos. Following Lois through rehearsals and up to performance, I discuss with her the difficult issues that her work raises.

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Published in Lacuna, September 2015

Read more about Tammy in 'The Taboo of Sex in Care Homes for Older People'

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Published in BBC News Magazine, June 2015

 

 

Image by Christa Holka

Image by Christa Holka

We Didn't Know It Couldn't Be Done - Arena

"Everyone is just waiting for the million-dollar picture: of the polar bear covered in oil."

In 1989 the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska. At the time it was the biggest oil spill in US waters. Sailing through the Sound 25 years later the environment seems to have recovered, but the more I question the people that live there, the more I can see that its legacy lives on. As Alaska pushes to industrialise further, I explore the potential repercussions such projects could have on some of America's last untouched landscapes.

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Published in Arena Magazine No 134, February-March 2015

The Search For Britain's Last Wolf - The Guardian

“a noble animal in a large glass case”

The last wolf in Britain was shot by Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel in Killicrankie gorge, in 1680. But what happened to it? There is a record of it being sold, stuffed, in 1818, when the London Museum was auctioned off. As I delved into the Natural History Museum archives in search of it, I uncovered a story that tells us much about our attitude to this most maligned of animals.

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Published in The Guardian, July 2014

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Protest as a Way of Life - Lacuna

"People who are suffering are getting organised and acting. People who are not suffering are not acting the way that they should act."

For more than forty years, Rajagopal has worked tirelessly as a nonviolent activist in his native India, campaigning for justice for the landless in a country that is home to one third of the world's poor. But these are not distant issues. Rajagopal strongly believes that real change can only come about those when who are not suffering on a daily basis need to take a stand alongside those who are.

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Published by Lacuna, January 2015

Point Hope, America's Oldest Settlement - Lacuna

"As I fly towards Point Hope, Alaska, I have Sarah Palin’s line turning over in my head, who, when asked to comment on her expertise in foreign policy during the 2008 presidential campaign, reportedly said that she could see Russia from her house. If she lived in Point Hope, I thought, she might actually have been right"

Far north of the Arctic Circle, 500 miles from the nearest city, Point Hope is America's oldest settlement. It is home to 700 Inuit, who are both modern Americans and the holders of centuries-old traditions, hunting bowhead whales from seal skin canoes. During the summer's whaling festival I explored the impacts whale oil has had on their past, and the impacts crude oil could have on their future.

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Published in Lacuna, September 2014

On Foot from England to Istanbul - TEDx

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares"

In 2010 I walked 3,500 miles from England to Istanbul, a journey that took me 8 months. On the way I was taken in and looked after by strangers with a kindness I could never have imagined before I set out. This talk discusses whether it is possible to draw any lessons from this experience, and whether it is possible to maintain an open and hospitable attitude towards strangers.

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Given at TEDxLSE, March 2012

More on this story at Narratively - 'Europe, the Very Very Long Way'

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Published on Narratively, March 2015

I have written further about my experiences on the walk in Beyond Flying. Fourteen authors from around the world share their stories about how they came to the conclusion that reducing their air travel was necessary to avoid playing their part in climate change, and how they changed values and attitudes to businesses and personal travel. My chapter discusses my motivations for my journey on foot to Istanbul.

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Published by Green Books

 

 

Redemption Road: The Story of Oikoten - New Internationalist

“A walk is a medicine. Prison is not a medicine”

For thirty years Belgian organisation Oikoten has been offering young offenders locked in institutions the possibility of freedom if they walk from Belgium to Santiago de Compostela, a journey of four months. Compared to incarceration, the results for preventing reoffending are remarkable. Talking to those have done it and those that have mentored them along the way, I explore the reasons for its success.

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Published in New Internationalist, July 2012

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Into The Wilderness - Dark Mountain

“We would have the environment as an adversary that we can pit ourselves against, something that can, with enough wile, be mastered, and when mastered we can pry from it what we will. Be that a life lesson, a spiritual experience, a barrel of deep sea oil, the summit of a mountain, a twenty ounce nugget. Choose your poison”

In 1992 Chris McCandless walked into Alaska's backcountry and perished several months later. In 2013 I walked into Alaska's backcountry, curious as to why this young man's story had become so divisive for Alaskans. What is it that the wilderness come to represent for those of us living in the urbanised west?

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Published in Dark Mountain Book 6, October 2014

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