Search Results for: phil agland

On the way home from Buckler’s Hard, we stopped off in Fordingbridge, then drove on to Hale to see Phil Agland and his family. I worked with him and Nigel Tuersely at the Earthlife Foundation in the 1980s – an astonishingly innovative and entrepreneurial organisation, whose ambitions ultimately, sadly, outran its resources. But think of it as like a neutron star, seeding the universe the universe with the building blocks of future life.

But one of the great learning experiences of my life – and a precursor to SustainAbility, where Julia Hailes and I (with help from Tom Burke) took a couple of projects we had been working on while with Earthlife, Green Pages and The Green Consumer Guide.

Earlier in the summer, we had gone to the BAFTA-hosted premiere of Phil’s new TV series, China: Between Clouds and Dreams, the subject of a blog on 7 June. The series, ominously if accurately, is sub-titled ‘China’s Silent Spring’.

A lovely lunch with Phil, Ana and Lara, then a long ramble with Phil alongside the River Avon, the Hampshire one. At one point we stood in the same place by the river for perhaps half an hour, watching schools of large trout and clouds of small fry. What a pleasure to see such a healthy river.

We were shadowed by a herd of white cattle whose muzzles seemed to have been dipped into squid ink. They became rather raucous at moments, but nothing that a firm voice and raised hands couldn’t stall.

An afternoon of buzzards, warblers, kestrels, sandpipers, swans and the like, though in some cases only one of the kind. One of the most heartwarming afternoons I’ve had in a long time.

Then, as we were driving back to London along the M3, I spotted a set of Iron Age fortifications to the left. Heart soared. Sadly, I knew, the area was also the locus of the battles to stop motorway building in the UK, in this case the battle of Twyford Down. Gaia was involved in later battles around the Newbury Bypass and the M77 in Scotland, and was briefly imprisoned for her pains.

But what a joy to see St Catherine’s Hill, even if there are nearby Plague Pits. Would love to walk over the fortifications at some point, to see the wildlife and contemplate what our motorways will look like 1,000 years or so from today.

Will that landscape be bright with insect life and birdsong, or will Rachel Carson‘s projections have finally come home to roost? Phil asked me whether I am optimistic or pessimistic?

The only answer has to be both, with the (mythical) ostrich-like reflexes of British voters recently giving little assurance that this country (or the wider world) can raise its eyes from the immediate moment to distant horizons. Which raises the question what the next generation’s equivalent of the Canary Girls will find themselves doing.

But extraordinary times can call forth extraordinary leaders – and extraordinary leadership. So, as Churchill engagingly put it, we must K.B.O. Keep Buggering On.

Surfaced at Tower Hill very early for me this morning, just before 08.00, for breakfast with Rick Ridgeway – Environmental VP with Patagonia.

City was lovely as I travelled in – and Rick and I had a 90-minute conversation with a couple of Rick’s colleagues from the EU end of Patagonia.

Extraordinary man – and great fun to be with. On the Tube heading in, I had read again the Harvard Business Review article he co-authored on the Sustainable Economy back in 2011.

Of course, the title of this blog is intentionally misleading, in the sense that there aren’t many people like Rick – or like Phil Agland, who Elaine and I then headed across to BAFTA this evening to see.

Phil’s new TV series, China: Between Clouds and Dreams, was being premiered – they showed the first programme out of five. Utterly stunning. The children he films across China are out of this world wonderful. Can’t wait for the series to be broadcast later this year.

Great to catch up with Phil and linked people from the deep past, among them Janet Barber, Nigel Tuersley, Julian Caldecott and, the origin of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper sequences in Phil’s new series, Dr Christoph Zöckler of the incomparably named Spoon-bill Sandpiper Task Force. Bought him a glass of celebratory Maalbec: seemed the least I could do.

Although I have long been a believer in serendipity, it rarely acts as full force as it did today. On the second day of the Bryanston Green Conference, Elaine and I were allowed to duck out and were lucky enough to be gifted a car for the day by Julia (Hailes) and her husband Jamie (Macdonald).

So we drove across to Kingcombe, in nearby Toller Porcorum, “the farm that time forgot.” This is an extraordinary conservation reserve I have known about as long ago as 1986, when I was still a director of the Earthlife Foundation, alongside the original (in every sense) co-founders, Nigel Tuersley and Phil Agland – which, incidentally, is where and when I first met Julia.

Elaine and I were simply expecting to wander around a bit, but were somewhat disappointed to find a private event flagged as we arrived. The site would close shortly. But we parked anyway, went in – and discovered we could have a coffee (and cheese-and-chive scone) before the large group of people attending the event arrived back from their circumnavigation of the reserve.

As we sat and talked, Brian Bleese, the CEO of the Dorset Wildlife Trust, came up to chat. Since neither of us had a clue who the other was, this was total serendipity. then, as we did so, I mentioned the Earthlife connection, where the foundation had toyed with bidding for the farm when it came onto the market back in the 1980s. Brian, pretty much in passing, noted that one of the people there for the impending event was Peter Scupholme, who I had worked with at BP back in the 1990s.

As one connection followed another, Brian invited us to stay for the lunch and event, designed to celebrate the site’s designation as a National Nature Reserve. We did, took a walk around the site, along the River Hooke, caught up with Peter, met a series of people who had run or guided the Dorset Wildlife Trust over time (including DWT Trustees Jim White (see his account of the Kingcombe story here), Tony Bates, Professor Mark Kibblewhite and Jo Davies, who now chairs the Trust), and signed up as members (we are already members of the London Wildlife Trust).

Finished Philip Kerr’s wonderful Prussian Blue novel today. Of the twelve in the series to date, one of the very best. Also bought a number of books this afternoon at Barnes Books, including Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny and volume 2 of James Holland’s The War in the West historical series.

And ordered a copy of Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, And The Pace Of Life In Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies by Geoffrey West of the Santa Fe Institute. Here’s a note I wrote on his work back in 2011. He visited us at Volans on 8 February last year.

Spent a couple of days in Leverkusen earlier in the week, with members of the Carbon Productivity Consortium, in this case drawn from Volans, SYSTEMIQ and the Future-Fit Foundation. Extremely helpful discussions with Patrick Thomas, Richard Northcote and Markus Steilemann.

Earlier in the week, we did another Salon at Volans, this time co-hosted with Atlas of the Future. Great fun – as demonstrated in this photo taken, I think, by Lisa Goldapple of Atlas.

Otherwise, have been busily responding to feedback on the Harvard Business Review blog and preparing slide decks for Paris, Oslo and Vevey – where I’m headed in the next couple of weeks.

Nice contrast this evening, as the news of Macron’s win in France came in, was to watch the latest programme in the ITV series, The Durrells. Joyous. Only met Gerry Durrell (and his wife Lee, at a private preview of Phil Agland’s film Korup) once, but always adored his writing and attitude to the natural world.