Wild Ennerdale

What an amazing day. As part of the Associatiion of National Parks Associations (ANPA) conference that I'm attending with colleauges from the Countryside Council for Wales, we spent the day visiting Wild Ennerdale - a low, key, inspirational project to experiment in a different way of managing landscape, and moving away from hundreds of hectares of Sitka Spruce to a more diverse, resilient and richer landscape. We walked into Ennerdale from Buttermere, chased by shafts of sunlight moving across the hills, and met our ranger hosts for half a day of enchantment and education. One of the most striking things about the project was the way that traditional targets, measures, project plans and protracted meeting have been replaced by a philosphy akin to deep ecology that is very different and very powerful. I couldn't help wonder what the impact would be if planners and those in economic development used the same approach - emergence rather than formal structure, with decisions based on feedback from previous actions rather than elaborate plans. It's a special place to visit and has two Youth Hostels. Go. Spend time there.

Wild Food

For two days this weekend, St Davids hosted the Really Wild Food Fetival, a lovely gathering of local and visiting food specialists and country skills folk to share their produce and skills with visitors and locals alike. Strolling down the 'street' marquee sampling fantastic, fresh organic and local cheeses, swapping stories and meeting folks old and new was a joy, and I'm already looking forward to next year.

Howies' DO Lectures

In a couple of weeks' time, the team at Howies will be using their hard-earned earth tax to fund four days of the DO Lectures. They've invited 70 people who want to make a difference, and DO more, to come along to Fforest Farm fear Cardigan to work out what to DO, how to make it happen and who they need to DO it with. I've got the lucky job of steering, chairing and facilitating a great line up of speakers. Click through to www.dolectures.com to find out more.

Two Wheels Better

Spinning along on the theme of bikes...

Last week saw me+family return from a thoroughly excellent two week cycling tour of SE Provence. After reluctantly driving to London (couldn't take the bikes on UK train) we cycled from our friend's house in Stoke Newington, London to St Pancras and stowed our bikes on Eurostar. 150 minutes later we rode the easy, cycle-laned route from Paris' Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon and disassembled the chunky bits of the bikes (wheels, pedlas, saddles), put the bits into big plastic bags and boarded the TGV to Marseilles. Non-stop journey time of three and a half hours. A couple of easy blocks' cycling on arrival took us to our small hotel where the owner let us keep the bikes in the lounge.

The next day, we headed east to Cassis then through Ciotat to the hills that led us to Castellan at the eastern end of the Verdon Gorge and a wonderful two week tour, cycling 25-55 miles a day. Low carbon, low effort, easy riding on great roads with little traffic.

Hard to beat.

Two Wheels Good

Went to a great cycling and walking workshop in Cardiff, earlier in the week. 170 or so people gathered for a day to work out how to make a transition to a fitter, quieter, cleaner and healthier country whilst becoming less dependent on oil. Peter Lipman from the transport charity Sustrans gave a great kick off that included peak oil, cost, health and much more. Click here for more of their work http://www.sustrans.org.uk/