Day 104 - Nature Connections

Today I went along to the Nature Connections Festival organised by the University of Derby.

There are plenty of festivals aimed at getting people closer to nature itself, providing opportunities for people to experience nature directly, however the Nature Connections festival was conceived as a way of engaging people to consider other ways in which we are connected to nature and nature is connected to our lives - for example, from Chris Packhams' speech, we connect with nature every morning when pouring milk into our tea or on our cereal without evening thinking about it. That milk came from nature, from a farmed landscape, and where we choose to buy our milk has a direct impact on what happens in the natural world. Were it not for the whole issue at the moment regarding supermarkets and milk prices, with dairy farmers going out of business every day, there would not now be a badger cull taking place which few people support and goes against scientific evidence. As many farmers are not being paid a fair price for the milk they are producing and are struggling to keep their business going, every member of the herd must be productive and healthy as the loss of just a couple of cows (such as due to TB)  has a much greater impact on the farm financially - there is no financial buffer any more - which directly influences things such as the badger cull.  The choices we make have an impact on things which makes me very glad that I decided some time ago that I will only buy milk from Waitrose as they are one of the supermarkets that pay a better price per litre. I think Sainsbury's do too.

The majority of UK land (71%) is farmed intensively and there are lots of schemes ongoing to get farmers to convert land to support biodiversity (like field margins and maintaining hedges) but if they're not making enough money from the farm, they are unable to take the financial hit of that loss of land (hence the compensation schemes in place as an incentive to do this) - and yet the British population throws away one third of all the food we buy.

If we didn't waste all that food, we wouldn't need to produce quite so much, which would take some of the pressure off farming and free up some land to return to nature.  And let's not forget the associated drop in plastic packaging, food miles, less pesticide use...

Makes you think, right? The festival was aimed at opening our eyes to connections such as these, and, on a less political note, it also considered how we're connected to nature through music, art, culture etc and how nature effects us in different ways - from speeding up healing times to helping us through grief.

A fantastic initiative, I hope it'll happen every year!

 I had signed up to volunteer with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust for the afternoon, on their stand at the event, but I arrived for the start of the day to spend the morning here so that I could listen to Chris Packham opening the festival with a great speech...

...and then have a look around at the exhibitions and stalls before heading over to the DWT stand.
At the 'Bugs and Bones' tent, you could hold some of their animals. This Bosc Monitor Lizard was lovely! He's called Bosco and he loves being held like this. When I stroked his head he closed his eyes and looked very content.

I also held one of my favourites, a giant millipede. This one, a giant African millipede, was a bit bigger than the last one I held.

I love watching all those legs move - I made a short video :)

As well as various stands outside there were talks and films going on inside the university buildings too. As it turned out, the event wasn't as busy as DWT thought it might be and they had enough volunteers so didn't need me.  I didn't mind - it meant I was able to get away earlier and head on to my next destination.

I'd heard about a Woodland Festival on this weekend at Sherwood Forest which sounded interesting, so decided that as Derby was kind of half way to Sherwood Forest, rather than drive all the way to Sherwood on Sunday, I'd go on from Derby for an overnight stay near the forest.

Driving through the forest later that afternoon I noticed what looked like some prime invertebrate habitat, so parked up, took the sweep net out of my boot and went exploring.

shieldbug nymph

field grasshopper

field grasshopper

field grasshopper

field grasshopper

unidentified fly

Bishop's mitre shieldbugs

Bishop's mitre shieldbug

I had time to stop at Sherwood Forest too for a little look around ahead of attending the festival properly the next day.

I absolutely loved Robin Hood as a child and always wanted to visit Sherwood Forest so it's amazing that today - at the age of 32! - was my very first visit here!

The famous Major Oak

A lovely end to the day!