Finding common ground between livestock farmers and environmentalists regarding the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis
Alerted more by instinct than sound, I peered through a hedge and deciphered a farmer’s whispered commands to dogs whirling sheep into a pen. It was 2012 and I was just embarking on my walk around the edge of Cymru. Moments like this excited me. I knew a few farmers but didn’t know their magic.
Farmers seemed elusive, poetic perhaps, embedded in the Welsh-language culture I admired. I respected their hard graft, sheer grit, and care for tradition, family and community. Meanwhile I had quit my teaching job at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Machynlleth, to become a writer. My ex-colleagues, many of them incomers like myself, also worked passionately – attempting to reverse biodiversity loss and avoid extremely dangerous climate breakdown.
My walk led me to consider these two communities and the common ground between them. But I set off with angst. Firstly, I wasn’t sure how us eco-immigrants were perceived. Too busy at first, I’d not spent much time learning Cymraeg or about Cymru’s history (something I’ve since rectified). Secondly, escaping environmental concerns wasn’t easy. Teaching people who were seeking solutions had shielded me from the ‘real world’ where most people seemed unwilling to even acknowledge the crisis.
Read the entire article here https://www.iwa.wales/agenda/2023/01/environmental-angst-lifestock-farmers/