Paddy Woodworth
  • Home
  • Articles & Blog
  • Books
    • Our Once and Future Planet >
      • Reviews & Awards
      • Pre-publication reviews
      • Extracts
    • The Basque Country >
      • Reviews
      • Extracts
    • Dirty War, Clean Hands >
      • Reviews
      • Extracts
  • Lectures
    • Upcoming & Past Events
    • Themes & Topics
    • Testimonials
  • Tours
    • Recent Tours
    • Basque Itinerary
    • Irish Itinerary
    • Testimonials
    • Logistics and Partners
  • About
  • Contact
  • Blog

Recording biodiversity: can citizen scientists help save nature?

8/26/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
​Liam Lysaght says good conservation policy depends on good environmental information

Work, life and values seem to be happily, even enviably, intermeshed for Liam Lysaght, director of the National Biodiversity Data Centre.
Seated at his desk at the centre, a large bungalow in Carriganore, Co Waterford, he is at the centre of a vast web of complex information on the status of the species in our environment, from lichen and mosses to robins and whales.

This article was published in 
The Irish Times ​on August 26, 2017

Read More
0 Comments

Can Ecological Restoration Meet the Twin Challenges of               Global Change and Scaling Up, Without Losing Its             Unique Promise and Core Values?

8/24/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
This article is published in the Annals of Missouri Botanical Garden. In it I respond to presentations by colleagues Curt Meine, Don Falk, James Aronson, Robin Chazdon, Karen Hall, and Leighton Reid at the 63rd Annual Fall Symposium at the Garden, 'Ecological Restoration in a Changing Biosphere', in October 2016, which I chaired. 

The words we use to describe phenomena in science shape our understanding of those phenomena, much more so than we often realize. This is especially true in fields driven by strong policy agendas, like restoration ecology and the practice of ecological restoration. The twin challenges of accelerating global change and upscaling global restoration practice make it more imperative than ever to define the terms and the scope of ecological restoration clearly, and differentiate it from other ameliorative land management practices like rehabilitation. Poor definitions and loose use of language will otherwise lead to muddled conception and planning of projects, confused and disappointed stakeholders, and failure to exploit the enormous potential of this radical conservation strategy for both human well-being and the recovery of biodiversity and ecosystem functions. It is also important to be aware of the rhetorical devices that have given some momentum to the so-called “novel” ecosystems concept within the restoration community. READ MORE

woodworth_2017-annals_mbg.pdf
File Size: 300 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

0 Comments

A personal relationship with the natural world is vital

8/20/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
 “I offer,” Robin Wall Kimmerer writes at the opening of her remarkable book, Braiding Sweetgrass, “stories meant to heal our relationship with the world…stories that allow us to imagine a different relationship, in which people and land are good medicine for each other.”
Kimmerer is both a distinguished environmental biologist and a devoted custodian of Native American cultural traditions. She was astounded when she surveyed 200 of her ecology students and found that hardly any of them could imagine what beneficial interactions between humans and nature might look like.
Her own family upbringing – it only dimly reflected the original richness of the traditions of her Potawatomi people – was still based on a radically different assumption: that our species only exists through mutually enriching bonds with all other living creatures.
This assumption, of course, closely reflects the insights of her scientific discipline, ecology, which finds a web of inter-dependence between all life forms.

This article was published in The Irish Times ​on August 19, 2017
​Read more here

0 Comments

Barcelona attack exposes Spain's fault line

8/19/2017

0 Comments

 
It’s a cliche, simply because it’s an important truth, that one’s first thoughts about a terrorist act should always be with the victims, to make some effort to imagine their plight.

For anyone even slightly familiar with Barcelona, the location of Thursday’s attack is terrifyingly easy to picture. A stroll from the Plaza de Catalunya down the broad expanse of the Ramblas, past the gastronomic cornucopia of Boquería market and the exquisite modernist frontage of the Palau de la Música Catalana is many people’s definitive experience of the city.

And therefore, one supposes, a suitably iconic target for terrorists inspired by the so-called Islamic State.

So this weekend, like so many familiar and unfamiliar places from Paris to Kabul, we have to imagine it stained with innocent blood.

However, as we know all too well in Ireland, it does not take long for empathy with the victims of terrorism to morph into political blame games, perverting the essential task of understanding what exactly happened, why, and whether it could have been prevented.

​This article was published in The Irish Times ​on August 19, 2017
​Read more here
0 Comments

    Articles & Blog

    Articles on the environment; Spanish, Catalan and Basque politics; travel; culture; and other subjects; interspersed with personal reflections and images 
    Note:
    the archive section will be updated in the coming weeks.

    Archives

    October 2022
    January 2022
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017

    Categories

    All
    Blog
    Environment Gen Media
    Environment Journals
    Podcast
    Spain
    The Irish Times
    Videos

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
Photos used under Creative Commons from More pictures and videos: connect@epp.eu, OK - Apartment
  • Home
  • Articles & Blog
  • Books
    • Our Once and Future Planet >
      • Reviews & Awards
      • Pre-publication reviews
      • Extracts
    • The Basque Country >
      • Reviews
      • Extracts
    • Dirty War, Clean Hands >
      • Reviews
      • Extracts
  • Lectures
    • Upcoming & Past Events
    • Themes & Topics
    • Testimonials
  • Tours
    • Recent Tours
    • Basque Itinerary
    • Irish Itinerary
    • Testimonials
    • Logistics and Partners
  • About
  • Contact
  • Blog