Here are the details for my forthcoming talk – the first one I will be giving for People Need Nature. Please come along if you’re in the area.
How should we value nature?
Conservationist Miles King will be asking ‘How should we value nature?’ on Wednesday 23 September at Knoll Gardens.
Miles has worked in nature conservation for 29 years, leading conservation work for Plantlife, The Grasslands Trust and Buglife, as well as working for Wildlife Trusts, English Nature, Dorset AONB and Natural England. He has recently set up a new charity, ‘People Need Nature’ to promote the importance of nature for its spiritual and inspirational value as well as a source of mental and physical wellbeing.
His talk at Knoll Gardens in Wimborne will be the first opportunity to hear him speak in his new role on a subject about which he is clearly passionate.
“We depend on nature for the essentials of life like clean air and water, food and timber, so there is no doubt that the natural world has a huge economic value”, said Miles. “It is obvious that people need nature, but I believe that it has a more intrinsic value that should prevent it becoming just another commodity: as an important source of spiritual wellbeing.”
‘How should we value nature?’ takes place at 3pm on Wednesday 23 September in the outdoor classroom at Knoll Gardens. It costs £5 and all proceeds will be divided between the Knoll Gardens Foundation and People Need Nature. To book go to www.knollgardens.co.uk or call the nursery on 01202 873931.
For more information on the Knoll Gardens Foundation go to www.knollgardensfoundation.org.
a new nature blog 
Hi Miles, are you going to video one of these talks and put it in Youtube / Vimeo? Many more could see it then.
thanks Steve – I am not sure whether there is a plan to video the talk, but I will ask the people at Knoll Gardens as it’s a great idea.
Assuming you are going to do more than one talk, it might be an idea to record a subsequent one, which will inevitably be a bit more polished. And this would provide more time to organise some good quality kit. If you make a note of questions that people ask at earlier meetings you can then ensure that these are covered off in the talk you record. You could even arrange for ‘useful’ questions to be asked in the recording, so that these are captured.
good idea Steve.
“[It] was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any account to give anybody anything, or render anybody help without purchase. Gratitude was to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if we didn’t get to Heaven that way, it was not a politico-economical place, and we had no business there.”
from ‘Hard Times’ by Charles Dickens (based on Preston, Lancashire)
Good Luck with the Mr Gradgrinds!
Hopefully there might be a transcript? Times IS hard and, other than on holidays, I rarely get south of Manchester these days…
thanks Dave