Actually, it’s my wife who is the active one when it comes to conservation. When we were living in Wales, she got involved with some fantastic local environmental groups who are trying to restore native forests and biodiversity in South Wales. It was really inspiring to see. Being a landscape photographer, you are conscious that truly natural spaces in Britain are quite limited, so it’s critical that we support the efforts to protect – and ideally expand upon – what spaces we do have.
I also find a lot of the "rewilding" discussion a bit counterproductive, as it tends to ignore the fact that many people live in our national parks and areas of natural beauty and often rely on the land for their livelihoods. The real challenge is finding ways to protect nature within the context of existing land uses, together with existing landowners and users.
There is some really interesting work happening around regenerative agriculture, integrating agriculture with native forests, and so forth, and I believe this is where the attention really needs to be focused.