ecology & place

The relationship between people, home, and place shifts, as landscape, culture, and technology fluctuates. Here, we examine the ebb and flow of people, places, and culture.

Tuesday 7th February

What is energy for?

Rebecca Willis, 7 February 2012

So familiar has the social economy of energy become in modern societies, so routine its extraordinardinary wastefulness, so toxic its effects, that the capacity for a better way can be missed. By questioning the how, why and what of energy use, says Rebecca Willis, new possibilities - of living, travelling, eating, working and buying - can open

Friday 20th January

Mega dams: campaigning against the plans of the Indian government

Tanmoy Sharma, 20 January 2012

In demonstrations barely reported in the media, peasants and students in the Northeastern Indian state of Assam are fighting together against a proposed gargantuan network of dams across the upper reaches of its rivers in Arunachal Pradesh, one of the world’s six most seismically active regions. The movement has gathered impressive momentum against a project that threatens devastating environmental, demographic and socio-economic impact.

Thursday 27th October

In the backyard of Russia’s oil paradise

Roman Yushkov, 27 October 2011

Pavlovo village was once a quiet backwater in the forest-steppe of Perm Region. In 1997, however, ecological disaster struck, with oil and chemicals entering the local river and food chain. The culprits of the catastrophe were both rich and obvious, but justice was a long while in coming, writes Roman Yushkov

Thursday 8th September

Egypt, the Nile and the revolution

Vicken Cheterian, 8 September 2011

The fate of Egypt across the centuries is indissolubly linked to the river which gives it life. Today, a range of problems - environmental, political, economic - threaten the provision and the quality of the Nile waters. They present another challenge for the young post-Mubarak order, says Vicken Cheterian

Monday 4th April

The new food movement: politics and pleasure

Geoff Andrews, 4 April 2011

The emergent movements around the politics of food are a vital component of debates on the planet’s future, says Geoff Andrews.

Monday 4th October

Taking the right path? The Centre for Alternative Technology and the politics of radical ecology

Charlie Hill, 4 October 2010

Reflecting on a recent visit to the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) and his life as an eco-activist, Charlie Hill argues that radical ecology needs to reach out to a new audience.

Thursday 16th September

The white and pleasant land

Delwar Hussain, 16 September 2010

A racist assault on unfamiliar ground provokes Delwar Hussain to reflect on why the British countryside looks less than welcoming to people of colour.

Monday 13th September

School wars: France vs England

Anne Corbett, 13 September 2010

A flurry of reports that castigates the French school system also highlights the deficiencies of Anglocentric perception, says Anne Corbett.

Monday 23rd August

The Battle for Khimki Forest

Yevgenia Chirikova, 23 August 2010

The plan to construct a section of the new Moscow-St.Petersburg motorway through the legally-protected Khimki Forest Park will destroy a rare eco-system. Dogged local resistance has turned this into a national, even international issue. But it has not derailed the plan The article was first published on March 17, 2010

Tuesday 17th August

Ecocentrism: a response to Paul Kingsnorth

Andrew Dobson, 17 August 2010

Paul Kingsnorth’s journey from a degraded environmentalism to nature-centred ways of living and thinking has many echoes for Andrew Dobson, but also clarifies a difference of outlook.

Monday 16th August

Confessions of a recovering environmentalist

Paul Kingsnorth, 16 August 2010

"Environmentalism, which in its raw, early form had no time for the encrusted, seized-up politics of left and right, has been sucked into the yawning, bottomless chasm of the 'progressive' left." A personal, twenty-year journey through the world’s wild places and the movements to protect them is also, for Paul Kingsnorth, an education in the limits of a project that has forgotten nature and lost its soul.

Friday 4th June

The felling of bungalows, the building of Dhaka

Delwar Hussain, 4 June 2010

The frenetic urban growth of Bangladesh's capital forces its inhabitants into new ways of living

Friday 26th February

Saving the Amur tiger

Mumin Shakirov, 26 February 2010

With the Amur tiger population facing extinction, organisations from Russia and abroad have been working to save them. They don’t always agree as to how this should be done. Then there are the politics, Mumin Shakirov observes. Perhaps the Year of the Tiger will be auspicious for the Amur big cats…

Thursday 4th February

The blizzard of the world

Paul Kingsnorth, 4 February 2010

The exhaustion of the planet and existing ways of life presents a creative challenge: exploring “uncivilisation”. Paul Kingsnorth introduces the Dark Mountain Project.

Thursday 7th January