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Editor's Notes

• #3: We take our name and inspiration from John Muir – celebrated this year in Scotland and US – 100 years since his passing.
• #4: What I’d like to do is to give you a brief update on progress in the UK. It is framed around the 3 elements that I think are necessary and have to work together to secure a positive future for wilderness and wild places. That’s to create effective legislation to protect the resource, to enhance its qualities and to engage people in its values. Who is the John Muir Trust?
• #5: This graphic attempts to explain the relationship between these issues – across the centre depicts relative wildness – from pristine wilderness to urban greenspace (continue on to urban). These classifications encompass a range of attributes – familiar to us; naturalness and remoteness are best true measures.
• #6: You can do that in principle – but to be effective as a tool within planning development – it requires a spatial approach – lines on maps. This is not a true reflection of the spectrum of wildness, but its what works. After 30 years – the Trust has helped to establish recognition of wild land as a ‘national asset’. Three key elements to this happening; Public pressure on politicians to stop development in these areas – press campaigns important Technical solution to the problem – scientific credibility Political willingness – to see the down sides of uncontrolled development in terms of votes
• #7: But, still huge pressures at play, money and politics
• #9: Now dealing with new planning legislation – so we can use new tools. So far, all decisions have gone our way – a real turnaround of fortunes.
• #10: The map is largely seen as a map of constraint – we want it to be seen as a map of opportunity – to improve what we already have. The rewilding movement is now gathering considerable pace in the UK. This is direct result of Vision for a Wilder Europe, Feral and very active debate in UK in the last 18 months. Established NGOs are considering whether to resist, embrace or watch from the sidelines.
• #11: There appears to be a general consensus that somehow society is disconnected from nature – we no longer understand it, value it – and therefore the job of protecting and enhancing – as opposed to developing it is much harder. This is not a new phenomenon. However, many people are sympathetic to our general aims, they can appreciate beautiful landscapes and wildlife (perhaps more often these days from the car window or couch) – so how do we encourage those people to take that next step where they learn to value through real life experiences.
• #12: This is the third element – and possibly the most important. It requires us to remove barriers to access and create opportunities for experience. Only with experience will we truly value.
• #13: This all requires funding – we have to be sophisticated and invest in communications and marketing – people respond best to the emotional rather than the intellectual arguments. I think we are going in the right direction – even though our wild places are coming under more pressure, there is more public and political awareness – values and benefits are key to enabling change.