Field Notes

Federica Marsi is a multi-lingual freelance journalist who has filed dozens of hard-hitting reports from everywhere from Tunisia to Lebanon, Jordan to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Federica’s life and career were going well and then lockdown happened and everything was taken away.  Here she shares her remarkable story about what happened next, and how she left her flat in Milan on an impro...

Uganda is known for the beauty and diversity of its landscape, encompassing as it does the enormous Lake Victoria and the snowy peaks of the Rwenzori Mountains. It is a land of contrast, with lush gardens full of tropical fruit and vegetables for the table, while families scrabble around for food. Wildlife in abundance attracting a thriving tourist industry, but local children grow up having never...

Nature is under enormous stress. It is almost impossible to turn a blind eye to the impact of our over consuming, polluting, degrading way of living on this planet. Fewer birds sing in sadder looking trees, under skies either delivering a month of rain in an hour or frighteningly blue day after day. If you are one of the many struggling with Eco Anxiety, this conversation with Leah Kostamo will be...

As the first day of 2023 dawned, Ed could not have known that by September he’d accept God’s calling to ‘sing a new song’ and be leading a global conservation organization he had barely heard of. With a history of walking towards crises, whether war, famine, or homelessness, perhaps it is unsurprising he was willing to face into the rather overwhelming disaster of biodiversity loss and join the A...

A Rocha's cofounders Peter and Miranda Harris were in their early thirties when they identified the collapse of the biosphere as the issue of our times and decided to give their lives to that cause. With a big vision, next to no resources, and in a context of skepticism and apathy, they and their three small children moved to Portugal in 1983 together with another family, Les and Wendy Batty,...

It is the poorest of this world who suffer the worst impacts of biodiversity loss and climate change. But we'd be wrong to think the vulnerable are passive in suffering and without agency or hope. This is a conversation that will leave you in awe of human resilience and the goodness of God in spite of the painful reality. Godwin leads A Rocha Ghana’s work in the north of the country, in and a...

Do you ever find you have walked for several minutes without any awareness of your surroundings? Particularly in cities, where our senses can be overloaded, we can block out much of what is going on around us. Prarthi has always lived in urban environments so her early love of nature was fuelled by nature shows on TV rather than direct experience. But she’s learnt to be attentive, to live with a p...

Originally from Brazil, Gustavo draws on his previous experience coming from the business sector to the nonprofit world and challenges us to rethink how we measure success. Rather than continuous growth as the usual marker for achievement, Gustavo shares insights on what living out his Christian faith looks like and how that helps him redefine success. He describes a different way— the A Rocha way...

India has 1.4 billion people and 29 thousand elephants living in a multiple use landscape. Avinash Krishnan has dedicated over half of his life to making peace between these two populations. Now its National Director, Avinash was first a volunteer in his student days, helping with a large scale elephant counting exercise (involving dung and complex mathematical formulas!). He has seen some of his...

Many of us have felt our consciences pricked in the midst of doing something we know is harming the natural world. But few have thrown their lives into upheaval in the way Dave Bookless did having chucked a few bags of rubbish off a cliff at the end of a holiday.  Twenty five years later, everything from Dave's job to the food on his family's table had changed. He founded A Rocha UK, wro...

If you have never heard of GBIF (the Global Biodiversity Information Facility) you are not the only one, but after this conversation you will be glad to have discovered it. Funded by the world's governments and free to access, this global network and data infrastructure is used to inform endeavours tackling everything from farming and food security, to disease control, to habitat restoration...

Hope is sometimes understood as a feeling of optimism, but as we all know, feelings are transitory and not a rock on which to build a life. What if we instead understood hope as a practice, an active way of living? Lebanon has a turbulent history, a troubled present and an unknown future and A Rocha Lebanon has had its own traumas, not least the death of its founders, Chris & Susanna Naylor, i...

Beauty and suffering coexist in this world. There are breath-taking mountains and devastating volcanoes; healthy children and children born with acute medical challenges; birds that sing in war torn countries. How do we endure suffering and retain awareness of the beauty that surrounds us? Christine Warner loves snails. Since surviving an encounter with a truck which by all accounts should have en...

At a time when social distancing and virtual working have become the norm, a new book invites us to rethink our connections to each other, the earth, God, and community. Co-written from A Rocha co-founder Miranda Harris and her daughter, Jo Swinney, A Rocha’s Director of Communications, A Place at the Table explores a philosophy baked into the A Rocha family since the very beginning — hospitality....

How do we sustain our physical, mental and spiritual health when we are expending ourselves for justice? How can we face the reality of the world's problems and not be crushed?  Soohwan has spent much of her working life up close and personal with suffering on a scale most of us only see on a TV screen. From the Dalit of Bangladesh to the fall out of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, she's...

Is peace just the absence of conflict, or is it something more? In this episode, Stephen Ruttle QC talks to Peter and guest host Rachel about peace making and the art of having difficult conversations. As a professional mediator, Stephen has extensive experience in resolving conflict, helping sparring groups and individuals turn towards each other in search of peace.  Stephen was a practicing barr...

Do you ever wonder if you have anything to bring to the effort to protect and restore the planet? Perhaps you feel small and insignificant considering the scale of the problems. Or you think the task requires specialist skills and experience that you lack. The truth is, all of us have something to bring. And we are all needed. Embert Messelink began his working life as a journalist and a Christian...

Should we really be eating Nutella? Or buying products that contain palm oil? How can - and should - consumers make environmentally-friendly choices when supply chains are so complex? Ken speaks with Bryony and Peter about moving from the private sector to the environmental sector, his passion for the environment and the challenges of supply chains. In his professional life, Ken Yeong has worked o...

The latest IPCC report was even more dire than predicted. As one of its authors, no one could accuse Rodel Lasco of burying his head in the sand. Even if he wanted to, living in the Philippines where the changing climate now causes thousands of deaths annually, reality would have confronted him with the painful truth. And yet, in this extraordinary conversation, Rodel's deep faith and peace a...

The Israelites in exile wondered how they could sing (Psalm 137:4); in our current dire situation, you may wonder what good it does to write songs. Bryony and Peter talk to a dear A Rocha friend, Sandra McCracken, about how her music has come to be her contribution to the 'renewal of all things' God is working out in and through each of us, whether artists, scientists, activists or peace...

Are people always bad news for nature? And is there anywhere we haven't had an impact?  Dr Sarah-Lan Mathez-Stiefel is a Senior Research Scientist at the Centre for Development and Environment at the University of Bern, and Senior Advisor for the Regional Hub South America of the Wyss Academy for Nature. She has a long history with A Rocha, having first met Peter aged 11!  Now in her 40s, Sar...

In our increasingly globalized and interconnected world, the question ‘where are you from?’ is, for so many of us, difficult to answer. In the 21st century, our connection to a place and land as ‘home’ are radically different to any other time in human history. Cheryl Bear is from Nadleh Whut’en First Nation and is well-known as an important and respected voice on behalf of Canada’s Indigenous peo...

Have you ever felt as though your life is racing past at a breath-taking speed, or that every space is filled by electronic, fast-paced noise? Those living with trauma often testify to the healing impact of nature and the stillness that can be experienced in the great outdoors, yet we avoid it and worse - collude in its destruction. Mako is a leading contemporary painter whose "slow art"...

What is it that motivates us - people of faith or none - to care for the planet? And why are conservationists so reluctant to admit their beliefs and values? Darren Evans is Professor of Ecology and Conservation at Newcastle University, his research earning him the nickname 'Dr Duck.' He leads a research group examining the impacts of environmental change on foodwebs, especially in fores...

For all the good work now being done to address the environmental crisis, why do we not see more impact? Why do things seem to be going from bad to worse and what can be done? Jyoti Banerjee is co-founder of North Star Transition which aims to accelerate systemic change with the goal of increasing the impact of global efforts to halt climate change and biodiversity loss.  He was part of the team t...