In episode 10 of Talk on the Wild Side, Rob Smith spends a day at Moat Farm for a Healthy Hedgerows workshop. He speaks to a self-confessed hedge geek, a hedgelaying expert and conservationist, a local landowner, and the host of the workshop.
Join your Talk on the Wild Side host, Rob Smith, for a journey through Marden's farms and gardens - where farmers, scientists, and keen birders are working together to make space for the rare turtle fove.
Iain Tolhurst NBE is a pioneering organic farmer and owner of Tolhurst Organic Farms. This farm has made quite a name for itself because it is able to feed 350 families on 14 acres of what is classified as poor quality agricultural land up to now, without any government subsidies. He manages this land with minimal external inputs to the farm. This means no chemical fertiliser or pesticides. He also does this without any livestock or external fertility from animals. Nearly 20% of his farm is trees and an additional 40% set aside for green manure. So how does he do it?
A run down and overgrown medieval churchyard in Sandwich has been restored to a beautiful wildlife haven by a group of local volunteers who live locally and are part of the congregation at the church. In this amazing story, you'll hear from the people who brought this churchyard back to life and find out what they discovered when you peeled the ivy back from the tombstones.
Right, break time's over. Come on, you lot. Time to go back to school. One particular school, in fact – Goat Lees Primary School, which is in Kennington, near Ashford in Kent.
Welcome to a special episode of Talk on the Wild Side dedicated to just one subject, or rather just one place: the Knepp Estate in Sussex...
Now what's the difference between a weasel and a stoat? Well, of course one is weaselly recognised while the other one is stoatally different. But could you tell a pine marten from either of them?
Join Gareth Fulton, Estate Manager at Elmley Nature Reserve to discover the incredible journey of farm to wildlife haven this private estate has taken. This interview looks at their journey and the importance of using eco-tourism to pay for conservation.
In this episode of Talk on the Wild Side, Rob Smith joins Josie Cadwallader-Hughes, Sustainability Director for Thakeham. They talk all about Thakeham's efforts to make home development more environmentally-friendly - and to create more biodiverse sites than they started with.
This is Talk on the Wild Side. I'm Rob Smith, and in this episode, bugs matter. And bugs really do matter. Don't just take my word for it. As Sir David Attenborough no less puts it, if we and the rest of the backboned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if the invertebrates were to disappear, the world's ecosystems would collapse.
