Wildlife interpretation


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Like museums, the countryside/ conservation sector can come across as nerdy, insular and irrelevant. The best organisations in both sectors are doing great, and tough, work to change that.


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Today Peter is in Sheffield talking to the Chartered Institute of Ecologists and Environmental Managers. He will say that communication skills should be seen as essential to the environmental profession. I wish I could be there; he was great in rehersal. This is the blog of the talk. He is talking to a group of professionals who care, usually passionately, […]


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We (particularly TellTale partner Peter Phillipson) have spent a lot of time over the years thinking about how interpretation can help people have great wildlife experiences. I have written several posts about the special challenges of interpreting wildlife (see here  and here). We believe that interpretation has an important role in preparing people for the experience […]


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The fleeting, changeable and unpredictable nature of wildlife is part of why we love it. It also makes it aggravatingly difficult to interpret. RSPB Ynys-hir rises to the challenge brilliantly.


Are rats ‘bad’ wildlife?

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I have of late become sensitised to bias and subjectivity in interpretation. That’s not surprising as I have been working at the interpretation of conflict and contested histories. The importance of recognising perspective and prejudice is clear there.


Writing about ‘home’ with the RSPB

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Last week I spent two very enjoyable and inspiring days with the RSPB.  I learned a lot, talked to lots of people and listened to more. By the end of it I understood more of the big picture about ‘giving nature a home’, that rallying cry that dyed-in the wool environmentalists so decry and criticise. […]


A job well done: Window on Wild Lindisfarne

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They liked it. Visitors really liked it. They walked into the room and said ‘Wow!’ out loud. That was what we had wanted, after all this was Window on Wild Lindisfarne, or WoW for short. Yes, it was a tiny room, but one that had been very important to us.  This space had to convince visitors […]


‘CItizen science’ and wildlife interpretation: holding on to the ‘nerdy bits’

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It’s been a good year for me and butterflies.  We have seen a lot more of each other than we have done for the last few summers.  Part of this is that there are (surely?) more butterflies about in this lovely sunny summer than in the last two wet, cold and dismal ones.  But I am also paying […]


North and south; urban green spaces matter

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Tunbridge Wells and Middlesborough are as different as different can be. They have almost nothing in common; but last week they had me. In both places I was working with enthusiastic residents who wanted to share their local green spaces with the local community. Tunbridge Wells lies in the affluent south surrounded by the green […]


Interpretation to change behaviour – some tactics from Futerra

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Many of our regular clients, including the RSPB, The Wildfowl and Wetland Trust and The Wildlife Trusts are in the environmental / wildlife conservation sector. Their mission involves changing people’s attitudes and behaviour and they, quite rightly, want interpretation to contribute to that. So it jolly well should. But how? At TellTale we spend a […]