Here is the video of the event “Just Acess to Land” organised as part of the Festival of Debate. (unfortunately there is a short break in audio after about 4 minutes. It returns at 4.11) Louise Armstrong has written about the event in Now Then Magazine.
The meeting was chaired by Natalie Bennett, alongside panellists Nadia Shaikh, Dr Steve Carver, Bob Berzins and Fran Halsall.
Nadia is an Ornithologist and Naturalist who has worked in the Conservation sector for over 14 years, recently in Nature Protection Policy and in Community Engagement. Nadia currently works for the Right to Roam campaign and more broadly is interested in land and social justice issues around access to land. She is also a trustee for the Wildlife and Countryside Link.
After a decade-long landscape photography and writing career, Fran completed an MA in landscape architecture at the University of Sheffield. Having been active within the Sheffield street tree campaign, Fran began leading ‘interpretative’ woodland walks through Sheffield Woodland Connections, working closely with the City Council and local environmental groups. Fran’s nature activism and experiences creating community-led vegetable gardens led her to join Regather, where she advocates for a fairer and more sustainable food system. She is the Landscape Architect on Regather’s Urban Agriculture Task Force, which is developing local food infrastructure in partnership with the South Yorkshire Sustainability Centre.
Steve is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Wildland Research Institute at the University of Leeds. A geographer with specialist interests in rewilding, wilderness, landscape ecology and environmental modelling, Steve is author of over 120 scientific journal papers and book chapters. Co-editor of recent Routledge Handbook of Rewilding and Co-chair of IUCN CEM Rewilding Thematic Group. Writer and editor for ECOS magazine. Tweeter and blogger. Thinker and critic. Outdoors type. Lover of real ales and proper pubs. Tinkerer with old British motorcycles.
Bob is a moorlands activist and campaigner based in Sheffield. A retired counsellor and psychotherapist, Bob has spent his life outdoors, fell running and rock climbing. Having campaigned for the Right to Roam (CROW Act), Bob has written numerous blogs and a novel exposing the reality of countryside crime, Snared (2020), which drew co-ordinated online abuse, malicious allegations, criminal damage and harassment. You’re most likely to find Bob on a Peak or Pennine moor climbing or running, rain or shine, wind or snow.
