Cambridge Antiquarian Society have brought our attention to their forthcoming talk on “Rewilding’ Later Prehistory: Archaeological Wildlife and its Role in Contemporary Nature Recovery”

This has had to be postponed takes place on Monday 5th February 2024 at 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm, in the Law Faculty, The David Williams Building, Sidgwick Site, West Rd, Cambridge.

The speaker, Dr Anwen Cooper, is a prehistorian at Oxford University.

They tell us this talk will present initial findings from the UKRI-funded ‘Rewilding’ later prehistory project – a collaboration between and Knepp Castle Estate, Oxford Archaeology, the Universities of Oxford, Exeter and York, Centre for Ancient Genomics, Toulouse, and Historic England. Through a study of human-landscape relationships during the Bronze and Iron Ages in Britain that puts wildlife centre-stage, the project aims to foreground the ‘wonder and enchantment’ of past wildlife and to create pathways for reconnecting with contemporary nature recovery practices. As well as verifying historical occurrences  of species that may be reintroduced into ‘rewilded’ landscapes, the project will produce stories of long term landscape change and of past human-wildlife entanglements that can inspire current attempts to reconnect people with nature.

All welcome.

Further inforamtion at https://www.camantsoc.org/event/cas-talk-rewilding/?instance_id=69

Thursday 9th November: A biodiverse city
6:45 p.m. in the David Attenborough Building and online
Guy Belcher, Biodiversity Officer for Cambridge City Council, will talk about the City’s Biodiversity Strategy.

Thursday 16th November: Fieldwork: A Dendrochronologist’s
perspective on Science, Life, and Adventure
7:30 p.m. online
Paul Krusic will speak on the challenges of finding trees that have not been disturbed by humans, from which a pristine record of environmental change is captured in the annual variations of tree growth. Where do such forests exist and what does it take to get there? These forests are where he does his research, from the Himalaya to the
Tropics, using dendrochronology to learn more about environmental history and how it relates to climate change.

Thursday 23rd November: The life of the Cam: In sickness and in health
6:45 p.m. in the David Attenborough Building and online
Stephen Tomkins, from the Cam Valley Forum, will talk about what he has learned from trying to help improve our local river. Over abstraction and other changes have been harmful – we have a very sick river: abused by our own un-natural history. Wetland wildlife has a huge capacity to bounce back from near extinction, but that requires much more of all of us to help it improve.

Thursday 30th November: How the Andes influence Earth’s climate
7:30 p.m. online
Morag Hunter will talk about the interaction between the uplift of the Andes and carbon dioxide budgets in the atmosphere. She will describe the geology and outline the chemical weathering of the rocks found in the Cañete Basin, western Peru.

Dr Mark Collins will give the first talk in the CNHS autumn programme on Thursday 12th October at 6:45 p.m.

The speaker is the author of Threatened Swallowtail Butterflies of the World and Chair of the Swallowtail and Birdwing Butterfly Trust. He will give an illustrated talk about the Trust’s conservation activities in Borneo, Bhutan, Fiji, Australia, Jamaica and elsewhere, news about an upcoming conference on the Apollo butterflies and their relatives worldwide, concluding with a detailed appraisal of the existential risks facing the British Swallowtail in the Norfolk Broads, and what options we have to keep the species safe.

This talk will be in person, in the David Attenborough Building, Pembroke St, Cambridge CB2 3QZ

It will start at 6:45 p.m. Please arrive in good time or you may not be able to get into the building.

ALL WELCOME Members free; non-members £2

The talk on Thursday 19th October will be online at 7:30 p.m.

People power for nature: the challenges and the opportunities

Peter Exley has worked for the RSPB, for over 25 years, on building peoples’ support for nature, from campaigns to communities. He is currently involved in making the charity’s 170 nature reserves more visitable. In his talk he will look at the barriers, issues and opportunities, and why understanding people is essential to saving nature, using examples of projects he has worked on, from saving seabirds on islands to creating new nature reserves in the Somerset Levels.

Online via Zoom. Members will be emailed login details nearer the time.

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