An Evening with Alan Bowley

Ever since the retreat of the glaciers 12,000 years ago, humans have overcome many challenges to transform wild landscapes. Through war, famine and disease, population growth and climatic changes, they have cleared the forests, drained the wetlands and transformed the natural world.
From bronze to iron, steam to electricity, technological advance has both fed the growing population and destroyed entire ecosystems.
This talk will explore the effects of our ancestors' actions on both wildlife and human society, asking how their decisions might help us make choices for the future. It will also propose a way for birds and businesses to live together to create a better future for all.
Having grown-up within sight of the Sussex Downs, Alan Bowley worked for almost 40 years as a reserve warden on grassland, fen and woodland national nature reserves throughout England, where he oversaw major habitat restoration and wildlife research programmes.
In 2001 he co-founded the Great Fen landscape project in East Anglia, which spear-headed a new approach to breaking down the barriers between nature conservation, farming and business and re-awakening our relationship with the natural world.
Now living in Dorset, he continues to be involved in conservation and promoting closer links between people and the natural world.