Last Saturday about 60 people crammed into the barn at UWNR, for our annual nature talk. We listened to my mate Matt Somerville talk about (rewilding) honeybees, and it simply blew everyone away. Someone wrote in an email that, ‘The talk was bloody amazing”. I have mentioned it before, but what Matt is doing is revolutionary and it compels us to look at this extraordinary invertebrate anew, with fresh eyes. With new wisdom we can look at this insect as a wild animal and provide habitat for it to be just that, wild. Rather than a species to be intensively and commercially exploited. For further reading, please check out Matt's website:
Before Matt started his talk and presentation, Jack Sanford was awarded his ‘Conserver’ level, John Muir Award. This is the highest level John Muir Award and therefore is very special! For more than 2 years Jack worked with me at UWNR applying what he learnt, to practical conservation projects. If you wish to read what Jack achieved over this 2-year period, please click on the Education and Engagement tab of the UWNR website and scroll to the bottom of the page. It is a stupendous list.
Before Matt’s talk and Jack’s award presentation, Annie who also does the John Muir Award at UWNR, took a group of people (those who had not been to the reserve before) on a guided walk. The feedback from this was phenomenal, such is Annie’s understanding and knowledge of the ecology and conservation projects, which we are doing & have done. Thank you Annie, you knocked them out!
And one last thing….Matt forgot to mention a key text, called The Buzz about Bees by Jurgen Tautz. If you found Matt’s talk enthralling then get this book, it covers the same ground. I read it and highly recommend it.