{"id":2657,"date":"2023-11-30T11:39:14","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T11:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/?p=2657"},"modified":"2023-11-30T11:39:14","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T11:39:14","slug":"natures-collapse-and-an-inspiring-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/?p=2657","title":{"rendered":"Nature’s collapse, and an inspiring story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Opinion piece published Barking & Dagenham Post, Romford Recorder, Docklands & East London Advertiser November\/December 2023, transcribed below<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These are grim times, but reading about a star birdwatcher cheered me up! The story of David Lindo, recently appointed a patron of Humanists UK, challenges stereotypes. It inspires at a time when action is urgently needed to save our natural world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David was brought up in West London, the son of Jamaican immigrants. In his autobiography, The Urban Birder<\/em>, David describes his fascination with nature as a child, particularly birds. He honed his skills and knowledge in London\u2019s urban wastelands and parks. He mentions \u2018bunking off\u2019 to East London to expand his birdwatching horizons. David is now a TV presenter and international authority on ornithology. He has written extensively on urban birdwatching around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his journey David encountered ridicule and dismissiveness from people on all sides who didn\u2019t think birdwatching was a black person\u2019s thing. Thankfully, he enjoyed the support of many others. Identifying as a Humanist also counters any lazy assumption that being black means you are likely to be religious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018State of Nature Report,\u2019 published on 28 September, charts the catastrophic decline in biodiversity across the UK. For example, of 293 bird species assessed, 43% are threatened with extinction from the UK. 60 nature organisations collaborated on this authoritative annual survey. War has understandably been dominating the news, along with the Covid enquiry and other stories of dysfunction in our world. But this should not eclipse coverage of the natural world\u2019s collapse and the threats to all life as we know it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David\u2019s work, like that of David Attenborough, incidentally also a humanist, highlights how humans are part of nature\u2019s web. All lives and fates are intertwined. Projects at, for example, Canary Wharf and the square mile\u2019s Tower 42, have identified an astonishing variety of birds, from honey buzzards to wrynecks. Literally hundreds of species fly over and live in London, if only you know where and how to look for them. And why wouldn\u2019t they?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to be cheerful when so much depressing news abounds. But inspirational lives help keep hope alive. Much bad news, such as war, poverty, species loss and climate change, is down to human action or inaction. The positive is that humans have the power to turn things around if the will is there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Kaufman
Chairperson, East London Humanists<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opinion piece published Barking & Dagenham Post, Romford Recorder, Docklands & East London Advertiser November\/December 2023, transcribed below These are grim times, but reading about a star birdwatcher cheered me up! The story of David Lindo, recently appointed a patron … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9c4oP-GR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2659,"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657\/revisions\/2659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}