Episode 1: Tim Smit @ Eden Project
“We are so addicted to silver bullets that we don’t realise that almost every solution is a composite”
Sir Timothy Bartel Smit KBE - although he would rather just be known as Tim
Ideas don’t come much bigger than the Eden Project, but rewilding may be even bigger than that, so when I started to focus on my project idea in November 2019, the first person I looked to talk to was Tim Smit.
I had been lucky enough to meet Tim when I was manager of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. I invited Tim to give a keynote talk at a conference, and he had kindly agreed. On arrival at the hall 15 minutes before his talk, I asked Tim if he had a presentation to put on the computer. His somewhat unnerving response was that he was still thinking about what to say... and of course he went on to do one of the most memorable talks given about the Jurassic Coast.
I have been in touch regularly with Tim since then, and see him as both a friend and someone who always has bonkers / spectacular ideas to chew over, and he has been kind enough to give me some of his time. As it turns out, I could not have gone to anyone better to point me in the right direction.
“to concentrate on wildflowers is very similar to building a hospital that only does cosmetic surgery”
My podcast including my interview with Tim can be found by pressing play here, or at the link below. The photos are best seen in the context of the audio.
It is perhaps a shame that the first of my case studies does not have a lot of photographic content - the Eden project is not a rewilded landscape, although it is a magical example of ecological restoration, and you can find more about how that happened here and see map at the bottom of the page to see where it is.
So the photos that you see are location portraits of Tim in his office, but they set the context for the talk and show him in a relaxed setting.
The interview itself was fascinating, very enjoyable and with much to take away. Tim didn’t just talk about rewilding, but commented on capitalism, on the ‘common-wealth’, on money and on the economics of rewidling and how it can may be able to pay its way.
He emphasised the importance of marketing - if you have an idea that you like, it is likely that there will be others out there who like it too, but you need to tell them about it! If nobody knows, they cannot get behind it.
“In hindsight, our push for greater productivity from the land that we have led us down a really really negative strand of poisoning the soil”
Towards the end he talked about the value and importance of words, about what they mean to different people and how meanings diverge very quickly. Farms and farming are two words that have a particular resonance and meaning in our society and he questioned whether they are helpful if we are to rescue our ecosystems with a different model of agriculture.
There was also much that I had to leave out, aiming to keep the podcast to about a half hour, but I can always save that for another occasion.
My thanks to Tim for his time, and to you for listening and looking - please sign up to my email list here, and add a comment below if you wish.
If there are any terms that you don’t understand, please do look at the glossary and links on the introductory page, or drop me a note and ask.