Bruce Gardiner, Project Officer

How do you think your love for nature translates into your work with farmers and conservation efforts?

“I’ve always found that my love for nature has had a bias in the worked areas of the countryside. Having grown up around and also having worked on farms across England and Wales, I am able to understand how farmers work with their areas of our great countryside to be the custodians of nature. This also gives me the perspective to understand the difficulties faced in this endeavour.”

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Are there any innovative solutions or approaches you're excited to explore in your new role?

“Working on a Landscape Recovery pilot project when the whole operation of Landscape Recovery is so fresh means that the whole job is innovative, and I look forward to being at the coal face of landscape scale conservation efforts as part of this project going forward.”

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Outside of work, what are some activities or hobbies you enjoy that connect with your passion for nature and ecology?

“Outside of working for RTCT I can be found surveying Great Crested Newts and bats in the evenings and mornings during the survey season. I spend time volunteering with Young Farmers at County and Area levels, as well as at equestrian events which naturally lend themselves to be located in beautiful parts of the countryside.”

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Darra Carr, Assistant Project Officer

How do you think your love for nature translates into your work with farmers and conservation efforts?

“I believe my experience growing up on a family farm and being immersed in nature from a young age has given me the incentivisation to protect farming, the countryside and the biodiverse environment which surrounds it. As any farmer knows we are merely stewards of the land and are duty bound to hand over something to the next generation in a better state than we have been given, a task the current generation of farmers is set with now more than ever before. I believe with the implementation of sustainable farming practises, we can work with farmers and landowners to encourage a biodiverse environment beneficial to all while still producing high quality locally sourced food safe in the hands that our agricultural industry is secure for future generations.”

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Are there any innovative solutions or approaches you're excited to explore in your new role?

“I would be very interested in the implementation of natural pest control on farms and the positive impacts it would impose on human health, biodiversity and soil health. I believe there are numerous positive ecological benefits to be had from reducing our chemical application on food bound crops as well as reducing the contamination of our groundwater, streams, and all relative water bodies found on farms and agricultural land. Natural pest control also extends beyond the use of biological pest control on crops. Natural pest control can extend to the farmyard itself, by erecting owl boxes on the periphery of farmyards and eliminating the use of poisons, rodent numbers can be significantly reduced while providing food for our endangered birds of prey such as barn owls.”

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Outside of work, what are some activities or hobbies you enjoy that connect with your passion for nature and ecology?

“In my spare time I can be found in many realms of country life from field to water. An avid fly fisherman I have been a trout angler from a young age and believe it was a great driver in my concern for water quality and river preservation. I also pursue a great passion for game shooting and the conservation of game cover for our diverse range of birds which are also a great provider of healthy and sustainably sourced food while keeping numbers of said birds at a sustainable level through careful breeding management and habitat preservation. Although no longer living on the family farm I still maintain great interest in the running of the homestead and hope to one day take over from my father who himself has done great work in bringing the farm into the 21st Century in terms of habitat creation and pesticide reduction.”

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