Learning to play table tennis on a windy day, lessons for conservation

I have played table tennis from a young age and have received an amount of coaching.  The role of the coach is to ensure that the player does not improve their stroke in a manner which is beneficial in the short term but limits the potential of the player, the player is responsible for fine tuning the prescribed technique, gaining ‘feel’ in the process.  In this blog I will show that controlled, non random, conditions aid an individual’s attempt to gain feel, or its intellectual equivalent, expert intuition.  In a random environment the quality of feedback is reduced and the process of gaining intuition is disrupted.  Conservation is practiced in a random environment meaning that the intuition of individuals, resulting from their own experiences should not be trusted.  I will consider the consequences of this conclusion and whether a role analogous to that of the coach exists in conservation.

When purposefully practicing (training) with the aim of improving their stroke, a player will try to isolate one aspect of their stroke technique e.g. the extent to which one uses their wrist to generate power and spin.  Small adjustments will then be made to that aspect of the stroke and the player will take note of the relationship between the adjusted technique and the outcome (the flight of the ball).  Feel will be gained as the player gains positive feedback from the technique which results in good shots. 

Now suppose that the player is playing outside on a windy day.  The wind changes in direction (blowing either towards the player, their opponent or not at all) randomly from shot to shot.  A player trials a technique and plays a shot.  The ball flies into the net.  There are two possible explanations: 1) the technique was a bad one or 2) the technique was good but the wind caused the shot be a bad one.  Similarly, if the ball goes onto the table then there are two possible explanations: 1) the technique was a good one or 2) the technique was a good one or 2) the technique was bad but the wind caused the shot to be a good one.  The player would be much less able to gain feel and would have to trial each technique many more times to gain the same level of feel. 

There are many disciplines in which feel can be trusted, disciplines in which shot and outcome are closely linked in a non random environment (see chapter 22 of the fantastic ‘Thinking, fast and slow’).  If conservation was practised in such an environment it would not be a problem that, as Sutherland observed in his 2004 paper ‘much of conservation practice is based upon anecdote’.  However, every conservation intervention is carried out on a windy day.  Natural populations fluctuate according to the weather as well as other factors we are unable to predict.  A system we cannot predict is random.  For instance, I recently read that butterflies have benefited from the weather over the past few months, an effect which will continue to be important over the next year (link here).  The effect of the weather is so important that human actions could have degraded butterfly habitats over the past 5 year with butterfly numbers peaking this year, the year when habitat is at its lowest quality.  Any individual landowner who followed this trend (with their land lowering in value to butterflies over the past 5 years), who was also unaware of the effect of the good weather and who measured butterfly population sizes would conclude that the habitat was of the highest quality in the final year.  This is analogous to playing using a bad technique but obtaining a good outcome due to the effect of the wind when playing table tennis outdoors.

One partial solution is to simply play more shots and gain feel more slowly.  The effect of the wind will even out over many shots and good technique will result in a good outcome more often than bad technique.  Similarly, one cannot learn from one conservation intervention not carried out under controlled conditions.  To identify good and bad conservation interventions the outcome of many interventions must be compared.  It is here that conservation scientists have a role to play by comparing the results of many trials of a similar conservation technique across many different conservation strategies.  Every conservation practitioner, that is every individual who purposefully manipulates the land for a conservation charity, business, government or personal enjoyment has the potential to turn their ‘shot’ into a small piece of feedback by measuring the effect of this shot, by checking if this shot lands on the table.  Currently conservation practitioners are playing shots, carrying out interventions they hope will benefit nature, and turning around not bothering to check if the ball lands on the table, if the intervention is a good one.  This is the strategy adopted by Sutherland, founder of www.conservationevidence.com

Alternatively, or alongside this approach, scientists can exclude the random by conducting well designed experiments.  The feedback gained will only apply to a very precise set of conditions which may not be relevant in reality.  However, general principles can be tested and lessons learnt.  A framework of understanding can be built.  For instance, if you asked a coach why an overarm tennis serve is better than an underarm one then they may point out to you that by striking the ball above the height of the net with a fully extended arm the player is able to generate more power whilst ensuring that ball lands in the correct section of the court.  The coach can work from theory (a grasp of mechanics) to technique.  Likewise, an understanding of the factors determining algal growth can be used to predict the effect of fertiliser running into a lake, for example.  Using this understanding an intervention can be recommended, the effectiveness of which can then be measured as outlined above.

Conservation science throws up counterintuitive findings, findings that feel wrong.  This is not surprising and we should be wary of our sense of feel where that sense is based upon personal experience in a random environment.  Even in a non random environment it is a misconception that the correct theory or technique should ‘feel’ right when described or tried for the first time.  It doesn’t always.  I remember someone who coached me telling me how to adjust the position of my feet when playing a forehand shot, ‘it will feel odd and alien, like wearing shorts on a windy day’ he said.  He was right.  At first the new technique just felt wrong.  Similarly, when I learnt to juggle I had to trust the guy who had taken the time to make an instructional youtube tutorial.  When I tried to replicate what he showed me it felt wrong.  Now I can juggle and it feels right but if I try to learn a new trick, a new pattern of movement it feels wrong again

Conservation is practiced in a random and complex environment.  In an environment which does not lend itself to the acquisition of expert intuition.  We should be wary of trusting our own experiences too much.  As a profession conservation must realise the value of feedback and the limits of our understanding.  At best, by pooling the experiences of many conservation practitioners, conservation might succeed in being broadly right.

Listening to the Devil's advocate, not just preaching to the choir

When considering conservation I think it is useful to engage with someone playing Devil’s advocate.  For a long time individuals have worked in conservation because they believe that it is a good and worthy cause.  They believe that nature is priceless and deserves to be protected and enjoyed by people.  The challenge for professional conservationists is converting this personal belief into action, taken by the public, via their professional work. When considering this problem I bear in mind two very different attitudes.

Self righteous hippy:
This attitude can be summed up as follows: ‘ I value nature for its intrinsic value and I am correct in doing so.  You should also value nature in the same way as me.  If you do not value nature in the same way as me you are wrong.  If you chose to behave in a selfish manner which degrades nature (but benefits you) then you are doing wrong and you are a bad person’.

Selfish individual:
To take an extreme example to illustrate my point, consider an only child and do not wish to have to have children who feels: ‘I do not care about any damage I cause the world as long as it does not affect me.  I live in a developed nation and am therefore likely to be shielded from the effects of any natural degradation.  I will probably never travel to Africa so I don’t care if Lions become extinct.  I act selfishly, why shouldn’t I?’.

The self righteous hippy attitude leaves me extremely frustrated.  An intrinsic valuation of nature is a personal attitude or valuation.  A personal valuation, by definition, is not wrong or right.  If the evidence suggests that most people act selfishly then people should be expected to act selfishly.  Instead of wasting energy on being indignant a better option is to consider how to make conservation the selfish option or how to increase the number of people who hold a similar intrinsic valuation (in a morally acceptable, non brainwashing way).  I believe that the selfish individual is beyond the reproach of a professional conservationist.  It is this person that conservation must listen to.  If this person can be convinced to act in a way which benefits nature then conservation will have succeeded. 

If flights are cheap then don’t get angry at people for having a large carbon footprint and if farmers are subsidised to produce food unsustainably then don’t morally reproach the individual farmers.  It is largely the role of the state to correct these problems by taxing flights or listening to the National Farmer’s Union, scientists and economists and making an informed, logical decision regarding which actions farmers should be paid to carry out.

Live by the Sword; Die by the Sword

This blog will focus on one particular problem of viewing the ecosystem services valuation (E.S.) approach as a conservation panacea and possible solutions to this problem.  Whilst the E.S. approach, which aims to express the value of nature to humans in monetary terms, has the possibility to increase the price we currently put on nature, this price will not always be sufficient.  Sometimes the economic benefits arising from degrading the environment will outweigh the economically explicit costs.  In such instances the degradation of the natural environment will be explicitly rationalised (as supposed to implicitly rationalised as is currently the case).  When this occurs scientists can ensure that their valuation explicitly includes known unknowns, the value of nature not yet quantified but expected to be important.  If this is not enough then there are two broad options: conservationists can fall back on the moral arguments which have been largely unsuccessful for the past hundred years: each species unique, irreplaceable and should be protected for its intrinsic value or they can hold up their handsand state that they cannot currently justify safeguarding the relevant natural resource on the basis of the economic costs.  Recently the ‘The State of Natural Capital Report’ opted for the first option, but I will argue that the explicit valuation of nature requires one to forego the moral argument.  Even so, I believe intelligent utilisation of the ecosystem services approach will do more harm than good.

Firstly, to get a few points out of the way.  Nature has always had a price-tag, this price tag has been an implicit one.  As long as people have been able to buy land or pollute their surroundings, nature has had a price.  As long as conservation has had a finite budget which has necessitated trade offs between different conservation actions, nature has had a price.  This price tag has rarely, if ever, reflected the value of nature to humans.  The ecosystem services valuation approach aims to make the value of nature explicit in a currency (money) which allows trade-offs to be made between alternative options, e.g. organic and intensive farming.  Lastly, some ecosystem services are easier to value than others.  Those which can be sold (e.g. the ability to produce crops) have been well valued, some such as the value of increased water quality are now being more accurately priced and others, such as the value of the emotional wellbeing gained from being in a natural environment are much harder to value.  The ecosystem services approach does not have to ensure that the price we put on nature perfectly reflects the nature’s value to us to be effective, it only has to ensure that the price we put on nature is more accurate and that this increased accuracy is enough to alter decisions.

The short term aim of the ecosystem services approach is not to perfectly measure the value of nature to us, it is to identify the biggest and easiest to measures sources of value such as pollination services, carbon storage and water quality enhancement.  Often including these values will be enough to alter decisions but sometimes it won’t.  When, in light of this valuation, environmental degradation is still economically rational then it is important that the existence of known unknowns, such as the cultural value or any other unmeasured value are acknowledged.  In some circumstances, where the benefits narrowly outweigh the quantified costs, this may result in decision makers erring on the side of caution.  Even if this is not the case, making the known unknowns explicit is a useful tool for directing future research.  This approach would also incentivise conservationists to create accounting methods which allow new information to be incorporated, methods which are transparent and useful to policy makers.

When an ecosystem services argument, which makes the known unknowns explicit is insufficient, should conservationists throw down the ecosystem services tool and redouble their efforts to prevent this extinction by reverting to the moral argument?  ‘The State of Natural Capital’ chose this option writing ‘when thinking about natural capital, wild species and habitats require special treatment that reflects their irreplaceability’ (authors’ emphasis).  It is my opinion that a change of tack of this manner would undermine the ecosystem services (E.S.) approach.  I believe that the use of the E.S. approach is a recognition, by conservationists, that in order to contribute to decisions they must be perceived as a consistent, reliable and impartial contributor to decisions.  In resorting to the moral argument, one chooses a personal rather than impartial valuation of nature.  Who would want to engage with a conservation organisation/scientist knowing that the conservationist, upon losing an argument, would react in this way? 

If conservation needs to have a constant presence at the decision making table but the moral argument still has some value then the opportunity exists to split the use of economic and moral arguments between different individuals/organisations.  Undoubtedly academics are not the most effective at rallying large scale public opposition to environmentally degrading activities.  Instead of individuals leaving the table to pick up their placards when an argument based upon ecosystem services valuation is insufficient, they could stay at the table whilst those organisations and individuals best at rallying public opinion take on the moral argument.

The ecosystem services approach is not perfect and most of those who champion it became involved in conservation for moral reasons.  Conservation must not lose sight of these reasons which drive some of their number to the decision making table.  I am a fan of the ecosystem services approach and I believe that one who fights for nature with the ecosystem services sword must be willing to see nature die by this sword.  Ultimately, conservation needs collaboration, whatever tools conservationists use, they must not lose sight of their ultimate motivation and aims.

Skylark Patches and Behavioural Economics

In ‘Fighting for Birds’, and also on his blog, Mark Avery expresses frustration at a reluctance amongst farmers to take advantage of funding for skylark patches ( 16m² areas of arable land left unfarmed) under the Entry Level Stewardship Scheme.  Having recently read the fantastic ‘Thinking, fast and slow’ by Daniel Kahneman, ‘Nudge’ (Thaler and Sunstein) and ‘Predictably irrational’ (Dan Ariely) I am convinced that conservation can learn from behavioural economics, the study of the ways in which individuals act irrationally (from the perspective of classical economics).  In this blog I will outline a series of experiments to identify whether farmers are more concerned with maximising their profits or the size of their farm’s yield.  I will also present an idea for a way to address individuals’ overestimations of the size of skylark patches (if this is a problem as Mark Avery suggests).

Behavioural economics is based on the observation that humans are not economically rational.  An economically rational individual would always act to maximise their utility (or overall wellbeing).  In the case of the farmer, making the assumption that farmers attribute no benefit to increased on farm biodiversity resulting from the incorporation of skylark patches, a rational farmer would incorporate skylark patches if they increased his (or her) (predicted) profits.  It has been shown that skylark patches do increase profits, see Mark Avery’s blog.  So why, when presented with this evidence, do all farmers not rush to incorporate skylark patches?

The first possibility is that farmers are not interested in maximising their profits.  Instead they may be 

interested in either A)maximising the area of land which they use to produce crops or B) they may evaluate the success of their farming efforts by calculating the total yield of the farm each year.  If farming is a vocation and farmers care about producing crops then this would make sense.  To test between these hypothesises the following scenarios would be used; each scenario concerns a different fictional farm.

Scenario	Area (hectares)	Yield (tonnes Per Hectare)	Total Yield	Profit per tonne (£)	Total Profit (£)
1	40	8	320	400	128000
2	40	9	360	350	126000
3	45	8	360	350	126000
4	35	8	280	450	126000
5	40	7	280	450	126000
6	35	9	315	400	126000
7	45	7	315	400	126000

Farmers would be shown scenarios in pairs or threes (with and without the ‘Total Profit’ column, removed in different experiments) and would be asked which of the farms they would prefer to be theirs.  It would be explained that they will not be able to alter the yield, which reflects the quality of the land or the profit per tonnes which reflects a deal with a local crop buyer which cannot be altered.  An economically rational farmer, if presented with all scenarios would prefer scenario 1 to every other scenario but would not have no preference between other scenarios. 

Experiment A: the farmer would be offered scenario 1 and 2 (in a randomised order e.g. scenario 1 presented first 50% of the time).  If the farmer chose scenario two then this would signal that they would rather run a farm with higher yields.  Next scenario 1 and 3 would be presented.  If a farmer chose option 3 then this would signal that they would rather run a farm which had a larger area producing crops.  Both options 2 and 3 offer the same yield which is greater than that offered by scenario 1 but offer a lower total profit.  If farmers attempt to maximise the quantity of crop they produce they should prefer scenarios 2 and 3 over scenario 1.

Experiment B and C: individuals would be presented with scenario 1, 4 and 5 and then 1, 6 and 7.  This time individuals would be asked to rank the scenarios in order of preference (with the option of 2 or more scenarios being equally preferable).  If individual preferred 4 to 5 and 6 to 7 then it would be possible to conclude that individuals would rather maximise their yield than the area of their farm and vice versa for individuals who preferred 5 over 4 and 7 over 6.

Experiment D: farmers would be given the option of the following 4 farms and would be asked to rank them from highest to lowest preference with the option of applying equal preference to 2 or more scenarios.

Scenario	Area (hectares)	Yield (tonnes Per Hectare)	Total yield	Profit per tonne	Total Profit
A	40	8	320	400	128000
B	40	8	320	450	144000
C	40	9	360	400	144000
D	45	8	360	400	144000

These two sets of experiments would make it possible to see if farmers prefer to maximise the quantity of crops they produce when total profits are equal and, if this is the case, if farmers prefer to do this by maximising the area of land they farm or by maximising their yield per area.  If farmers do prefer to maximise the area they farm then this will help to explain reluctance to take up skylark patches.  The inclusion of skylark patches means a reduction in area farmed.  These experiments could be extended to offer scenarios in which the total area farmed, or yield per area, were increased but total profit decreases due to a decrease in profit per unit of crop.

If farmers do want to maximise the quantity of crops produced then conservation can learn from Thaler and Benartzi’s ‘Save more tomorrow’ scheme.  Thaler and Benartzi recognised that individuals should be saving more for their pensions than they were but did not like to see a drop in their paychecks.  The authors trialled an arrangement whereby upon receiving a payrise workers increased their monthly contribution to their pension (without seeing their paychecks shrink).  The scheme was highly successful but how does it apply to farmers?  Once the currency that farmers use to evaluate the wellbeing they gain from farming (area of farm, yield per area, profit per tonne of crop or total profit) has been identified then skylark patch scheme can advertised so that individuals increase the number of skylark patches when this does not result in a decrease to the relevant aspect of their farming.  For example, if farmers are most concerned about the size of their farm then skylark patch uptake may be highest when targeted at individuals increasing the total area of their farm.

Mark Avery also writes that the patches look as if they occupy more space than they do.  I suggest offering farmers the feedback they need to improve their estimation of the area of skylark patches.  This could be achieved as follows:  Using aerial photographs or the following type of diagrams (with labelled axis), ask individuals to estimate the size of the red squares and the proportion of the total (blue) area which they occupy:

If mark is right then individuals will over estimate the proportion of the total area occupied by the red shapes, if I am right then repeated feedback (providing individuals with correct answers instantly after they make their estimations) will result in individuals’ skills increasing.  Subsequently, individuals will be better able to imagine the difference that 0.5, 1 or 5% of their land being used as skylark patches will really look like.

Other thoughts:

People don’t deal with percentages rationally and overestimate small percentages.  Individuals should be expected (on the basis of current research) to be more in favour of incorporating skylark patches when they are advertised as ‘leaving 98% of farm land area as arable' than as ‘taking only 2% of total farm land area').

Is expert intuition good enough for conservation?

I am currently reading the excellent ‘Thinking, fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman, in this blog I will consider Daniel’s observations regarding the conditions necessary for the attainment of excellence.  Throughout the book Kahneman persuasively argues the merits of using statistical analysis to make rational decisions rather than basing decisions on intuition.  However, Kahneman also provides conditions under which expert judgement, a form of intuition, can be trusted.  Do the actions taken by conservationists meet these criteria or would individuals’ decisions improve if they were based on cold statistics instead of intuition?

The criteria:
According to Kahneman, when an expert makes decisions

·         ‘In an environment that is sufficiently regular to be predictable

·         With an opportunity to learn these regularities through prolonged experience’

‘When both of these conditions are satisfied, intuitions are likely to be skilled.’

One factor which affects the efficiency with which an expert can learn from an effect is the coupling of cause and effect.  For example, if you were learning to play chess and played a move which resulted in your queen immediately being taken then it would be fairly easy to learn from that mistake.  In contrast, if a move you made set in sequence a series of moves by you and your opponent which resulted in your queen being lost 4 moves later then it would be harder to link the cause (your initial move) and effect (loss of queen). 

How do the environments in which conservation practitioners compare to these criteria? 

Every university course in Ecology or Population Biology will draw the attention of the students to stochasticity (randomness) in determining the state of any habitat or ecosystem at any one time.  In highly random environments (e.g. those subject to a highly variable climate), if not all environments, the first criteria is violated.  For this reason experts should be wary of basing decisions on their intuition, on what they ‘feel’ to be right

Secondly, for experts to learn they must make similar decisions many times (to account for stochastic effects) with the effects of these actions closely spatially and temporally coupled (the effects must occur close by both geographically and in time) to the action.  The consequences of conservation actions such as: the planting of trees, the protection of young trees from deer and/or other browsers, reintroduction projects, habitat creation and others are not felt for many years.  Not only does this make it harder for individuals to learn from their actions, most don’t try as long term funding is sacrificed in the face of financial pressures.  Furthermore, many actions have effects which occur at a large geographical distance from their cause rendering what one intuitively feels to be right, wrong.  A good example of this comes from Chinese Lanterns which fall as debris a long way from where they are released, if the lantern fell a metre away from where it was released then I’m confident the person who released the lantern would make an effort to remove that waste (at least if it was released at home.  As it is, pollutants which cause an effect out of sight are left out of the mind of the polluter.  In order for conservation practitioners to be confident about the effects of an intervention they must be confident that no significant effects will be felt outside of the geographical area they have considered (the possible effect of badger culls increasing badger movement is one such example).

I am therefore sceptical of any ‘expert’ who sites intuition as the grounds on which they made a decision regarding decision.  As Kahneman explains the solution is objective statistical analysis.  Pool all the available data regarding the proposed conservation decision, acknowledging uncertainty.  Unfortunately, all too often the pool of available data is too small.  Conservation evidence is an organisation set up to address this problem.  It is a problem which will most easily be addressed with conservation practitioners recognising the limits of their intuition and sharing their knowledge with other practitioners with other experience.  This should not be taken as an attack on the knowledge of practitioners, rather as a comment on the irregularity of ecological systems in which effect is often spatially and/or temporally distance cause.

Learning from excellence in sport

This year’s Sports Personality of the Year award saw Dave Brailsford take the award for best coach and one of his athletes, Bradley Wiggins, win the overall award (to go with his Tour de France yellow Jersey and Olympic gold medal).  It is worth asking what lessons can be learnt from the team (British Cycling) which won 8 Olympic gold medals, 2 silvers and 2 bronzes as well as the Tour de France and numerous Paralympic medals.  One quote in particular, from Dave Brailsford, caught my eye. 

Following the announcement of the 2013 tour route Bradley Wiggins initially stated that he thought it would be more than likely that he would support his teammate, Chris Froom in his 2013 bid to win the yellow Jersey as the route would be more favourable to Chris.  However, more recently Bradley has changed his mind and decided that he would like to challenge Chris for the position of team leader (the rider which other riders of the team sacrifice their own chances of winning to support).  So Dave Brailsford was faced with a challenge: select last year’s winner and the nation’s favourite athlete as team leader or select the athlete who played a large part in Bradley’s success and who is thought to benefit from the change in the tour route?

I think that the following quote, from Dave Brailsford regarding how he will select the team leader is extremely telling ‘We've certainly got some plans now, and as we move through the season, we'll use evidence and results as we move along’ (bold used for own emphasis).  Brailsford will not base his decision on who he would like to have the best chance of winning, he will not base his decision on who he currently thinks would have the best chance of winning the tour, he will not let the possibility of offending the ego of the nation’s favourite sportsperson affect his decision.  He will keep an open mind and make the decision he believes to be best for the team based on evidence and results.  If you are sceptical then you only have to look at his decision to drop the nation’s most successful Olympian, Chris Hoy, for Jason Kenny in the individual sprint, an event which Jason Kenny won gold in.

Likewise conservation should be underpinned by evidence and results.  Decisions should not be taken on the basis of what one person thinks will work (according to their ‘common sense’).  Decisions should not be taken so as to minimise offense to anyone’s ego.  Considering the size of the challenge conservation faces, there is no room for egos among scientists, only for finding out what works and making it happen.

To call each thing by its right name

Do you have a friend who, when you mention a film, will rattle of the name of the director, their style and all the other films they have directed before doing likewise for a few actors and actresses?  I find this show of knowledge annoying as the film boffin shows off.  But I expect that another film boff would appreciate this show of knowledge and could strike up a conversation about the merits of the director etc.  Conservation organisations are knowledgeable about the sights they conserve but, just as most go to the cinema for a few hours of enjoyment, so most people go to their local woods or nature reserve to enjoy the outdoors not to analyse it.  I think that conservation organisations face a tricky challenge in finding the balance between letting individuals come and enjoy a place on their own, giving them a little information which might make their visit more interesting and enjoyable or giving a full introductory course to evolution or behavioural ecology which can fundamentally affect the way we see the world.

There is no substitute for a good guide.  A good guide has no ego, they have no need to show you just how much they know.  All they are concerned about is you, how can they make your experience more enjoyable or fulfilling (which may be by doing nothing at all).  This person does not simply act as a guide delivering a pre-written speech, this person reacts.  They react to what you find interesting with no notion of what you should find interesting.  Importantly, this guide would not point out and name every species they saw.  For many it is intimidating be overloaded with information when visiting a nature reserve.  A visitor may interpret too much information as a show of knowledge, a message that the reserve exists for those within in the club who ‘know how to appreciate nature’ who can put a name to the varieties of life they see.  I obviously don’t believe that this is the intention of the nature reserve.  But, the visitor would not be wrong.  Visitors cannot be wrong in their emotional reactions; if they feel intimidated then they are intimidated. 

Obviously conservation organisations don’t have enough money to offer every visitor a personal guide and so they have to rely on written leaflets etc to make the experience of the visitor more enjoyable/interesting/enriching.  The result is that visitors who want some form of guide are normally directed in a particular direction.  I think that with the abundance of cameras a better alternative might be to send people of into the woods/around the lake etc suggest that they find somewhere they like, stop, take some time to enjoy it and if they have any questions then take a photo or make a mental note, visitors could return to the visitor centre (assuming there is one) and talk to a member of staff, their own guide who they would have questions for.  I am not suggesting that the staff member would be able to answer every question.  I am suggesting that visitors should be able to discuss their experiences of nature on their own terms with members of staff who are interested not in what the visitor should see or enjoy but in what they have seen and found enjoyable.

I know that this blog is written by someone on the defensive who might seem to have a chip on their shoulder.  I enjoy being outdoors.  I enjoy stopping somewhere and watching life.  Yet I am awful at naming species and when the names of species are banded about with the assumption that everyone present knows these species by name it can be intimidating.  I recognise the value of naming species, having to describe each species every time you wanted to talk about it would turn discussing nature into a huge game of charades (though perhaps we should try that sometimes).  I also recognise that in learning the name of a species one is making an effort and in this way learning to call each thing by its right and proper name can be humbling.  At the end of the day I think it is worth remembering that, though it is very useful to name a species, the name really is the dullest feature of most species, much duller than their feathers, fur, eyes, claws, wings or behaviour.