Introducing: Future Land

Inkcap is launching a new series. Here's how it works.

Hello, everyone! Tomorrow, Inkcap is launching a new series, and I want to tell you about it.

Future Land will be an ongoing series of interviews with people thinking about nature in ways that are different, radical and inspiring.

It will be an opportunity to interrogate big questions with thorny answers – and create a space for discussion and connection.

Typically, journalism is driven by news and events. It keeps us updated, but rarely offers a deeper insight into the ideas that underpin the day-to-day developments.

So this is how Future Land will work.

Every month, Inkcap will interview someone who is deeply engaged with nature in the UK – someone who cares not just about the landscape as it is today, but who has a vision for what it could be like in the future.

All Inkcap subscribers will receive a summary of this interview, much like a normal mid-week feature, accompanied by a separate discussion thread and conversation prompts. The aim is to foster a forum for debate – a place with room for nuance and dialogue, rather than the quickfire conversations of social media.

Paid subscribers will also have access to the transcript of the entire interview, like the one I did with Rebirding author, Benedict Macdonald. If you want to have access to these transcripts, you can sign up here:

When I published my interview with Ben, I thought that it was a relatively nerdy thing – it is more than 6,000 words – and that it would appeal to a limited number of people working in conservation.

To my astonishment, it has been read around a thousand times, and was tweeted by Natalie Bennett, the former leader of the Green Party. It made me realise that, actually, people do care about details. They want to get into the weeds.

Natalie Bennett @natalieben

"Moorland is what happens when you take the habitat away; ... that's not an ecosystem, it's a lack of." @Rebirding1 talking to @inkcapjournal Worth subscribing for this alone #biodiversity #bioabundance

inkcap.substack.comBenedict Macdonald: the entire interviewThe complete transcript of Inkcap’s hour-long conversation with the author of Rebirding.

Here are some of the issues that I am keen to explore in the coming weeks:

• How should we go about rewilding?

• What role, if any, can hunting play in conservation?

• Who has access to the land – and how can we extend that?

• What should the UK’s woodland look like?

• What role can farmers play in restoring nature?

I am particularly keen to speak to women, people of colour, and anyone whose voice has typically been underrepresented in discussions about the land.

If you have any thoughts on the topics I should explore, or who you would like me to interview, please leave a comment, reply to this email, or send me a tweet. 

Please share this with anyone whom you think would be interested in joining the discussion.

The first interview in the series will be with Lee Schofield, a conservationist working in the Lake District at RSPB Haweswater, and it will hit your inboxes first thing tomorrow morning.