Laurence Rose is a writer, conservationist and composer. He has worked for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds since 1983, and since 2017 has helped run a £7 million species recovery project, Back from the Brink. His recent book The Long Spring was published by Bloomsbury in March 2018.
Laurence Rose travelled to India to hear first-hand accounts of indigenous people’s special relationships with the wildlife around them. The Warli people living in the urban forests of Mumbai and the Maldhari pastoralists of Gujarat live harmoniously alongside some of the allegedly most dangerous animals in the world. In Mumbai, it is the leopard, living at the highest density of any urban big cat population. In Gujarat’s Gir forest, it is the endangered Asiatic lion, which preys on the herdsmen’s prized buffalo. Rose delves into the values and practicalities that govern life among India’s big cats, discovering that even the tiger is revered as much as it is feared.
Conservationist Laurence Rose spent two years exploring the cultural roots of our relationship with the rest of nature in order to map out its future. From the magnificent white-tailed eagles of Orkney and Mull to the fascinating world of ants and crickets on the southern heaths, he describes his encounters with wildlife in exquisite language and vivid detail.
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Laurence Rose spent the spring of 2016 travelling from North Africa to the Arctic coast of North Norway. It was a unique exploration of nature, culture and conservation, and the vital sense of place that cements them together. Each place comes alive through vivid language and finely detailed observation, whether describing landscapes, people or the stunning wildlife of the continent of Europe. Free shipping if bought with Framing Nature.
Rose is excellent on the science that underpins our understanding of migration, but if he is an environmentalist by profession he is a musician by vocation. His ear for the sounds of birds is exceptional, while his ability to render their spring songs in precise language is among the foremost pleasures of the book.
No book has made me want to sprout wings and fly quite like Laurence Rose’s modern classic as it chronicles nature’s progress from winter slumber to verdant awakening in language so beautiful it sings.
As a detailed primer to the world above our heads, The Long Spring makes for an inspiring, eye-opening read.
Now that Framing Nature – conservation and culture is published, and Leopard Moon Rising is finished and being prepared for...
I am currently writing and researching a new book, planning a research visit to India and working on various collaborations with other artists who are inspired by nature.
This week, an obscure institution known as the Aarey Dairy Development Corporation handed over 812 acres of forested land wedged between inner-city Mumbai and the hills of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) to the state forest department. If it was not the end of the battle to save Mumbai’s ‘green lung’, it may at least be the beginning of the end.
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With five months to go before the most important wildlife summit in history, Secretary of State for the Environment George Eustice has signalled his intent, announcing ambitious-sounding plans to restore biodiversity, making it illegal to fail. EXCEPT ....
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Leopard Moon Rising, the latest book by Laurence Rose, will be released on 1 June as a paperback, on Kindle and other digital formats.
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…as we continue the countdown to Kunming, it would be for the UK governments to sign up to 30x30… AND REALLY MEAN IT
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Saturday 8 May is World Migratory Bird Day 2021. For many species, what seems like a perilous journey at the best of times has become a serious threat to their futures.
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Reflections on recent developments that point to some new thinking on nature.
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In the latest in my long-read essay series, a look back to the lockdown spring of 2020, and forward to a season of renewed hope: the unique season that is the British springtime.
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“To renew the living fabric of the land so that it also replenishes the spirits of its human inhabitants seems to me as close as one can come to a single expression of the aims of a total conservation policy.” Richard Mabey The Common Ground
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All talks below, unless otherwise stated, are entitled The Long Spring, the story of the project described in my book.
The Kirkgate Centre, The Kirkgate Centre, 39a, Kirkgate, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD18 3EH
Gilbert White's House Museum, Selborne Hampshire
The Tolson Museum, Ravensknowle Park, Wakefield Rd, Moldgreen, Huddersfield HD5 8DJ
The Old Court Room, Huddersfield Town Hall, Ramsden Street, Huddersfield HD1 2TA.
