In this blog we hear from Jacqui Stearn about being the Voice of Nature on CG’s board:

In 2023 I spotted Create Gloucestershire’s invitation for people to join the board. What stood out was the opportunity to step into a non-executive director role as the Voice of Nature.

My experience as a climate coach, poet, years of public service in Natural England, and my commitment to enabling people to engage with nature and face into our climate and biodiversity challenges through their creativity, made applying a no-brainer. I was appointed in April 2024.

Behind the scenes for the creation of the position - and similar ones across the arts sector – is Julie’s Bicycle. Their programme with Arts Council England has enabled hundreds of organisations to track their environmental impact, build resistance’ and create change. They host regular sessions bringing together people in similar roles to be inspired by others’ initiative, and share ideas and resources to introduce to our respective boards.

Their work and my own creative practice have supported me to speak, as best I can, from nature’s perspective.

What difference has been made?

Creating change is urgent – we know this too well - but there is a fine line to tread between urgency and supporting people, the organisation, to move at a manageable pace, but which still makes a difference. We’ve addressed the basics – carbon footprint, supplier green credentials, choice of bank – and have revised and renewed the environmental policy. Plus, there are important developing relationships with nature-focused organisations in the county.

Narrative, telling a story, is at the heart of many creative practices. My most recent suggestion is to share information about a free online course, The Search for New Stories to Live By created by Professor Arran Stibbe, Professor of Narrative Ecology at the University of Gloucestershire. The course is very accessible and designed to engage understanding of the narratives of our unsustainable civilisation, and aid people to counter them with life-affirming stories – literal and metaphorical – that inspire action towards a better world.

An example of a writer offering a new story is, Robert Macfarlane. In his latest work, Is a River Alive, he writes, Recognising nature’s rights is one way of trying to tell a different story about the living world: a very old story given new expression. A story in which the world is ‘not a machine after all’, as DH Lawrence put it, ‘but alive and kicking’. (1)

Resources

A couple of practical resources to share alongside Arran’s course, are Culture Declares Emergency, and the Julie’s Bicycle Creative Freelancers Climate Almanac

Get in touch

Please get in touch if you have any nature affirming stories to share, whether words, images, music, dance or another art form.

1. Robert Macfarlane, Is a River Alive, Hamish Hamilton, 2025, p.30.