Have you ever thought about beef or dairy from the cow's perspective? In this episode of Tree Amble we meet Dr Lindsay Whistance who has a life long passion for cows and is deeply concerned about our relationship with them. She works as the senior livestock researcher at the Organic Research Centre and has 4 themes to her work:

* Farm animal behaviour

* Participatory research and facilitation

* Health and welfare planning and assessments

* Role of trees and shrubs in landscapes and food systems for farmed animals

I hope you enjoy this conversation!

We met Kate Hanley down at Dovestones just east of Oldham on a very wet day in 2024. Kate works for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and manages a brilliant project on land above Dovestones which is owned by water company United Utilities but leased to the RSPB for nature recovery. Kates work here is really drilling down into how we restore very degraded peat bogs - essential for carbon storage, water management [keeping water back for both flood prevention and droughts] and for nature. Our upland peat bogs have been hammered by pollution, extraction and drainage. But Kate's work is truly inspirational even if it is turning a few heads - birds are flooding back, insects galore but also trees are seeding into her project and this challenges the peat / tree dogma. This is one site visit which is well worth the walk!

In this Tree Amble Special we went back to Torpenhow [pronounced Tre'pen'ah] - Mark and Jenny's Farm - and joined the Specialist Cheesemakers Association at their annual gathering. We had a ball with these amazing cheese makers eating and talking about the best of the best cheeses in the UK. These folks are brilliant food producers and all concerned with nature on land they manage or where their milk comes from and what it can do for good food taste and production.