Info, news & debate
Game / wild meat
Are squirrels or pigeons ‘food’, and should we reintroduce pine martens?
OK, so this isn’t really about squirrels or pigeons – it’s about any animal; we’re back to the veganism vs meat-eating discussion. But just focusing on squirrels and pigeons for the moment, I guess everyone accepts that they are of course food for other animals. They’re in a food chain, after all. Pine martens don’t …
Our policy on keeping animals & eating meat
Our topics include vegetarianism and veganism, but also keeping animals (for meat, dairy, eggs, honey, wool, leather, work etc); and also fishing and hunting animals in the wild. Is this incongruous? As a sustainability / new economy organisation, should we be promoting only veganism, rather than the keeping and/or eating of animals?
From folk music to pheasants with Scarlett Penn of WWOOF UK
Scarlett Penn of WWOOF UK recounts an illuminating evening of music and debate, after encountering a pheasant-shooting party in a Shropshire pub.
The catapult as a hunting tool
In the minds of many people a catapult is nothing more than a child’s toy, or one of the weapons used by the “Beano’s” Dennis the Menace to terrorise the softies (for those of us old enough to remember). Few people these days would ever consider using a catapult for hunting, but not too many years …
The crayfish food revolution: one man’s solution to an invasive species problem
Bob Ring, or ‘Crayfish Bob’ shares his passion – an effective, and tasty, response to the damage the invasive crayfish species are doing to UK waterways and their native inhabitants.
How might hunter-gatherers have lived on this land?
Emily Fawcett explores what it might be like to live like our ancestors, to live the old way, on this land. What would it mean to experience life and the land like the indigenous people of these islands – as hunter-gatherers, to return to the Old Way?
It can’t possibly be a bad thing to live in the wild and to harvest both plants and animals for food – can it?
A group of us are attempting to have a debate about the sustainability of meat production, but I’ve realised that our differences are much deeper.
Join our new online community Living Low Impact
We’re excited to introduce our new Facebook group Living Low Impact – and you’re invited!
What’s the best thing to do with the uplands, in terms of sustainability?
This is a question asked in an interesting debate on Facebook along the lines of uplands and their appropriate maintenance with regards to grazing. There are several fascinating projects and opinion pieces that were linked to
Is leather tanning ethical?
Traditional hide tanner, Jessie Watson Brown, offers her thoughts on the ethics of leather tanning, from large-scale industrial tanning, to home-scale natural tanning.
Is it ethical to eat meat, or to keep animals for meat or dairy?
This is a very important question for us here at Lowimpact.org, because we have courses, books, magazines, links etc on keeping animals and on game. We also have vegetarianism and veganism as topics – because we recognise the environmental benefits of eating less meat.
Why we’d be better off living like the Saxons (with a few mod cons)
If you spend your life trying to promote low-impact living, you sometimes get asked the most ridiculous questions. More than once I’ve been asked something along the lines of: ‘you want to take us back to the Middle Ages, don’t you?’
If society collapses, which skills will you wish you’d learnt?
Here’s a conversation between Dave of Lowimpact.org and Nigel Berman of ‘School of the Wild’. Nigel teaches appreciation of nature and wilderness, and he’s provided us with information for our topic introduction on ‘firecraft’.
Why does our list of topics include vegetarianism, veganism AND keeping animals?
Isn’t that a bit inconsistent? If we think that vegetarianism or veganism is a good idea, how can we also think that keeping animals – most of which are kept for meat – is a good idea too?
Is it ethical to eat meat?
A group of around 15 of us meet one evening a month, for something we call ‘Philosophy Club’. The topic of this month’s meeting, which happened last night, was ‘is it ethical to eat meat?’