Ben Rawlence, writer, activist and founder of Black Mountains College focused on ecology-led education. He discusses local, place-based responses to ecological collapse. He explains blending ancient practices with modern literacies, practical skills for fragile supply chains, and a practice-led Sustainable Futures degree that ties arts, ecology and systems change.
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insights INSIGHT
Preparing For Unknowable Change
We cannot be fully ready because we don't know the exact shape or timelines of the unfolding ecological catastrophe.
Preparing means embracing uncertainty and developing adaptive capacities, not forecasting certainty.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Choose And Know A Place
Pick a specific place and learn its ecological, social, and economic context deeply.
Build local relationships early so you can rely on community when systems fail.
question_answer ANECDOTE
How Place Sparked The College
Ben moved to the Black Mountains because of family ties and fell in love with the landscape and its possibilities.
That personal arrival sparked the idea to adapt Black Mountain College principles to mid-Wales.
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One of the best things about this job is that I get to find out about and share some of the most exciting new developments in education all over the world, sometimes in the most unexpected places. My guest this week, the writer, human rights activist, turned educational entrepreneur Ben Rawlence and his amazing team are building just that in a small market town called Talgarth in mid-Wales. Black Mountains College is an incredible institution working with young people locally in mid-Wales and from across the UK, set up as an alive and direct response to the climate and ecological emergency to help create a future in which nature and human societies thrive. As you’ll hear Ben describe, the college is part of a tradition of land-based alternative education organisations such as Dartington College in the UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartington_College_of_Arts) and Rabindrath Tagore's Visva-Bharati University in India (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visva-Bharati_University) and is continuing and updating this tradition to become one of the most inspiring examples globally of what is possible and needed in these times. Ben is an award-winning writer, activist, and former speech writer to Sir Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy. He was a researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Africa division, worked for the Social Science Research Council in the USA, the Liberal Democrats in the UK and the Civic United Front in Tanzania.
His books include The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth and his forthcoming book Think Like a Forest: Letters to my Children from a Changing Planet.BMC website: https://blackmountainscollege.uk/
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