Critical Ecologies Spring Session on the IKON Slow Boat

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Ikon Slow Boat will be in Stoke-on-Trent throughout April and May, and provides an excellent space for our next Critical Ecologies Session.

https://www.ikon-gallery.org/news/view/ikon-slow-boat-stoke-on-trent-2025

For our next session we will be considering the Local Nature Recovery Strategy for Staffordshire, and asking what we feel priorities should be for both rural and urban areas.

Given the significant loss of habitat we have seen across continents in the past 50 years, and the recent attack on the environment by the current US government, while closer to home reports of tree felling across cities and recent threat to the Dartington Forest – there has never been a more pressing time to think about what we as researchers might be able to do to advocate for nature.

In this session we will experience the new public art trail installed along the Caldon Canal, celebrating biodiversity, before a session aboard the Ikon Slow Boat, where we will consider the importance of our post-industrial water ways as nature corridors through urban landscapes – which then move out to more rural areas.

In the context of the LNRS for Staffordshire currently being prepared, we will hear from Nicola Lynes of Support Staffordshire, Chair of the Community Advisory Panel for the Staffordshire LNRS, who will share information about the Public Consultation underway and consider with us what we would recognise as priorities for Nature Recovery.

As always, this will also be an opportunity to discuss what you are working on currently, and an open discussion on potential for collaborations and information about our July Symposium, while enjoying the experience of the Slowness of Canal Travel on a boat ride.

We will share a reading list with those that sign up for the event, but for now a couple of relevant links:

Link to book a place: Critical Ecologies Spring Session on the IKON Slow Boat Tickets, Wed, May 14, 2025 at 1:00 PM | Eventbrite