Naomi Bosch is an agricultural scientist and freelance writer based in Croatia. She’s a founding member of the Friends of A Rocha in Germany, and now the Friends of A Rocha in Croatia. The topic of her Masters thesis were high value tree agroforestry systems including fruit trees and domestic animals. She’s now making plans to put her thesis into practice by building her own regenerative farm in Croatia, together with her Croatian shepherd. Find out more about her at plentiful-lands.com or by signing up to her newsletter.
As a child growing up in church, I heard and read these words by Jesus countless times. God’s kingdom is ‘here’, it’s ‘close’, it’s ‘coming’. Yet, little did I know just how close that kingdom of God really is! Or that I would discover it in truly unexpected ways …
The Oxford English Dictionary has announced its ‘Word of the Year for 2016’ in both the UK and USA is ‘post-truth’. In a year that has seen bitterly divisive campaigns in the Brexit referendum and the US election, and a rise in political extremism in various parts of the world, it is clear that we have entered a toxic era of fear and uncertainty about what to believe and who to trust.
A cross-cultural team is hard work. Each of us brings a set of norms, ways we see the world and ways we expect others to see it. It all led to a lot of discussion. Time, punctuality, and lateness were certainly one of the default conflict zones; another was status.
The news that Indonesia’s senior Muslim clerical body has issued a fatwa against illegal hunting and the poaching of endangered species has caused considerable media interest. The story serves to illustrate that it is now mainstream for conservation organizations to understand that religious groups can play a central role in achieving conservation goals.
John was more English than almost anyone I know − except perhaps my father-in-law! Yet beneath the reserved, even conservative demeanour of this gracious gentleman lurked a profound and often subversive cultural agility. His humility and genuine interest in people, along with a considerable sense of humour, enabled him to make friends across all religious and cultural boundaries.
