My name is Paul Knights. I have spent 30 years engaged with our landscape, from nature conservation to agriculture, from academic research to environmental education. Take a look at what I do, and please get in contact at pauljamesknights@gmail.com if there is anything I can help you with.
- I write about and photograph my local Pennine landscape. For the past seven years, through over 130 published pieces and thousands of photographs on my website, I have surveyed my valley’s history and wildlife; chronicled its seasonal changes; and borne witness to the work of the people whose lives are lived in connection with it. You can read about the different strands of my writing here, and see a selection of my photographs here.
- I collaborate with artists and community arts organisations on place, nature and landscape projects. I have worked with sound artists, poets, musicians, visual artists, filmmakers, writers and theatre companies, helping design, inform and deliver the aspects of their work connected to the local landscape, its history and its wildlife.
- I lead guided walks themed around landscape history and environmental philosophy. I have run my unique ‘walking inquiries’, exploring not just the hidden histories but also the embodied meanings of the landscape, for the South Pennines Park, Hebden Bridge Arts, Pennine Heritage, Northern Broadsides, U3A, Hebden Royd Town Council and Wainsgate Chapel. I also give talks to local history societies and other community groups.
- I work with organisations to facilitate environmental education events and programmes. I have worked with Hebden Royd Town Council, Sand In Your Eye and Eureka! The National Children’s Museum in climate engagement events; assisted in the attainment of Eco-Schools awards; and I am a qualified Specialist Philosophy Teacher with The Philosophy Foundation, delivering programmes of philosophy classes to disadvantaged pupils.
- I volunteer with a range of organisations and initiatives to deepen my understanding of the landscape, including Slow the Flow, Treesponsibility, Forus Tree, High Hirst Woodmeadow, National Trust, Calder Rivers Trust, Calderdale Bird Conservation Group, BEAT Community Orchard, Hebden Bridge Walkers Action and the British Trust for Ornithology. I am in constant conversation with any and all individuals and groups that have connections to the local landscape, from farmers to ecologists, artists to historians, fell runners to foresters, in all nearly 400 contacts across 80 organisations representing every possible relationship to the land.
- I researched, published and taught in the Philosophy Department at the University of Manchester for 11 years, latterly as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, orienting all my work around questions concerning the human relationship to nature. I worked on environmental policy questions in large, multinational, interdisciplinary teams, presenting to a wide range of audiences – policy makers, practitioners, students and the general public. I also designed and delivered the first ever undergraduate environmental ethics module at the university.
- I worked for the ecological restoration charity Trees for Life in the Scottish Highlands for 15 years, leading groups of volunteers from all backgrounds on residential tree planting projects in remote locations. I completed a rural studies diploma at an agricultural college, and have worked on a range of farms, from intensive arable and sheep farms, to fruit farms and organic smallholdings.
All my freelance practice – my writing and photography, arts collaborations, guided walks and environmental education – is deeply informed by my background in philosophy, holding to its task not to provide answers but to reveal complexity. I aim to challenge entrenched views that fuel conflicts over what land is for, reveal the plurality of meanings rural places and wildlife can have for people, deepen appreciation of the values at stake for different groups, and thereby to strengthen connection to and engagement with the landscapes we inhabit.
I grew up in the arable lands of Essex, and then attended agricultural college in Suffolk for a rural studies diploma. For the following eight years I lived in Edinburgh, while also spending much time in the Highlands leading residential conservation projects. My heart has always been in the Pennines, though; when I was 11 my dad took me camping in the Yorkshire Dales and it was there I fell in love with the landscape. For the past 16 years I have lived deep in Pennine country in Hebden Bridge, in the Upper Calder Valley of West Yorkshire.
Landscape Story 