How Stories Can Change The World

and may have just saved the sea....

I believe that books can change the world. I would say that, of course, but last week delivered me hard proof.

It is not the book, of course, that makes the change alone. It is the readers of the book who have, though its words, been led along a journey that makes them see the world differently. A veil is lifted so that at the end they think: I cannot now pretend I do not know what I now do.

Maybe a book has done this for you: has changed the way you think or live or feel. Or maybe a book has literally changed your life, like those farmers I’ve met who were so convinced by Gabe Brown’s ‘Dirt to Soil’ they fundamentally changed the way they grew food; or like Isabella Tree’s 2018 book ‘Wilding’ who made my vet friend, Claire Whittle (farm shed bookshelf pictured below), realise for the first time that the UK had dung beetles and that the drugs she was prescribing dairy cattle were killing them. The journey she went on because of that has been life changing not only for her and her story of how she ended up managing and transforming a Welsh hill farm, but for all those she has taken with her.

Last week it was the turn of a different book: Charles Clover’s seminal 2005 book, ‘The End of The Line’, which in 2009 was turned into a film that collected all sorts of prizes and was watched by millions.

I first met Charles properly when our books were both nominated for a Wainwright writing prize in 2023. We went for dinner afterwards with his excellent wife, and agent, and I dragged Craig Bennett, then of the Wildlife Trust, along too. We drank a lot of red wine, which seemed to help all the impassioned talking (and, in my case, hand waving). Charles was there because of his new book - Rewilding The Sea. The reason it’s so important is that it’s not so much of a sequel than a ‘what happened next’ story of how, in a world where so many of us feel so powerless, real change is still possible.

The End of the Line, aided by campaigns run by the charity Charles founded, The Blue Marine Foundation, kick started a wave of passion and understanding of both the problems and the solutions. Rewilding The Sea sets out a case for allowing ocean space for nature to recover in the way we are starting to leave space for nature on land.

But it also says: it worked.

It was about what had gone right: how a wave of change meant, in part, a kind of recovery to species like blue-finned tuna he had not dared to dream was possible (although, noted, warmer seas have also played their part). The excellent Positive News ran a good summary of ‘one of the great unsung stories of conservation’ as described at The Rewilding Futures Conference here.

Then, this week, the government announced a proposal to ban bottom trawling in vulnerable ocean habits.

Despite its name, bottom trawling has nothing to do with Clapham Common in the 19990s. It’s a brutal farming practice that - like using glyphosate as a desiccant to kill crops just before harvest (and just before they enter the food system) to save the cost of drying green grain, or cutting tails off pigs so they don’t bite them off through boredom at a life spent indoors, or trimming the beaks of chickens so they don’t peck each other bare of feathers - few people think about when they scan a menu.

Fish are caught in weighted nets mechanically dragged across the ocean floor causing irreparable damage, releasing the same amount of carbon as a year’s worth of planes, and resulting in ‘bycatch’ when species like turtles are caught up in the net. David Attenborough’s new film, Ocean, showed for the first time what this trail of destruction actually looked like.

Sophie Pavelle did a good summary in typical style here, making clear that in order for it to move from a proposal into law we must all engage in the public consultation by completing a form, like the one via the Blue Marie Foundation (who have drafted a letter to your MP for you) which needs to be responded to in NINE WEEKS. It takes 21 seconds. I timed it.

Bringing about Real Change cannot rest at the feet of one book, or film, or campaign, of course. I think it is probably the accumulating layers of words and arguments, images and horrified voices, and the serendipitous reaching of the right people at the right time that mean a tipping point is reached where it actually happens.

And by true change I guess I mean both that the legal system acts like a parent and says ‘no you cannot do this anymore’. Enough people have told the law makers that it needs to change. And, in consequence, that social pressure begins to turn into habit change so that - like drink driving - it just becomes the kind of thing which is not really very cool anymore.

There is another lesson to be learned from this success, though, about the power of a story of recovery and abundance and hope. Charles Clovers’ second book and Attenborough’s film make clear that what I have seen happen on farms and to soils all over can happen in the ocean too. Given the chance, nature recovers: and fast.

We have always understood the world through stories. Perhaps this is why words, even now, contain such power.

Sometimes - as with The End Of The Line - the truth can shock us (and governments) into action. But I also worry that too many doom stories make us feel hopeless and guilty and like the solution is too big and I AM JUST ONE PERSON. I am unsure whether some are able to bring about anything but change-paralysis. Loading your paint-gun with splatters of doom and firing them at people until they are so covered by it they can’t really see anymore is not, I think, necessarily an effective way of changing people’s minds, and decisions, and choices.

Whether it is politics or climate change or how to live well, I have been wondering whether the key to making the world fairer and more abundant for all is just to tell a better story. Tell the story not (only) of the demise but the recovery. To say: this is the planet and life you could have. It could look, and feel, and smell, and sound, like this. It could be glorious. And it is possible. We just need to keep reaching for it together.

Sometimes, as a writer, the act of walking into a bookshop or library can feel overwhelming, as you scan full shelves wondered if there really is any point just adding another to them. But then I remember that you never know who you will reach with your words and stories. You never know whether your words will be picked up by exactly the person able to turn them into action. And you also never know whether your book will kick start a reading frenzy - or follow one - and be the thing that begins or ends a life change. This is why I genuinely never think of being in competition with another writer, so much as part of a collective ‘If You Liked That Book You’ll Love This’ energy wave.

So in this world of fast-moving low-concentration imagery and digital lives lived on a scroll, I hold on to this. The simple power of a story well told still works. And sometimes, it can change the world.

*Sustainable Fish - what we should be eating

There are some who think eating fish is never truly sustainable although others disagree (and if you want a blasting furnace of a reposte from Charles on the shock-doc ‘Seaspiracy’ have a read of this). If you are in the latter camp, here are a handful of places trying hard to create a market for sustainably sourced seafood (post below any more you know of…) and please post any you recommend below for others to see ;-)

This page by the Marine Stewardship Council also tells you what you might want to order instead of the ‘big five’ usuals of Cod, Haddock, Salmon, Tuna and Prawns. They suggest ordering Hake, Sardines, Mussles, Clams & Cockles, Coley, Pollock and Herring and Anchovies (anchovies on warm, thickly buttered toast being my all time snack-of-dreams).

Pesky Fish - supply ‘regenerative seafood’, only selling mature fish old enough to have reproduced from native and abundant stocks and caught using methods with the lowest chance of bycatch and no permanent environemtnal damage. Alive to the bonkers statistic that in the UK we export 73% of the fish we catch whilst importing 80% of the fish we eat, they only supply fish shipped ‘from coast to kitchen’, packaged in recyclable packing and offset the carbon emissions created by delivery.

Pipers Farm - supply seafood only sell certain species to ensure what they sell really is sustainable, catching only what is in abundance and blast freezing it which means minimal waste.

The Dorset Meat Company - only sell fish caught on small day boats from Birxham, Weymouth and Poole and blast frozen.