Our Archives and Collections: Nature and the Environment

Understanding how we interact with our natural environment is a significant strength for Eastern Arc, from the climate research within UEA’s Environmental Sciences, to Kent’s Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology and Essex’s recently established flagship interdisciplinary focus on environment, sustainability and society, as well as the Essex Plant Innovation Centre.

Our archives and special collections reflect this strength, both in the creative responses of key nature writers, and the politics and science underpining our understanding. The list below gives an indication of some of our holdings that relate to nature, the environment and climate.

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Archive	Description
Nature Writing	Across Eastern Arc we hold a collection from some of this country’s leading nature writers, including JA Baker (at Essex), Mark Cocker; Roger Deakin and Richard Mabey (at UEA). We hold manuscripts, notebooks, correspondence and more, documenting their relationship with the natural world.
Politics of Agriculture and the Environment	Although the natural world feels like a world away from Westminster, politics informs how we manage, exploit and protect the land. We have the Zuckerman Archive  at UEA, which include the papers of the Natural Resources (Technical) Committee (NRTC) which sought “to advise on technical problems of the development, use and conservation of natural resources”.  We also have the papers of John Hill, farmer and MP, who was active on agricultural select committees in the 1960s, and at Essex we hold the papers of the Windscale Enquiry, which investigated the worst nuclear accident in Great Britain’s history.
Understanding Climate Change	Guy Stewart Callendar (1898-1964) was a meteorologist who, in 1938, revived the 19th century carbon dioxide theory of climate change. We hold his archive at UEA, together with the archive of Hubert Lamb, the Founder and first Director (1971-1977) of the Climatic Research Unit.