Natural environment

Natural environment

About this theme

This theme covers topics relating to protecting, restoring, enhancing and caring for our natural environment. It is one of our current programmes for Fellowships, launched in 2023, and has been developed in consultation with our environment working group. Fellows’ stories.

Blogs & conversations The environmental saviour that is… Donkey milk

As part of his Churchill Fellowship, Ross Watson travelled to the Balkans to see how four countries collaborate to remove invasive non-native plants along the 1000km Sava River. In Serbia’s Zasavica reserve, he found donkeys and horses grazing semi-ferally on invasive plants – turning a major environmental problem into prized products like milk, cheese, and soap. His Fellowship showed how being creative and using the right tools in the right way can bring environmental, economic, and community benefits – lessons he is keen to apply in the UK.

By Ross Watson, 2025

Newsletter Sign Up