Pete Bowler

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Peter "Pete" Bowler (born October 19 1952 in Ripley, Derbyshire; died September 6 2005) was an English environmental campaigner, natural historian, wildlife photographer, journalist and politician. He was best known for his regular "Country Diary" column in The Guardian newspaper, and his work as Campaign Officer and spokesman for the consumer organization, Waterwatch.

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[edit] Public life

[edit] Political career

Born and brought up in the industrial English Midlands, a youthful interest in politics led Bowler to become a Young Liberal and he later won a seat on Amber Valley council. His enthusiasm and energy impressed his fellow activists, and in the 1983 General Election, Pete Bowler was invited to stand as the Liberal candidate for Rotherham, South Yorkshire. Rotherham was well known as a solid Labour Party stronghold, and it was no surprise when he failed in his attempt. Undaunted, he stood for the local elections, winning a seat on Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council to become the town’s only Liberal councillor. He was a vigorous campaigner against local complacency about the effects of industrial pollution on the environment, and he quickly became a thorn in the side of his fellow councillors.

[edit] Environmental campaigner

Whilst Bowler was serving as a councillor in Rotherham, his environmental interests were mainly concerned with their impact on people, an approach which he never abandoned. One of his early concerns was the many complaints he received about the smells and flies emanating from a local sewage farm – his attempt to resolve this was an early example of his later campaigns for better water services. He was also successful in fighting on behalf of several small communities threatened by big business or bureaucracy.

During the 1994-95 drought, he became incensed by the poor performance and evident mismanagement of the newly privatised water services and its detrimental effects on the public and on the natural environment. Bowler became the full time campaign officer and spokesman for Waterwatch, a consumer watchdog organization set up to monitor the privatised water and sewerage companies and to campaign for better services. He set out to make Yorkshire Water improve its performance and was successful in forcing the firm (and later other water companies) to change their policies, using agile media work and careful mastery of complicated data. The knowledge he had built up during this and subsequent campaigns led to him becoming a regular media spokesman on all matters concerning water, often clashing with OFWAT, the government body set up to regulate the industry. In his capacity as Waterwatch spokesman, Bowler was also asked to give evidence at several local and Parliamentary enquiries concerning the public water supply.

[edit] Journalist

Pete Bowler’s career in journalism started with a few short articles on wildlife and gardening, illustrated with his own photographs, which were submitted to in-house corporate magazines and journals. He went on to write articles on wildlife gardening for Amateur Gardening and Your Garden magazines. In the mid-1990s, he began a regular fortnightly "Country Diary" column for the Guardian newspaper, in which he described the wealth of wildlife in his local region of South Yorkshire, an area widely considered to be an industrial wasteland. His articles have been praised for being always immediately accessible to the reader, delivering expert knowledge in a simple yet effective format.

[edit] Natural historian

Completely self-taught, Pete Bowler’s love of natural history began with solitary walks as a boy on old coal tips around Ripley, collecting newts. He became a skilled wildlife photographer and joined the local naturalists' society, learning to identify plants and wildlife in the field by attending regular field meetings and surveys. A champion of the amateur naturalist, he bemoaned the decline of the traditional identification skills formerly fostered by these societies and always emphasised the important role of local amateur enthusiasts in wildlife conservation. Working with English Nature and as Information Officer for the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, he became a passionate advocate and campaigner for protected species, particularly water voles and great crested newts (a lifelong interest from his boyhood days). In his later work as a consultant he carried out his own wildlife surveys, becoming an expert at tracking small mammals by their droppings, and playing a significant part in helping the cause of local and regional biodiversity.

[edit] Personal life

Pete Bowler was born and brought up in Ripley, Derbyshire, and he never lost his distinctive Derbyshire accent. He left school at 16 and his first job was making bicycle frames. He then became a salesman for soap products, travelling in and around the East Midlands, and later a salesman for a brewery. The temporary loss of his driving licence in the early 1990s meant that he was unable to continue working as a travelling salesman and he also gave up his unpaid position as an elected Borough Councillor. Forced to find alternative employment, he embarked upon a successful second career as a freelance journalist, becoming increasingly well known for his campaigning and his appearances in the media, where he was often interviewed for his views on current environmental issues.

Despite being known for his genial and friendly manner, he was proud of his confrontations with government and big business, and frequently filled in the word ’troublemaker’ on forms requesting his occupation, occasionally changing it to 'shit-stirrer'. His motto, on everything from his battles with water companies to animal surveys (one of which he was doing when he died), was: "You show me a pile of crap, and I'll show you who did it."

[edit] Family

His wife Carol was a former mathematics student at Loughborough University and a fellow activist. Their daughters, Becky and Sarah, share their father’s enthusiasm for the environment. In 2002, aged only 12, Sarah Bowler was chosen as a delegate to the International Children’s Conference on the Environment in Canada. Encouraged by her father, she set up the award winning website Cool Kids For A Cool Climate an international initiative to alert children to the effects of global warming and the means to counteract it, by planting trees in their home countries. Although still at school, Sarah is now the environmental consultant on the CBBC TV programme ‘Level Up’

[edit] Funeral

Pete Bowler suffered a fatal heart attack in September 2005, whilst carrying out a survey of water voles for Scarborough Council. His unconventional woodland burial in South Yorkshire, held without any formal ceremony, was attended by over a hundred friends and colleagues. Interred with him in his biodegradable wicker coffin was his collection of nutshells, whose varying marks made by different bites and nibbles helped him to plot the Yorkshire populations of wood mice, bank voles and other small mammals.

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