EVENT CANCELLED DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES

MANDY HAGGITH WILL GIVE US HER TALK AT SOME POINT IN OUR NEXT SEASON

Monday 2nd November 2026

'The Lost Elms'

by

Dr. Mandy Haggith

Mandy Haggith was born and brought up in Northumberland, but since 1999 has lived in a coastal, wooded croft in Assynt in the northwest Highlands where she writes novels, poetry and non-fiction books and enjoys sailing.

She first studied the piano, philosophy, maths and AI, and her PhD was about situations where people disagree, particularly about environmental issues.  Mandy left academia in the mid 1990s to write, carry out research and campaign for the world's forests.  She returned to study creative writing, gaining an MLitt with distinction in 2005; she continued working as a forest campaigner until 2018, when she became a lecturer in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of the Highlands & Islands.  She is also an honorary research fellow at the Scottish Association for Marine Science.

Mandy's forest-related work has ranged from research for the Centre for International Forestry Research, collaborating with scientists around the world, to helping community organisations (including Culag Community Woodland Trust and Assynt Foundation) to create visions and management plans for their land.  As an activist, she has lobbied at the UN, worked for a Green MSP and for international environmental organisations including Greenpeace, WWF, Fern and Taiga Rescue Network.

The use of forests for the production of paper has been an abiding interest for Mandy, and from 2005-2009, and again from 2012 - 2018, she was international co-ordinator of the Environmental Paper Network, a global network of more than 150 organisations campaigning for sustainable paper production.  Her concern that the environmental and social impacts of the paper industry are poorly understood by non-specialists culminated in a book 'Paper Trails: From Trees to Trash - the True Cost of Paper'.  It was based on Mandy's five-month long global journey through Europe, Russia, China, South-East Asia and North America, witnessing where all the paper we use comes from.

Dutch elm disease has killed hundreds of millions of trees globally, altering landscapes for ever.  Few young people have seen a mature elm tree, yet they once covered great swathes of Europe and North America, and their legacy is deep in our mythology and folklore,  In the past, the north of Scotland was too cool for the beetles that spread the disease, but climate change has led to its inexorable progress into our woods and gardens.  However, all is not lost: recent breakthroughs in ecological understanding reveal elms to be far more resilient than we ever imagined.  We must not give up on them.  Mandy's book 'The Lost Elms', which won the Richard Jefferies Award for the best book of nature writing of 2025, tells the elms' gripping story and brings hope for the future. 

Nairn Community Centre 

King Street, Nairn

7.30 p.m.

Refreshments and a Warm Welcome Await!

Members Free, Guests £6.00 on the door