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Les Firbank‘s small-farm childhood in Yorkshire led him to a degree in animal ecology, followed by a PhD at the University of East Anglia on the population dynamics of the corncockle, a rare arable weed, and a postdoc on weed management at the University of Liverpool. Next came a teaching job, combined with research that became a still-used classic, The Ecology of Temperate Cereal Fields. Then Firbank joined the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, working on farmland biodiversity. He has been involved in the national Countryside Survey 2000, and in studying threats to Europe’s biodiversity. His current role is as head of land use at the…