Land Centred Relational Ecology
The liminal space between human, animal, plant, and material life.
Shaped by the land and informed by relational ecology, tērra animá is a container grounded in how human, animal, plant, mineral, and material systems meet and persist over time.
Some aspects of this work are practical and ongoing, arising from living with land over time. Others involve human engagement, held lightly and without instrumentalising human, animal or place.
tērra animá names a way of holding land, life, and human presence in parallel. It commits to ongoing inquiry and research, allowing understanding to emerge through sustained attention over time.
ETHOS
LAND + ANIMALS _01
Work within this strand centres on the ongoing relationship between land and animals as it unfolds. It considers soil, vegetation, season, weather, and animal movement, without treating either land or animals as instruments for predetermined outcomes.
Land decisions arise in response to specific conditions and constraints. The approach remains provisional and adaptive, recognising uncertainty and the limits of human control within living systems.
Animals are not positioned as tools for land improvement, nor is land treated as a system to be optimised. The emphasis is on staying with what is already present, allowing patterns to become legible through time, repetition, and restraint.
This work sits alongside established ecological and conservation knowledge without claiming authority over it. It proceeds slowly, acknowledging that land change is gradual and that responsibility lies in sustained attention and seeks to explore new enquiry.
tērra animá is currently seeking its next land-based project.
SPACE _02
Space refers to the commitment to land held over time, shaped through long-term relationships, reciprocity and continuity, allowing land to remain primary rather than responsive to human schedules or demand.
Such space is not organised around delivery, retreat, or productivity. Human presence is secondary and contingent, shaped by the life of the land. What unfolds does so slowly, through season, repetition, and sustained attention.
This strand reflects a commitment to future land held in this way. Any such space would prioritise continuity over scale, and kinship over use.
Here, space is not a backdrop for work elsewhere. It is the condition that makes the work possible.
tērra animá is currently seeking our next long-term landholding.
Writing and research form a slow, ongoing line of inquiry rather than a fixed output or agenda. This work develops through experience, reading, observation, field notes, and sustained engagement with land, animals, kinship and lived conditions.
The emphasis is on thinking alongside material realities. Writing is used to test language and ideas, trace relationships, and examine where existing frameworks fail to account for human and other-than-human life as it is actually lived.
This area is interdisciplinary and draws on anthrozoology, relational ecology, ethology, ecopsychology, anthropology, and related fields, without claiming disciplinary authority or closure. Research remains provisional and responsive.
Writing may take academic, reflective, or public forms, but remains continuous with the wider work: considered and attentive to the conditions from which it arises.
WRITING & RESEARCH_03
COACHING _04
Facilitated self-leadership in conversation with land and the natural world. This work takes place through situated encounters: time spent in relation to living systems, where attention and reflection are allowed to emerge without prescription or expectation.
Sessions may be 1-1 or small groups, and engagement is shaped by the conditions present, not method or agenda. Where conversation occurs, it arises responsively, grounded in what is encountered, not directed toward outcome.
This work is non-clinical and centres on reflective inquiry rooted in relationship with land and living systems. Engagement is held with clear boundaries, ethical restraint, and respect for personal responsibility.
Where non-human animals step in, they do so at their own choosing and are free to leave at any time.
It is suited to those seeking depth, reflection, and ecological perspective, rather than instruction, treatment, or conventional personal development coaching.
Claire Martin (MNCIP)is dual qualified, registered, and insured coach with over 500 hours of continuing professional development.
ABOUT
Claire Martin (MNCIP) is an anthrozoologist, land-based practitioner, and writer whose work explores the relationships between humans, animals, land, and the natural world.
Her focus is on creating and sustaining conditions where these relationships can develop naturally, with particular attention to the spaces in between—where perception shifts and meaning is shaped through encounter.
Claire is currently completing an MA in Anthrozoology at the University of Exeter. Her broad study draws on ecopsychology, ethology, ecology, and mythology and remains directed towards ongoing inquiry rather than fixed outcomes.
Claire has a lifelong connection to horses, including sustained observation of free-living and wild herds, which has influenced her interest in multispecies symbiosis, animal agency, and the ethical considerations of human presence within living systems.
Alongside her academic and land-based work, she holds qualifications in Equine-Facilitated Learning and maintains professional supervision, without positioning this as the main focus of her work.
Claire is also the founding director of London-based creative workspace company Mill Co.
tērra animá is a developing body of work and will continue to evolve over time.
