We all want a world where our climate is stable, nature thrives, and where all people have health, happiness, and prosperity – it’s our human right, right?
Unless we change things, we are on track to breach the 1.5°C temperature increase limit set by the Paris Agreement by 2030. The breach risks irreversible environmental degradation and runaway climate change that will affect all our societies and economies.
An essential ally against the climate crisis is nature. We are losing nature at an alarming and unprecedented rate.
If you want to make some changes at home to protect nature, boosting the biodiversity in your garden or outdoor space is a great place to start.
Biodiversity and climate are inextricably linked, you can’t fix one without the other. Help wildlife to thrive in your garden.
Experience Education Employment Environment by Morag Warrack (first published in West Sussex County Times)
Keith Colin at Sompting
Earlier this month I had the great pleasure of being shown around two of the four sites managed by Keith and Liane who, along with a great team of trustees run the charity Sustainable Sussex.
Volunteer Fiona, who lives in a flat 20 minute’s bike ride away, told me, “I’ve been helping for two years now. It was a real lifesaver during lockdown!”
The small area (it’s less than one acre) is rich in birdsong – all the more noticeable as there is little or no traffic noise. The scent of elderflower blossoms fills the air as swallows swoop low over the small fields. Read more
Gardening to save the planet by Kia Trainor CPRE Sussex Director (first published in West Sussex County Times)
Female Orange tip
Dave Goulson is Professor of Biology at the University of Brighton. His books, include ‘The Garden Jungle’ and ‘Gardening for Bumblebees’.
At a recent talk, he explained that we need insects to pollinate our food crops. In the UK some growers are now employing people to hand-pollinate their plants, because insect numbers have declined so dramatically.
We can help here though. The area of gardens across England is over 4.5 times that of national nature reserves, so by gardening for nature together we can make a difference.
As part of the CPRE Sussex ‘Festival of Spring’, Prof Goulson explained how we can garden to save the planet: Read more
Fun family bird spotting
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Wildlife friendly gardening
Our Horsham Climate Cafe on 5th September was an inspiring and informative talk about Wildlife Friendly Gardening. Every green space is critical for our wildlife, even your garden, as all our UK gardens form more space than all the UK nature reserves!
Carrie the founder of Sussex Green Living opened the event with a reminder that we humans are not at the top of a wildlife pyramid but are simply part of the web of all life. All the living things in an ecosystem depend on all the other things – living and non-living for continued survival – for food supplies and other needs. Humans, animals and plants depend on a complex system of food for survival. Stressing the importance of using bug hotels, bird boxes and bat boxes in our gardens, but be aware that bats need about 1,000 mosquito type insects per hour, so a pond is almost essential!
Joanne Knowles was our second speaker who is passionate about encouraging us all to seek out peat -free compost. Read more
Help keep Rookwood green
The Keep Rookwood Green bio blitz on Saturday 15th August was an outstanding success which a stream of timed arrivals of families who went to record the wildlife. The council plan to build 1,100 new houses on Roowood Golf Course, which is located next to Horsham’s nature reserve, this area makes up 28% of Horsham’s large green space. This wildlife-rich natural world is vital for our wellbeing and survival, once built on it is lost and gone forever.
You can listen to the talk by Keep Rookwood Green and see their presentation here.
People are being encouraged to write to their councillors, sign the Keep Rookwood Green petition and carry out their own bio blitz on a day which suits you and any friends or family members. Use this map and log to plot your finds, take photos and share them in the social media with this hashtag #foundonrookwood. You can find Keep Rookwood Green social media details and the petition on this page. Read more
Help Keep Rookwood Green!
Join the Keep Rookwood Green Campaign on Saturday 15th August to become citizen scientists at this bio blitz, help carry out surveys to help record all living species in the area. You can book timed tickets for staggered visits through this Eventbrite link or learn more here www.KeepRookWoodGreen.org.
Watch the talk Keep Rookwood Green gave at our Horsham Future Forum meeting on Tuesday 16th June here.
29% of Horsham’s green space could be lost
HELP KEEP ROOKWOOD GREEN PLEASE!
On Tuesday 16th June our weekly Horsham Future Forum and Youth Eco Forum attendees listened to an excellent talk by Peter Simpson, Trustee of the Friends of Warnham Local Nature Reserve and Sally Sanderson, Chair of Friends of Horsham Park. Friends of Warnham Local Nature Reserve, Friends of Horsham Park and the Horsham Society have formed Keep Rookwood Green Alliance and are campaigning to retain Rookwood Golf Course as a public green space.
Those of us on this week’s Zoom call were shocked to learn of the ecological damage and the 29% loss of Horsham’s large green space that will occur if 1,100 houses are built on Rookwood Golf Course. The decision will be finalised before August and there is a short window of opportunity in which we can influence Horsham District Councillors. The more of us that make our views known known, the greater the chance that we will be heard and that we can Keep Rookwood Green!
Here are some ways that you can get involved: Read more
Wool & environmentally friendly gardening
Wool and gardening….. Really? Yup Really!Fact, wool producers in the UK get paid very little money for wool produced every year. Getting wool from the field to the wool depots is not cost effective. Sheep owners give away the fleeces to shearers, burn them or just allow them to fester in a dark corner which is not environmentally friendly.
Garry (my husband) and I started with 6 Southdown ewe lambs 6 years ago. We now have a flock of 32 sheep. We graze on land in North Horsham. A hobby which has become a passion. Determined not to waste the gorgeous wool that our small flock of sheep produce every year, I researched online and found companies, crafters, art and design colleges to recycle the wool too. I did think about processing our wool for yarn and weaving. It would have cost me thousands of pounds so I went back to the drawing board.
What was simple, environmentally friendly, required little processing, cost effective and made good use of the natural qualities of wool. Wool and gardening! And so evolved WOOL SHrED.
Message from Ecuadorian cloud forest
One of the last hidden treasure/locations
Saturday 9th May the weekly virtual Horsham Climate Cafe focused on The Value of Nature, bringing attendees a special message from Nicola Peel who is locked down in a cloud forest in Los Cedros Biological Reserve in the Choco region of Ecuador full of yet to be discovered plant and animals. Plants which will provide cures to diseases, trees which give us oxygen to breath, things we take for granted. The debate is gold and copper mining for new phones or medicine and oxygen?
During this Climate Cafe session Victoria Wyllie de Echeverria also gave an informal talk about the deep connection indigenous people have to nature, their stewardship of the land and water and how they are adapting to climate change.
You can see Nicola’s video message at the bottom of this page. Learn here about Nicola’s lockdown location, one of the most biologically diverse and endemic habitats on Earth in her latest email:
Dear friends,
After finishing my work in the Ecuadorian Amazon I was about to have a week to myself on the coast. This was not to be. Like so many of us due to the unforeseen events our lives have changed.
I had returned to Quito and was staying with a friend when I heard that due to Corona Virus all borders were closed, flights to be cancelled and no more buses. I got out of the city on the last bus to Chontal and headed up to the Los Cedros Reserve. http://reservaloscedros.org/
Los Cedros Reserve – An update and photos from our friend Nicola Peel
Los Cedros Reserve – Andean cloud forest of Ecuador – UNDER THREAT
Our friend Nicola Peel has sent us an update and some incredible photos from her visit to the Los Cedros Reserve in the cloud forest of Ecuador which is now threatened by gold, copper and molybdenum mining.