Africa is experiencing a dramatic loss of biodiversity. By the end of this century, climate change alone could cause the loss of over half of African bird and mammal species, and a significant loss of plant species.

The livelihoods, wellbeing and food and water security of the poorest and most vulnerable people in Africa are threatened by habitat loss and degradation, over-exploitation of wildlife and fisheries, and the spread of non-native invasive species.

Yet, paradoxically, African leaders could also hold the key to protecting the world’s wildlife and wild places.

Bold action

Namibia and Botswana have already protected 30 percent of their land. Rwanda’s mountain forests are fully protected in law. Ethiopia is investing significantly in reforestation. Bangweulu in Zambia is a unique, community owned protected wetland, home to 50,000 people who retain the right to sustainably harvest its natural resources and who depend entirely on the richness the park provides.

Fish stocks have significantly improved, poaching has been reduced, bird populations are up and Bangweulu Wetlands is the largest employer in the region.

If other  African governments follow these examples and take bold action to protect nature, there is a real chance of achieving a new international agreement to halt biodiversity loss. 

Last week, environment ministers, policy makers and scientists met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at what is known as the Regional Consultation on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework for Africa. These regional consultations – which often go under the radar – are important steps in the consultation process towards a global deal for nature which will be hammered out at the next meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October 2020.

African nations are being urged to support the Campaign for Nature by working for a global deal to protect at least 30 percent of the planet by 2030.

Crucial moment 

The Addis Ababa regional consultation is a crucial moment for African nations to show leadership and help bring the global community together around new, more ambitious goals to protect and responsibly manage the world’s lands and oceans.

Of course, Africa is not alone in experiencing an alarming loss of biodiversity. Around the world, nature is under serious threat. Species are becoming extinct up to 1,000 times faster than the natural rate.

Global wildlife populations have declined by 60 percent since 1970. Nearly two-thirds of the earth’s wetlands and half of all rainforests have been destroyed in just a century. 30 percent of the world’s fish stocks are over-exploited.

The forthcoming global assessment report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) – due to be published in early May – will confirm this depressing trend.

Written by 150 leading international experts from 50 countries, the report predicts widespread species extinctions, catastrophic deforestation and runaway land degradation. Species extinction is now ranked as one of the six most important global risks in terms of impact on humanity by the 2019 Global Risks Report of the World Economic Forum. The impacts on human health and wellbeing are only too easy to imagine.

Facing extinction 

Thankfully, there is still time to take bold global action to save nature. Moves are already underway for a global accord to tackle biodiversity loss in the same way that the Paris agreement aims to tackle climate change.

But that won’t happen without bold leadership at the national and regional level – that’s why these regional consultations are so significant.

As Dr. Donald Kaberuka, former President of the African Development Bank, wrote recently: “Unless African politicians and leaders learn the lessons of others to protect nature now, the consequences will be far worse than people realise.

“For a collapse in biodiversity across the planet does not just mean that we face an extinction of plants and animals, but a collapse in clean water supplies, food security and the health of humans.”

In terms of social, economic and environmental development, Africa stands at a crossroads. By 2050, the continent will be home to around one billion young people with aspirations for jobs, decent livelihoods, health and wellbeing.

Sustainable development 

Not long ago, Africa was viewed as the world’s economic and environmental basket case, but with wise sustainable development it could instead become the world’s bread basket, and a shining example of how to row back against environmental degradation. 

No-one pretends this will be easy. As well as the immense task of persuading the world’s leaders to get behind a global deal for nature, there is a huge cost involved. 

The CBD estimates up to 440 billion US Dollars are needed annually, yet the current spend is only 52 billion US Dollars a year. However, the cost of inaction is much greater than the cost of action.

Scientists estimate the total value of the services provided by nature to be about 125 trillion US Dollars per year. By degrading these systems, rather than protecting them, people around the world will end up paying a higher price – which could include our very survival. 

Even the World Bank – an organisation not always noted for its green credentials – recognises the economic case for protecting nature and is investing in watershed management, integrated coastal zone management and protected areas.

Together with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the World Bank is ploughing some 360 million US Dollars into 50 projects in several African countries including Mozambique, Gabon, South Africa and Tanzania.

Indigenous knowledge

It’s not just political leaders and global institutions who are taking action. Local communities with indigenous knowledge and centuries of living in harmony with nature can help create protected areas, tackle illegal fishing and forestry activities, protect cultural sites and monitor the impacts of climate change.

In Kenya, community conservation programmes have protected some commonly held lands for wildlife, and in turn are generating eco-tourism revenues. Community-based natural resource management in Namibia now covers more than 166,000 km2, home to around 228,000 people.

The African Sahel Great Green Wallinitiative is being delivered by local communities from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east. 

African leaders have a crucial role to play in the run-up to the 2020 CBD meeting. They can demonstrate the political will needed to achieve the Campaign for Nature’s ambitious global deal to protect 30 percent of the earth’s land and oceans by 2030, then scaling up to 50 percent by 2050.

I urge them to take the lead not only for Africa, but for the world. 

This Author 

Abiodun Jacob Aderibigbe is a member of the the Sustainable Environment Food and Agriculture Initiative (SEFAAI) in Nigeria and works at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Farm Management at the University of Agriculture, in Abeokuta. He specialises in the sustainable use of natural resources through education, advocacy and research.

Image: Nyungwe National Park. Rwanda Government, Flickr. 

Africa is experiencing a dramatic loss of biodiversity. By the end of this century, climate change alone could cause the loss of over half of African bird and mammal species, and a significant loss of plant species.

The livelihoods, wellbeing and food and water security of the poorest and most vulnerable people in Africa are threatened by habitat loss and degradation, over-exploitation of wildlife and fisheries, and the spread of non-native invasive species.

Yet, paradoxically, African leaders could also hold the key to protecting the world’s wildlife and wild places.

Bold action

Namibia and Botswana have already protected 30 percent of their land. Rwanda’s mountain forests are fully protected in law. Ethiopia is investing significantly in reforestation. Bangweulu in Zambia is a unique, community owned protected wetland, home to 50,000 people who retain the right to sustainably harvest its natural resources and who depend entirely on the richness the park provides.

Fish stocks have significantly improved, poaching has been reduced, bird populations are up and Bangweulu Wetlands is the largest employer in the region.

If other  African governments follow these examples and take bold action to protect nature, there is a real chance of achieving a new international agreement to halt biodiversity loss. 

Last week, environment ministers, policy makers and scientists met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at what is known as the Regional Consultation on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework for Africa. These regional consultations – which often go under the radar – are important steps in the consultation process towards a global deal for nature which will be hammered out at the next meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October 2020.

African nations are being urged to support the Campaign for Nature by working for a global deal to protect at least 30 percent of the planet by 2030.

Crucial moment 

The Addis Ababa regional consultation is a crucial moment for African nations to show leadership and help bring the global community together around new, more ambitious goals to protect and responsibly manage the world’s lands and oceans.

Of course, Africa is not alone in experiencing an alarming loss of biodiversity. Around the world, nature is under serious threat. Species are becoming extinct up to 1,000 times faster than the natural rate.

Global wildlife populations have declined by 60 percent since 1970. Nearly two-thirds of the earth’s wetlands and half of all rainforests have been destroyed in just a century. 30 percent of the world’s fish stocks are over-exploited.

The forthcoming global assessment report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) – due to be published in early May – will confirm this depressing trend.

Written by 150 leading international experts from 50 countries, the report predicts widespread species extinctions, catastrophic deforestation and runaway land degradation. Species extinction is now ranked as one of the six most important global risks in terms of impact on humanity by the 2019 Global Risks Report of the World Economic Forum. The impacts on human health and wellbeing are only too easy to imagine.

Facing extinction 

Thankfully, there is still time to take bold global action to save nature. Moves are already underway for a global accord to tackle biodiversity loss in the same way that the Paris agreement aims to tackle climate change.

But that won’t happen without bold leadership at the national and regional level – that’s why these regional consultations are so significant.

As Dr. Donald Kaberuka, former President of the African Development Bank, wrote recently: “Unless African politicians and leaders learn the lessons of others to protect nature now, the consequences will be far worse than people realise.

“For a collapse in biodiversity across the planet does not just mean that we face an extinction of plants and animals, but a collapse in clean water supplies, food security and the health of humans.”

In terms of social, economic and environmental development, Africa stands at a crossroads. By 2050, the continent will be home to around one billion young people with aspirations for jobs, decent livelihoods, health and wellbeing.

Sustainable development 

Not long ago, Africa was viewed as the world’s economic and environmental basket case, but with wise sustainable development it could instead become the world’s bread basket, and a shining example of how to row back against environmental degradation. 

No-one pretends this will be easy. As well as the immense task of persuading the world’s leaders to get behind a global deal for nature, there is a huge cost involved. 

The CBD estimates up to 440 billion US Dollars are needed annually, yet the current spend is only 52 billion US Dollars a year. However, the cost of inaction is much greater than the cost of action.

Scientists estimate the total value of the services provided by nature to be about 125 trillion US Dollars per year. By degrading these systems, rather than protecting them, people around the world will end up paying a higher price – which could include our very survival. 

Even the World Bank – an organisation not always noted for its green credentials – recognises the economic case for protecting nature and is investing in watershed management, integrated coastal zone management and protected areas.

Together with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the World Bank is ploughing some 360 million US Dollars into 50 projects in several African countries including Mozambique, Gabon, South Africa and Tanzania.

Indigenous knowledge

It’s not just political leaders and global institutions who are taking action. Local communities with indigenous knowledge and centuries of living in harmony with nature can help create protected areas, tackle illegal fishing and forestry activities, protect cultural sites and monitor the impacts of climate change.

In Kenya, community conservation programmes have protected some commonly held lands for wildlife, and in turn are generating eco-tourism revenues. Community-based natural resource management in Namibia now covers more than 166,000 km2, home to around 228,000 people.

The African Sahel Great Green Wallinitiative is being delivered by local communities from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east. 

African leaders have a crucial role to play in the run-up to the 2020 CBD meeting. They can demonstrate the political will needed to achieve the Campaign for Nature’s ambitious global deal to protect 30 percent of the earth’s land and oceans by 2030, then scaling up to 50 percent by 2050.

I urge them to take the lead not only for Africa, but for the world. 

This Author 

Abiodun Jacob Aderibigbe is a member of the the Sustainable Environment Food and Agriculture Initiative (SEFAAI) in Nigeria and works at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Farm Management at the University of Agriculture, in Abeokuta. He specialises in the sustainable use of natural resources through education, advocacy and research.

Image: Nyungwe National Park. Rwanda Government, Flickr. 

It’s no secret that the earth’s forests are shrinking at an alarming rate. According to the World Bank, an area larger than South Africa (502,000 square miles) was lost between 1990 and 2016. 

Agriculture is one of the largest drivers of this deforestation and the role of cocoa farming in particular has become the focus of much public and private debate.

Anyone within the cocoa industry is acutely aware of the delicate challenge at hand: creating sustainable livelihoods for communities who rely on cocoa farming for their survival whilst preserving forest landscapes for future generations. 

Collective action

Undoubtedly, the cocoa industry has been part of the problem but we’re also catalysts for change. 

The Cocoa & Forests Initiative (CFI) is a prime example of the impact collective action can have on combating deforestation in the world’s two largest cocoa producing countries of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.

As head of sustainability for Olam Cocoa – a signatory to CFI and a leading supplier of sustainable cocoa – I know that we need to go even further to end deforestation from cocoa on a global scale.  

Olam Cocoa is focused on future risk and preventative action to protect the trees that are still standing. In line with our ‘Living Landscapes Policy’ – which is framed around putting more back into food and farming systems than is taken out – we’ve developed the Forest Loss Risk Index (FLRI).

This works on the basis that we first need to have a transparent picture of our global cocoa supply chain in order to identify risks of forest loss and prioritise our actions accordingly. We start with GPS mapping our entire cocoa supplier network and combine this with historic deforestation rates, existing forest cover and national park boundaries.

Targeted intervention 

From this mapping we can highlight deforestation risk hotspots and assign an individual risk weighting to each supplier. 

It sounds deceptively simple. But committing to GPS map, assessing risk and taking targeted action across a sourcing network of 650,000 cocoa farmers in 11 countries is a considerable task.

We have already mapped 100 percent of our supplier network in Ghana, Indonesia, Brazil and Cameroon and expect to have completed this process in Côte d’Ivoire, Papua New Guinea, Ecuador and East Africa by mid-2019.

We will then be in a position to analyse the vast amounts of data to make sure we are monitoring the areas that are most at risk.

Once we have this deeper insight, we can better target our interventions and get ahead of deforestation before it happens.

Chanelling resources

For example, better awareness of farmers who are operating in high risk areas means we can channel resources into one-on-one, anti-deforestation coaching and continue to support their progress every year.  

Cameroon is one cocoa growing region in particular where this approach could have a pre-emptive impact. The country has the second largest intact dense tropical rainforest in the world but is at high risk of deforestation.

By assigning a high-risk category through the FLRI, we can take action on the ground to prevent future tree loss. 

There is more impetus than ever amongst agribusiness to keep the world’s forests standing. Within Olam Cocoa, we recognise that our position in the supply chain means we need to keep pushing for this impetus to become impact. 

This Author 

Simon Brayn-Smith is the head of sustainability for Olam Cocoa. During the past two years, Simon also headed the development of the Olam Farmer Information System, a pioneer smallholder farmer tool designed to work both as an integrated farmer group management system and a data collection, analysis and application tool. 

Trees for Cities recently planted our millionth tree. This of course is a huge achievement –  but it also  strikes a chord, and reminds us that there is much more to do. 

The millionth tree, a disease resistant elm, has found its home on the ground of St Thomas’ hospital, Westminster.  Around 100,000 have helped us plant the 999,999 trees before this one.  

Standing opposite the Houses of Parliament, this tree is a symbol of what can be done by people wanting to make a positive change.

Cause for celebration

This was a milestone worth celebrating. Sir Michael Palin came along to plant the tree with us, over 20 years after he planted his first in Gospel Oak.

Palin said: “By planting these trees we celebrate something we all love and cherish. Something that brings communities together, and actively works to address pollution, and the stress of living in our cities. This is something we can all agree is a good thing, so let’s celebrate the millionth good thing!”

Straight after it was planted, we got onto the millionth and first. One generation passed the baton to another, with pupils from Dormers Wells Infant School planting the first of a new breed of urban trees in the hospital playground.

The trees stand as a reminder that when today’s children are growing into the future leaders and decision makers that will take on responsibility for the planet. 

And they’re already taking the mantle. In 2018, Greta Thunberg spearheaded the first school strike for the climate, outside the Riksdagshuset, the house of Sweden’s parliament.

New generation

On 15 March, only a few months after Greta’s first strike, she was joined by over a million more young people in 2,000 cities across the globe. Together they marched to make it clear that “we need to treat the climate crisis as a crisis”

When air quality is declining, temperatures are rising, and a water shortage predicted to befall us in as little as 25 years, action is needed, and there is room to make it happen.

Recent research has found that there is space on the earth’s surface to plant 1.2 trillion new trees that could absorb more carbon than humans produce each year.

On top of this, these trillion trees would improve biodiversity, providing a home to countless species, ease soil erosion in parts of the world where local communities depend on farming, curb a water shortages, and so much more. We need more trees, so we will keep planting them. 

This Author 

Devika Jina is Marketing and Communications Manager at Trees for Cities, the only UK charity working at a national and international scale to improve lives by planting trees in cities. 

We lived in harmony with the natural world before the Industrial Revolution. That changed with the advent of new manufacturing processes in the mid-eighteenth century. 

We are now seeing a change whereby science and engineering are looking back to nature as something more powerful – something to learn from: Nature 2.0.

Our understanding of how species have evolved has increased vastly over the past 20 years, along with our use of technologies enabling us to delve further into the microscopic world. One such field that is taking advantage of this is biomimicry. This approach to innovation looks at what functions, process and systems nature uses, and replicates these principles.

Fluid mechanics 

Famous examples are: Velcro, inspired by burdock seed burrs, the cat eyes in our roads and barbed wire, inspired by the hawthorn bush.

One area of engineering that is attracting a great deal of investment is the field of fluid mechanics. 

When we think of looking to nature and flight, we think of bird flight. Thick wings of modern aircraft generate lift the same as in bird wings, gliding birds reduce drag by having winglets, which are now found on the majority of passenger airliners. These also focus on different air flows across and around the wings.

Even the study of shark skins for wings is in development. This exoskeleton type material reduces drag on the shark with micro vortexes along the body, allowing the shark to glide through the water. This would allow for a considerable reduction in drag and use less aviation fuel.

One of the most famous examples is the Shinkansen Bullet train. In the mid-1990s the engineering team looked at ways to increase a trains speed to reduce journey time. The issue being as the trains got faster, they were creating sonic booms as they left tunnels along the route.

How to solve this? They looked to the kingfisher and how it creates a minimal splash, just like a top-level diver. The long beak of the kingfisher pierces the water, and the train design team increased the length of the nose of the train to create the same effect at a differing scale.

Engineering solutions

What about automobiles? Improvements in airflow have been one of the critical areas of development of the car manufacturer, McLaren.

While looking at how to improve the update into the engines, they sought a remarkable example, the Sailfish. You think of these animals as smooth fish gliding through the water. In fact, they have small ridges near the tail which reduces the drag and increases efficiency.

The design team applied their engineering solutions to one of the cars and improved the air intake by a whopping 17 percent. 

What about future developments? The team at the Biological Form and Function lab led by Dr Naomi Nakayama have been developing research into how the dandelion seeds stay aloft.

Their investigation uncovered an unusual type of vortex. The discovery of the separated vortex ring provides evidence of the existence of a new class of fluid behaviour around fluid-immersed bodies, which may underlie locomotion, weight reduction and particle retention in biological and manmade structures. This could have potential uses in aircraft and vehicle industries and even household products.

For engineering and designers needing novel solutions, looking to the natural world is proving to offer unique solutions for the problems they hope to overcome. We need to continue to look at how the living world uses the materials in ever more complex ways.

These Authors 

Richard and Naomi will be joined by Dr Veronika Kapsali at the Edinburgh Science Festival on 13 April to talk about the latest developments in the field of biomimicry. From ecosystems to plant cells, science and engineering have developed some intriguing innovations that are solving some of the world’s most pressing issues.

Tickets and more information are available here. 

Wild Rumpus exists in a place where arts and culture meet the natural environment.

We create award-winning events which celebrate nature and believe that when audiences experience quality art together in the great outdoors, something quite amazing can happen. 

Wild Rumpus began in 2009 when we set up Just So Festival. Just So is a weekend of adventure on the Rode Hall Estate in Cheshire; everything is focussed around families having an incredible time outdoors, enjoying live music and art together in the natural environment. 

Radical change

We started out working from a windowless lock-up in Macclesfield – not the most inspiring environment for creating an outdoor arts festival! After our third Just So we decided to radically change the way we worked by moving to a woodland near the festival site.

We bought a Bedford horsebox to use as our office, got a generator and built some compost toilets. We immediately found that we were being more ambitious because we were working outdoors, having meetings on long walks instead of being stuck inside the same four walls. 

2019 marks the biggest change yet in the ten-year history of Wild Rumpus. In the past few weeks we’ve expanded to establish The Forge, a pioneering creation centre which includes the woods, our design barn where we build our stages and festival props, and the sixteenth century Ashbank Farm which has become our main office.

Having this much space means that we can invite other artists to come here and create new work in an inspiring outdoor environment.

We can also carry on our aims to be as sustainable as possible – we’re starting a kitchen garden for our staff, we’ll be raising chickens and are working to become carbon neutral.  

Commitment to sustainability

Working so closely with nature inevitably leads to an increased awareness of the impacts that we all have on the natural world.

We’ve always been keen to minimise the negative effects which Wild Rumpus and the events that we produce have on the environment and have worked hard over the years to establish eco-friendly ways of working.   

You can see our commitment to sustainability across all of our festivals, but especially at Timber Festival. Timber is a weekend of ideas and debate in the National Forest and uses the incredible natural landscape as inspiration for meaningful discussions about living sustainably.

Timber is still in its infancy; 2019 is only our second festival. This year our priorities are to reduce fuel and water consumption and to keep the non-recyclable waste we produce to an absolute minimum.

To do this we’re increasing the number of water standpipes around the site, setting up compost loos, using renewable and low energy to power equipment, and banning the sale of single use plastics including water bottles, plastic cutlery, straws and sauce sachets. 

Minimising travel 

One of the biggest impacts that festivals have on the environment is travel. Obviously you need to get audiences to your festival, but there are ways to reduce the negative effects of so much travel.

This year we’re working with a wonderful company called Red Fox Cycling so that people can cycle to Timber and have the cost of the bike hire taken off their festival ticket.

We’re also working with Midland Classic to offer a local bus route to the festival, and with Energy Revolution to offset the environmental impacts of our audience travelling to the site. 

Our audiences are the ones who champion the eco-friendly initiatives that we put in place. The Just So and Timber festival sites are always impeccable when we leave; people really care about looking after the sites and make sure that they don’t leave a single piece of rubbish behind.

Even though we’re working really hard it’s important that we don’t become complacent. If our audience are demanding that we change an element of how our festivals are run, we need to listen and make sure that we adapt. 

Environmental impacts

It feels like festivals are leading the way forward and inspiring best practice across the whole of the arts sector.

Festivals are normally temporary spaces set up in fields for just a weekend, often with the population of large towns and even cities, which means that organisers have a real responsibility to protect their festival sites for the long-term.

This responsibility can be quite a scary prospect, but it also means that you can decide how everything works – you can choose to set up compost toilets instead of chemical ones or to ban single-use plastics. If festivals can do this on such a large scale it shows that other organisations can make changes too.

It’s all very well thinking about the environmental impacts of a short-term event, but at Wild Rumpus we want to inspire real and lasting change. This means integrating sustainability into the fabric of every event, including what we choose to put on our stages.

Timber is packed full of workshops and talks about how we can live more responsibly and in harmony with nature, which inspires our audiences to think differently and take action in their daily lives. 

Changing habits

There are so many festivals embodying this idea of long-term change and encouraging their audiences to re-think their habits, whether it’s Shambala going vegetarian for all their food concessions (and 33 percent of their audience choosing to eat less meat at home as a result), Boomtown with their focus on audience travel or Hay Literature Festival with their Greenprint Toolkit. 

Festival audiences are really open-minded so are perhaps more willing to change their habits if they’ve been inspired by an idea over the weekend. 

Over the last year or so it feels like the world has woken up to the fragility of the environment. Just look at the heightened awareness of single-use plastics, and of course the strikes led by young people all across the world.

People understand that we have a responsibility to protect our planet. That’s why it’s so important that we’re always striving to improve and find better ways to keep sustainability at the heart of everything we do.  

Join in

Timber Festival is running from 5 – 7 July at Faenedock in the National Forest in partnership with the National Forest Company. 

Just So Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary from 16 – 18 August on the Rode Hall Estate in Cheshire.

This Author

Rowan Hoban and Sarah Bird are founding directors of Wild Rumpus. 

Wild Rumpus. 

An “army” of gardeners spurred on by The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has added 22 million plants to gardens in the last year, a survey for the organisation suggests.

The poll of 2,000 RHS members found gardeners typically put in some 10 to 40 new plants a year, which the charity said benefits wildlife, the environment, health and well-being.

It is expanding its “greening grey Britain” campaign, which aimed to promote more planting in concreted and paved spaces, into a “greening Great Britain” scheme to promote growing more plants in any setting.

Diversity

The RHS said that among the estimated 22 million plants going in the ground or pots a year, at least 157,000 trees were introduced.

RHS director-general Sue Biggs said: “We know most of our members are active gardeners, but these figures are stunning and exceeded our expectations with the amount, and diversity, of plants they are adding each year.

“This is immensely positive for wildlife, the environment and numerous other benefits, including cooling local areas in summer, flood protection, air quality improvement, noise reduction and well-being benefits.”

Health benefits

And she said: “Without the plants our gardeners grow we would have fewer insects, wildlife, bees, beauty and benefits to the environment.

“We would have less nature, seasonality and colour in our front and back gardens; and if we didn’t have our ‘army of gardeners’ we wouldn’t have the rich and beautiful diversity we are so famed for and so good at maintaining.”

The polling by SurveyMonkey also suggests that three-quarters (77 percent) of gardeners quizzed choose plants for bees, while 96 percent of members believe in the health benefits of gardening and 95 percent think it is beneficial for the environment.

This Author

Emily Beament is environment correspondent for the Press Association.

Nuclear power has never lived up to the promise of cheap energy for all, but the costs have included displacement and sickness to nearby communities, contamination of land and water resources, and a build up of 70 years worth of nuclear waste.

In the UK, the costs of nuclear developments have been borne by the taxpayer. Under the ‘Contracts for Difference’ scheme, bills for electricity from the new plant at Hinkley C will be twice what we currently pay.

This does not cover the costs of accidents, which are underwritten by the Government. Nuclear plants typically run overtime and over-budget.

Nuclear waste

The Government’s consultation about burying nuclear waste is about to end, kicking off a five-year search for a willing host community with ‘suitable’ ground conditions.

We are presented with two options: leave the waste in crumbling storage facilities like Sellafield; or bury it and let it contaminate the environment.

In Scotland, new surface-level management facilities are being built but in England this is deemed too expensive. It is clear that we need a solution to managing the waste before we create more of it.

Springfields is where nuclear fuel is produced for both civil and military use, and waste processed from both the UK and abroad.

‘Surround Springfields’ on 27 April is an opportunity to follow the route of radioactive waste and to understand how this issue affects everyone, everywhere.

Creative action 

We will even be dressing as barrels of waste in an attempt to break a world record for surrounding a nuclear site.

We will also be having a live conversation with indigenous people in other countries via a webinar about the impacts of uranium mining and nuclear waste. You can join this remotely if you cannot get there – check our Facebook page for details.

Do we choose a long term, socially responsible and ethical energy supply, with a moral commitment to the wellbeing of future generations?

We need to come together and make the Government approach these challenges with vision and creativity, not with the poverty of ambition, opacity and lack of foresight that characterises the nuclear solution.

Take part

Surround Springfields will take place on Saturday 27 April. For more information, contact the organisers. 

This Author 

Chris Bluemel is a music teacher and campaigner and part of the Stop New Nuclear network. He has been involved in a wide range of campaigning from standing in elections as a Green Party candidate to direct action against road-building, fracking, the DSEI arms fair, and Trident.  He is also part of the radical protest-folk band Seize The Day. 

People are increasingly concerned about how to work hard towards a sustainable future. For some of them, that means investing in electric cars or biking to work while others might specifically aim to do businesses that have eco-friendly products and manufacturing practices.

But, most of them arguably don’t think about gender equality and inclusiveness as tying into sustainability.

The treatment of women moved into the forefront recently due to the #MeToo movement. And, that trend is undoubtedly crucial in achieving more equality across the board. But, it’ll soon become clear that any view of sustainability remains incomplete without including women within it.

Economic activities

Women bring a diversity of thought and practices, and the contributions they make will both directly and indirectly affect sustainability moving forward.

Once people recognise that females are essential for making sustainable improvements and safeguarding the planet for the future, they’ll facilitate meaningful progress in both small and large-scale ways. Here’s an overview of why that’s true.

Research shows that women are both impacted by sustainable social development and are well-positioned to influence it. Think of how women are often the ones responsible for sourcing the daily supplies for a household. As such, they are frequently the first to feel the effects of non-sustainable practices.

But, at the other end of the spectrum, consider that countries with high percentages of women in legislative positions tend to have fewer problems with unsustainable overshoot.

Positive changes

That’s an issue that happens when growing populations and economic activities harm the biophysical carrying capacity of the environment and could stimulate hardships such as having to travel further to find food or water.

As such, researchers argue that women have a continual motivation to work toward greater sustainability that might not be present in men.

In short, they may have different priorities that arise when caring for their families compared to men. That’s not to say males don’t care about sustainability, but the matters that women bring to the table regarding it could offer unique perspectives.

Findings also indicate that women are often better at building consensus or responding to the needs of their constituents. That could mean that the ongoing investment women have towards sustainability does not only extend to their immediate families but their communities and the wider world.

If females have the opportunities to promote positive changes through sustainability laws or movements, they could make long-term changes.

Thrive

Females have ongoing investments in making our future more sustainable. They have valuable and worthwhile reasons to fight hard for sustainability in ways that matter to themselves, their families and broader groups.

Additionally, they may also have priorities that men don’t initially bring up. So, their perspectives matter in giving well-balanced pictures of why sustainability counts now and moving forward.

There is still much progress left to make regarding equal opportunities for women to contribute through their work, ideas and perspectives. But, focusing on women during efforts to improve sustainability will pay off in countless ways.

In Philadelphia, for example, there’s a women-aimed sustainability group that stimulates discussions and opens minds about sustainable possibilities presented by local entrepreneurs.

Sustainability also applies to the workforce. Some long-standing employment models are difficult for women to enter and thrive within. However, the cooperative movement is one that empowers women.

Advocate

It also gives people the opportunity to behave in sustainable ways. More specifically, cooperatives are owned and operated by their members. They’re democratic organisations that give decision-making power to each member, too.

When women get involved in cooperatives, they have opportunities to make smart decisions that protect the planet for the future. But, the influence of women doesn’t only extend to cooperatives, of course.

An in-depth study profiled the contributions of females to ocean governance, including marine conservation and sustainable fisheries. It also helps that previous gender-related boundaries are getting blurred.

The experiences women have throughout their lives, whether while raising their families, participating in the workforce and doing the other things that comprise their daily existences allow them to advocate strongly for why sustainability matters and how it could positively impact their lives.

Pioneering

But, it’s crucial for the people involved in spurring sustainability progress to listen to women and realise that their voices matter.

In closing, it’s short-sighted and damaging for people to neglect to consider and prize female views during the continual push for better sustainability.

Women become affected by non-sustainable outcomes and associated problems like climate change in ways that men may not through during their lives.

And, they have pioneering ideas that could help bring about sustainability in unexpected and valuable ways.

This Author

Emily Folk is a conservation and sustainability writer and the editor of Conservation Folks.