The Saraya echo stay in Goa’s Bardez region in South India has grown widely in reputation since it opened its doors in December 2014.

Described by many as a “pocket of heaven”, it is a place where tourists and locals are able to escape the nearby busy beaches, either to stay overnight or just to grab something to eat.

Today’s generation

But now, Punjab-born owner, Deeksha Thind, is planning how best to inspire and involve more people in eco-living. This includes opening a new education centre.

“I think the future is education,” begins Deeksha, who is an architect by trade. “I find a lot of young people in today’s generation are all on sabbaticals because they don’t know what they want but they definitely know what they don’t want.

“So when I was thinking about what to do with the rest of the land, I thought I needed to look beyond the ecostay here.”

Deeksha’s idea for the land, which nears 2-acres in size, centres around an educational space, where people who are looking to change their careers, could stay whilst they are deciding what career they want to move in to.

This might include taking part in a free open university course whilst they are staying at Saraya – something which would be particularly beneficial for students who are unable to pay for pricey accommodation or additional studies.

Built from scratch

“People who can afford to pay [to lodge] would pay and those who couldn’t would volunteer and we would have a centre where people could live in a sustainable way, whilst contributing to the space,” she says.

The site would sit opposite the existing Saraya ecostay, which was also a creation of Deeksha’s.

“Nature and sustainability have been a part of my inner-self for some time but I didn’t realise they were there until I started building Saraya. And when I started building it, it just sort of flowed out of me very naturally.”

It wasn’t long before people started to get involved in the project, resulting in a place which marries together art, food and eco-living.

Built from scratch, Saraya’s ecostay is made from natural materials, with mud huts and treehouses forming the two different types of accommodation available on the site.

Creating treehouses

With help from YouTube videos and local knowledge, Deeksha and her team built the mud huts with recycled and natural materials.

“The idea was that we’d use glass bottles to honeycomb the walls to make them much stronger and reinforce them,” Deeksha says, explaining how the mud huts were formed.

“This then formed part of a recycling project, where glass bottles could be reused. I also loved the way the light shone through the bottles, adding to the design of the huts.”

Volunteers from the community helped with some of the building, including local homeschooled children, who were able to learn about the build process whilst joining in.

And rather than cutting down the existing trees on the land to make space for more huts, Deeksha decided to work around them by creating treehouses.

Vegetarian food

“Initially, we used the trees to do the building but later I disconnected them from the build, whilst letting them remain in the structure,” she says.

As a result, the material costs were the smallest expense on the project, which meant the money saved could be used to pay higher rates to underprivileged Indian builders employed on the scheme.

As Deeksha says, “The workers on this project come from different parts of India, where there might be droughts or floods so they can’t sustain themselves on their own land.

“So they have gone looking for work in other parts of India where they can use their skills and send money back to their family members who are left behind.”

Saraya also has an art gallery and a café, the latter of which serves fresh vegetarian food on a daily basis.

Inspiring a community

They grow as much of their own food as they can in the farm surrounding the ecostay, although seasonal monsoons have so far restricted the team from serving up ‘farm-to-table’ food only. However, the team is looking at how it can realistically harvest crops throughout the year.

Deeksha is also researching a variety of other sustainable measures to introduce into Saraya, including wind and hydropower as potential renewable energy sources to use on the site.

The importance of community and family is a clear driver for Deeksha, who explains how her four children have also played a key role in building Saraya. “We’re growing this venture with the entire family, who all have the same philosophy of living.”

It is that philosophy of living that is going a long way to inspiring others to turn to an eco-lifestyle.

As Deeksha says, “People get so inspired when they visit Saraya and they see that you can do something like this: live sustainably and carry out a zero-waste lifestyle. So we are inspiring a community here.”

This Author

Robyn Wilson is a freelance journalist currently writing and travelling across Asia. She is a former news editor at Construction News. She blogs at Weird Fishes and tweets at @RobynFWilson.

The shipping industry has “captured” UN talks on a climate target for the sector, using its clout to delay and weaken emissions curbs.

That is the conclusion of a report by business lobbying watchdog Influence Map about the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The study was released to coincide with a meeting of an IMO working group on greenhouse gases on Monday.

Based on analysis of delegate lists, meeting submissions and outcomes, it finds business interests exert an uncommon degree of influence over decisions. This, campaigners warn, jeopardises the international climate goals adopted in Paris.

Representatives from business

“The research proves almost conclusively that the shipping industry has been lobbying aggressively in the UN against climate change regulations,” Ben Youriev, an author of the report, told Climate Home. “They have completely captured policymaking bodies at the IMO.”

Perhaps the most striking discovery is the extent to which business interests infiltrate national delegations. Researchers found 31 out of 100 member states at the last IMO environmental committee meeting brought representatives from business.

Cosco and Vale are regular advisers to China and Brazil respectively, with the opportunity to advance their agenda in multiple subcommittees.

“The IMO appears the only UN agency to allow such extensive corporate representation in the policy making process,” the report said.

Very active

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the IMO said: “Nominating people to its delegation is an internal domestic matter for each member state. The IMO Secretariat is not involved in those decisions.”

Special report: The tax-free shipping company that took control of a country’s UN mission

Five national delegations were led by commercial flag registries, not government officials. As Climate Home has previously reported, the Marshall Islands former foreign minister Tony de Brum faced resistance from registry figures when he sought to claim his seat at the forum.

While the low-lying Pacific island state is known for advocating ambitious climate action, its ship registry – the second largest in the world – is based in Virginia, US and has little accountability to the country’s elected leaders.

Registry president Bill Gallagher said in an interview with Maritime Reporterin July: “We used to send a taxi over to IMO and now we send a bus. And that’s true. I mean, we really spend a lot of money as a flag state, sending the right people to IMO.

“Our regulatory guys say, ‘If you’re not in the working groups, you’re not impacting what happened’. Where you really make a difference is at the working groups. So we’re not only just sending a couple guys to sit in a chair; we actually are very active in the working groups.”

Emerging economies

On top of these discreet channels of influence, the industry is visibly represented through trade associations like the International Chamber of Shipping, which have official observer status. Representing 80% of the world’s merchant fleet, the ICS brought a bigger team to the last environmental committee meeting than 85% of national delegations.

As an example of its sway, Influence Map points to last October’s environment meeting, when 13 countries explicitly endorsed the ICS proposal. In the end, member states adopted a timetable for setting climate targets very similar to that suggested by industry, deferring implementation of greenhouse gas curbs to 2023 at the earliest.

Shipping Watch reports that industry voices are also expected to prevail at this week’s meeting, occupying a middle ground between ambitious European states and more conservative emerging economies.

ICS, along with Bimco, Intertanko and Intercargo, are proposing an “aspirational” target to cap the sector’s emissions at 2008 levels (the pre-financial crash peak) and halve its carbon intensity by 2050. They oppose absolute emissions cuts, on the basis this could constrain growth in world trade.

Climate advocates say that is not nearly enough to align with the Paris Agreement goal to hold global warming “well below 2C”.

Ambitious action 

Shipping has a carbon footprint roughly the size of Germany. Without intervention, the IMO’s own research predicts that to grow 50-250% by 2050.

The latest available data, published by the International Council on Clean Transportation last week, showed emissions increasing 2.4% between 2013 and 2015.

Fuel efficiency improved for many ship classes over the period, but the gains were outweighed by increased demand.

Christiana Figueres, former UN climate chief and founder of Mission 2020, urged the sector to up its game. “The Paris Agreement committed the world to ambitious action on climate change, yet the shipping industry is not up to speed,” she said in a statement.

“It’s time to raise the anchor and seize the opportunity between now and 2020 to align with other industries and chart the course to well below 2C pathway”.

Report: Gas tanker crosses thawing Arctic without icebreaker for first time

Information transparency

Influence Map director Dylan Tanner told Climate Home he hoped the report would inspire progressive businesses and investors to intervene.

“We need the silent majority of companies to step up and address the difficult issues,” he said. “Investors hate the lack of transparency and they hate not having risks disclosed to them… that is a big target audience, for them to address this not just with ship owners but the shipping value chain as a whole.”

The report praised AP Moller-Maersk as one of the only shipping companies to have a transparent – and relatively ambitious – position on climate policy. Some Scandinavian shipowners associations also support stronger action.

Johannah Christensen of Global Maritime Forum, a Copenhagen-based body promoting collaboration on disruptive trends for the industry, said: “A low-carbon future is achievable if private and public stakeholders work together and must necessarily be based on facts and improved information transparency.”

Investors in the shipping sector may be failing in their fiduciary duties if they ignore “such damning evidence” of lobbying to obstruct climate action, said Alice Garton of environmental law firm Client Earth.

“These findings reveal an industry so resistant to climate progress that it has negotiated a sector-wide free pass on emissions. But no business is exempt from the effects of climate change and it’s time for these firms to be held to account.”

This Author

Megan Darby is deputy editor at Climate Home, where this article first appeared. She previously wrote about UK energy and water industries for leading sector publication Utility Week. She holds a Mathematics degree from Newcastle University. She tweets at @climatemegan.

The Saraya echo stay in Goa’s Bardez region in South India has grown widely in reputation since it opened its doors in December 2014.

Described by many as a “pocket of heaven”, it is a place where tourists and locals are able to escape the nearby busy beaches, either to stay overnight or just to grab something to eat.

Today’s generation

But now, Punjab-born owner, Deeksha Thind, is planning how best to inspire and involve more people in eco-living. This includes opening a new education centre.

“I think the future is education,” begins Deeksha, who is an architect by trade. “I find a lot of young people in today’s generation are all on sabbaticals because they don’t know what they want but they definitely know what they don’t want.

“So when I was thinking about what to do with the rest of the land, I thought I needed to look beyond the ecostay here.”

Deeksha’s idea for the land, which nears 2-acres in size, centres around an educational space, where people who are looking to change their careers, could stay whilst they are deciding what career they want to move in to.

This might include taking part in a free open university course whilst they are staying at Saraya – something which would be particularly beneficial for students who are unable to pay for pricey accommodation or additional studies.

Built from scratch

“People who can afford to pay [to lodge] would pay and those who couldn’t would volunteer and we would have a centre where people could live in a sustainable way, whilst contributing to the space,” she says.

The site would sit opposite the existing Saraya ecostay, which was also a creation of Deeksha’s.

“Nature and sustainability have been a part of my inner-self for some time but I didn’t realise they were there until I started building Saraya. And when I started building it, it just sort of flowed out of me very naturally.”

It wasn’t long before people started to get involved in the project, resulting in a place which marries together art, food and eco-living.

Built from scratch, Saraya’s ecostay is made from natural materials, with mud huts and treehouses forming the two different types of accommodation available on the site.

Creating treehouses

With help from YouTube videos and local knowledge, Deeksha and her team built the mud huts with recycled and natural materials.

“The idea was that we’d use glass bottles to honeycomb the walls to make them much stronger and reinforce them,” Deeksha says, explaining how the mud huts were formed.

“This then formed part of a recycling project, where glass bottles could be reused. I also loved the way the light shone through the bottles, adding to the design of the huts.”

Volunteers from the community helped with some of the building, including local homeschooled children, who were able to learn about the build process whilst joining in.

And rather than cutting down the existing trees on the land to make space for more huts, Deeksha decided to work around them by creating treehouses.

Vegetarian food

“Initially, we used the trees to do the building but later I disconnected them from the build, whilst letting them remain in the structure,” she says.

As a result, the material costs were the smallest expense on the project, which meant the money saved could be used to pay higher rates to underprivileged Indian builders employed on the scheme.

As Deeksha says, “The workers on this project come from different parts of India, where there might be droughts or floods so they can’t sustain themselves on their own land.

“So they have gone looking for work in other parts of India where they can use their skills and send money back to their family members who are left behind.”

Saraya also has an art gallery and a café, the latter of which serves fresh vegetarian food on a daily basis.

Inspiring a community

They grow as much of their own food as they can in the farm surrounding the ecostay, although seasonal monsoons have so far restricted the team from serving up ‘farm-to-table’ food only. However, the team is looking at how it can realistically harvest crops throughout the year.

Deeksha is also researching a variety of other sustainable measures to introduce into Saraya, including wind and hydropower as potential renewable energy sources to use on the site.

The importance of community and family is a clear driver for Deeksha, who explains how her four children have also played a key role in building Saraya. “We’re growing this venture with the entire family, who all have the same philosophy of living.”

It is that philosophy of living that is going a long way to inspiring others to turn to an eco-lifestyle.

As Deeksha says, “People get so inspired when they visit Saraya and they see that you can do something like this: live sustainably and carry out a zero-waste lifestyle. So we are inspiring a community here.”

This Author

Robyn Wilson is a freelance journalist currently writing and travelling across Asia. She is a former news editor at Construction News. She blogs at Weird Fishes and tweets at @RobynFWilson.

The Saraya echo stay in Goa’s Bardez region in South India has grown widely in reputation since it opened its doors in December 2014.

Described by many as a “pocket of heaven”, it is a place where tourists and locals are able to escape the nearby busy beaches, either to stay overnight or just to grab something to eat.

Today’s generation

But now, Punjab-born owner, Deeksha Thind, is planning how best to inspire and involve more people in eco-living. This includes opening a new education centre.

“I think the future is education,” begins Deeksha, who is an architect by trade. “I find a lot of young people in today’s generation are all on sabbaticals because they don’t know what they want but they definitely know what they don’t want.

“So when I was thinking about what to do with the rest of the land, I thought I needed to look beyond the ecostay here.”

Deeksha’s idea for the land, which nears 2-acres in size, centres around an educational space, where people who are looking to change their careers, could stay whilst they are deciding what career they want to move in to.

This might include taking part in a free open university course whilst they are staying at Saraya – something which would be particularly beneficial for students who are unable to pay for pricey accommodation or additional studies.

Built from scratch

“People who can afford to pay [to lodge] would pay and those who couldn’t would volunteer and we would have a centre where people could live in a sustainable way, whilst contributing to the space,” she says.

The site would sit opposite the existing Saraya ecostay, which was also a creation of Deeksha’s.

“Nature and sustainability have been a part of my inner-self for some time but I didn’t realise they were there until I started building Saraya. And when I started building it, it just sort of flowed out of me very naturally.”

It wasn’t long before people started to get involved in the project, resulting in a place which marries together art, food and eco-living.

Built from scratch, Saraya’s ecostay is made from natural materials, with mud huts and treehouses forming the two different types of accommodation available on the site.

Creating treehouses

With help from YouTube videos and local knowledge, Deeksha and her team built the mud huts with recycled and natural materials.

“The idea was that we’d use glass bottles to honeycomb the walls to make them much stronger and reinforce them,” Deeksha says, explaining how the mud huts were formed.

“This then formed part of a recycling project, where glass bottles could be reused. I also loved the way the light shone through the bottles, adding to the design of the huts.”

Volunteers from the community helped with some of the building, including local homeschooled children, who were able to learn about the build process whilst joining in.

And rather than cutting down the existing trees on the land to make space for more huts, Deeksha decided to work around them by creating treehouses.

Vegetarian food

“Initially, we used the trees to do the building but later I disconnected them from the build, whilst letting them remain in the structure,” she says.

As a result, the material costs were the smallest expense on the project, which meant the money saved could be used to pay higher rates to underprivileged Indian builders employed on the scheme.

As Deeksha says, “The workers on this project come from different parts of India, where there might be droughts or floods so they can’t sustain themselves on their own land.

“So they have gone looking for work in other parts of India where they can use their skills and send money back to their family members who are left behind.”

Saraya also has an art gallery and a café, the latter of which serves fresh vegetarian food on a daily basis.

Inspiring a community

They grow as much of their own food as they can in the farm surrounding the ecostay, although seasonal monsoons have so far restricted the team from serving up ‘farm-to-table’ food only. However, the team is looking at how it can realistically harvest crops throughout the year.

Deeksha is also researching a variety of other sustainable measures to introduce into Saraya, including wind and hydropower as potential renewable energy sources to use on the site.

The importance of community and family is a clear driver for Deeksha, who explains how her four children have also played a key role in building Saraya. “We’re growing this venture with the entire family, who all have the same philosophy of living.”

It is that philosophy of living that is going a long way to inspiring others to turn to an eco-lifestyle.

As Deeksha says, “People get so inspired when they visit Saraya and they see that you can do something like this: live sustainably and carry out a zero-waste lifestyle. So we are inspiring a community here.”

This Author

Robyn Wilson is a freelance journalist currently writing and travelling across Asia. She is a former news editor at Construction News. She blogs at Weird Fishes and tweets at @RobynFWilson.

One group of people who have seen their electoral fortunes surge in 2017 have been the young.  For years, political sages have warned that any campaign strategy built on pursuing their vote will end in tatters. They don’t vote, and when they do their votes are too concreted in urban areas to really make a difference. 

For years this was true. Until this year, it wasn’t.  A surge of young voters swept away the Government’s majority, turning places like Canterbury, that had been blue for 100 years, red.

Sale of ivory products

Now political parties, especially the Conservatives judging by their Party Conference last week, are desperately seeking ways to reconnect with this new, awoken, electorate.  To that end, surprising polling by Bright Blue should be essential reading.

Among 18-28 year olds the top issue they wanted to hear about more from politicians was climate change. When the age group was expanded to the under 40s climate change was still high, coming second behind health.

And the top three policies that young voters said would make them most proud to vote for a party were all linked to the environment: Generating more renewable power, banning the sale of ivory products and increasing the roll-out of household insulation.

This obviously bodes well for the Greens who have long dominated this political turf.  This week during their party conference co-leader Jonathan Bartley launched their Breathing Cities campaign designed to tackle air pollution by making the city centres of London, Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol and Oxford, zero emission zones within five years.

Blame young voters

Meanwhile the other half of the party’s leadership duo, Caroline Lucas, looked ahead to next month’s UN climate summit in Bonn, Germany, pointing out the impracticality and injustice of requiring poor countries to meet emission reduction targets without the financial help to leapfrog the dirty development pathways used by richer nations.

Bright Blue’s research will come as a wake-up call to the other mainstream parties (and maybe the media too considering the relative paucity of coverage on the environment we see from our national broadcasters and newspapers). 

But it will be of particular concern to Theresa May’s Conservatives. The same poll showed that the three words young people most associated with Tory climate change policy was ‘weak’, ‘inadequate’ and ‘damaging’. For a party facing a demographic time bomb – according to one estimate the average age of a Conservative Party member is now 72 – this combination of results will make grim reading.

What is so odd is that the Government has seemingly done its best to create this sorry state of affairs. It chose November 9^th2016 as the date to make the historic announcement that it would phase out the burning of coal in the UK by 2025. 

Yes, that was the day the world woke up to discover that Donald Trump had been elected President of the United States. Usually such moments are chosen to bury bad news, not good news.  Can the Conservatives really blame young voters for having such a lowly view of their climate policies when they do their best to keep them quiet?

A hung parliament

It needn’t have been this way. David Cameron started his modernisation of the Conservative Party on a platform of ‘vote blue, go green’.  However during his premiership the environment featured less and less in his public pronouncements.

In his speech as he left Downing Street the two issues he said he was most proud of were the two issues where he stood firm in the face of pressure from his own backbenchers and the editorials of the Daily Mail: gay marriage and the aid budget.  Had he stuck to his guns on the environment then maybe the party’s perception problem among the young might not be so severe.

At a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference, Richard Harrington, Minister for Industry and Energy, admitted party strategists may have given green issues a lower priority during the election campaign in its bid to win over Brexit voters.

However green issues are far from a concern of only the metropolitan elite. Other polling from Bright Blue this year revealed that a stunning 81% of Tory Leave voters wants the UK to retain its EU renewables targets after Brexit.

For the Conservatives this policy area is a risk-free option. The voters want it and their political opponents are not going to attack them for being more environmentally friendly.  And in a hung parliament the few issues with cross party support should be treasured by Governments, not ignored.

Britain’s green minded

The recent record setting falls in the price of offshore wind show the game changing potential of renewable energy.  Only a few years ago offshore wind was the expensive option to its much cheaper onshore cousin and yet with Government encouragement the price has tumbled. 

The time has come to scrap the ‘nimby’ fuelled ban on new offshore wind and allow the technological advance of renewables to lower electricity bills even further. A Government that has just announced it is going to cap energy bills for consumers can no longer block the cheapest forms of energy.

If they don’t act, Britain’s green minded young voters will continue to take their business elsewhere.

This Author

Joe Ware is a journalist and writer at Christian Aid and a New Voices contributor at the Ecologist. He is on twitter @wareisjoe.

Kevin Cox, a former magazine publisher, was elected as the successor to Professor Steve Ormerod at the charity’s Annual General Meeting this weekend (Saturday 7 October) and will take up his post with immediate effect. 

A former RSPB Council member, Kevin has also served on council and as a trustee of World Land Trust for the past 12 years. He was joint Managing Director of Future Publishing before going on to launch 

Origin Publishing, a successful specialist magazine publishing company. 

Following the sale of the company to BBC Worldwide, Kevin became Origin’s non-executive Chairman and subsequently attended the Bristol Board of Immediate Media (formerly BBC Magazines), publisher of all the BBC-branded titles, including BBC Wildlife.

Upland and woodland

Kevin’s lifelong interest in wildlife has led to his involvement in nature conservation and land management. 

In 2008, he helped Birdlife Bolivia set up a protected area for the critically-endangered Blue-throated Macaw and he remains a Friend of the Barba Azul Reserve. Since 2011, he has served on the council of Devon Birds, most recently as chair.  

Kevin lives on Dartmoor where he takes a keen interest in the conservation of the moor, especially for upland and woodland birds.

Science and nature

Kevin Cox said: “It’s an enormous privilege to take up the role of chair of RSPB Council. I am a passionate advocate for all aspects of nature conservation and I will do my utmost to support RSPB and spread the word about our vital work.

“During my lifetime we have seen significant declines in the diversity and abundance of much of our wildlife. RSPB is key to reversing that trend and delivering a healthy, thriving environment for people and nature.”

Mike Clarke, the RSPB’s chief executive, said: “I would like to express enormous and sincere gratitude to Professor Steve Ormerod, who has led us through the last five years with passion and enthusiasm, as well as sharing with us his huge knowledge and understanding of science and nature conservation.

“As Steve departs we welcome Kevin Cox to the Chair and I’m delighted to have him on board.  With his background in magazines, Kevin understands how to engage and communicate with a range of audiences, and we know he will help the RSPB to inspire more people to care about nature.

RSPB Medal 2017

Earlier this year the RSPB took the unusual decision to award the RSPB Medal well ahead of its AGM. Eminent wildlife scientist, Dick Potts, was awarded the Medal by RSPB Council shortly before he died in March.

Dick made a sustained contribution to conservation and conservation science from the1970s onwards, particularly through ground breaking studies into the effects of chemicals on farmland birds, especially the grey partridge.

The RSPB Medal is the most prestigious award the wildlife charity gives out, and recognises outstanding contribution to nature conservation.

Conservation action

The RSPB Medal winner is usually decided in June, and presented at the RSPB AGM in October, but Dick had been seriously unwell for some time and so an early decision was made. Dick sadly died on 

Thursday 30th March, but fortunately his wife, Olga, was able to tell him of the accolade shortly before he passed away.

Professor Steve Ormerod said: “We have lost a remarkable and visionary figure in Dick Potts – whose foresight inspired crucial scientific work and conservation action. 

Legacy lives on

“His contribution to farmland wildlife science has created a legacy for birds like the grey partridge whose very presence in the UK might have been threatened if he hadn’t stepped in early, recognised they were in trouble, and identified why.

“The RSPB would like to offer our deepest sympathy to Dick’s wife, Olga, and thank her for allowing us to give this award to mark his outstanding work and passion for farmland wildlife.”

Olga Potts said: “Dick would have felt truly honoured to have received this award. In true Dick Potts fashion, he would have seen this as not just an award for himself but for all those who, over the years, have worked for the issues he cared so deeply about. We will ensure his legacy lives on.”

The RSPB Members’ Day and AGM took place at the QE11 in London on Saturday 7 October 2017.

This Author

Jack Alexander is a regular contributor to The Ecologist.

Citizen-led proposals for tree planting and global reforestation will be debated and explored at The Tree Conference at the Red Brick Building in Glastonbury on Saturday 4 November.

Leading-edge tree scientists, tree and reforestation project leaders, climate change experts and artists will come together to share their research, practical projects and visions for re-greening our future. 

Suzi Martineau, Organiser of The Tree Conference, says: 

“Mounting evidence shows that trees have a crucial role to play in sustaining our ecosystem’s future. In November 2015, the UN leader’s statement on Forests and Climate Change stated that ‘Reducing emissions from and enhancing removals through forests can reduce billions of tons of emissions per year and are essential to prevent catastrophic climate change.“

“So we’re delighted to be showcasing so many inspirational tree projects, organisations and artists, providing a unique networking platform and space to explore how the UK can give back to the world by tree planting. This will be the first conference to give regular UK citizens and tree lovers the chance to feed into this debate and directly contribute to this movement to safeguard our forest cover, water and soil security for generations to come.”

Keynote speakers at the conference will include Bruce Parry, Diana Beresford-Kroeger, Alan Rayner, and Clare Dubois and Wendy Stephenson of TreeSisters, while the day’s lively panel discussion will feature Professor Sir David Read, lead author of the Forestry Commission’s report Combating Climate Change: A Role for UK Trees. The day’s key talks and debates will be broadcast to a global audience via Livestream.

The Woodland Trust are among the many partners supporting the conference, who will be sharing information about their Charter for Trees, Woods and People, to be launched on Monday 6 November, inaugurating the 800th anniversary of the 1217 Charter of the Forest.  Other conference partners include the Royal Forestry Society (the foremost forestry accreditation body), the International Tree Foundation, The Gaia Foundation and Treeconomics.

The conference will also be sharing recent unexpected breakthroughs made by Wendy Stephenson, Treasurer of global reforestation charity TreeSisters. Wendy is also CEO of Converging World, a charity investing in renewable energy which uses the surplus funds for reforestation.

Wendy Stephenson says: “Reforestation is a no brainer in terms of the cost to reduce 1 tonne of C02 with any technology like solar or wind compared to a tree and the many benefits it brings, not least because they keep us alive. And most technology only avoids CO2 it does not sequester it. We have to do it all, and we need to accelerate sequestration through reforestation which is one of the most cost effective ways of cooling the planet. It also serves so many other aspects of restoring our world, including  biodiversity, water retention and microclimate.” 

Other questions to be explored at The Tree Conference include:

•    Which trees can accommodate predicted temperature changes in the UK?
•    What can be done to prevent the forest fires that have plagued the US, Europe and Russia this year?
•    How can we support the health of Ash, Chestnut, Oak and Conifers?
•    How can the government meet it’s pledge to plant 11 million trees in two years?
•    When is reforestation not the answer for some landscapes?
•    Why wait until 2050 to become Carbon Neutral?

Clare Dubois, Founder of TreeSisters, says:
“We’re thrilled to be part of The Tree Conference. Tree planting and reforestation are initiatives whose time has come. This conference provides an exemplary template for other conferences to use worldwide. It also underlines that it’s time for us all to step into a much deeper relationship with trees. Trees offer us profound templates for how to live, and how to communicate and build resilience together, as well as for how to survive as a species. Let’s collectively seed trees in our hearts and minds and make reforestation core to everything we do.”

For information and to buy tickets visit Red Brick Building website.
Early Bird tickets for The Tree Conference are available until Sunday 15 October

Will Gethin is the founder and Director of Conscious Frontiers

Michael Gove, the environment secretary, told the Conservative Party conference yesterday that “climate change is one of the biggest challenges and threats to biodiversity in the UK” – but pursuing climate policy must not come “at the expense of the economic growth that we also need in order to make sure that our country and other countries are resilient and can deal with the consequences of climate change”.

Gove made the comments at a fringe event hosted by his former staffer Henry Newman from Open Europe, the self-professed “premier thinktank of the Eurosceptic world”.

Gove said that he wanted to use his position to ensure the environment was protected, while not blocking activities that could be good UK business.

Patchy record

He said: “I take a view towards the natural world and environment which is driven by a desire not just to conserve but to enhance the beauty and the resilience and the wonder of the natural world.

“But it’s also the case that I do think we need economic growth as well. Because unless we have economic growth then we can’t provide the resilience against extreme climate events and the more equitable distribution of goods that are necessary for us all to enjoy the natural world.”

“Now, the balance is the critical thing. How do we ensure a recognition that we need economic growth doesn’t turn into capture by big business and lobby groups? And how do we ensure that proper reverence for the environment doesn’t turn into the deployment of the precautionary principle so extreme that you never allow anyone to do anything new for the first time? You have to strike that balance.”

That means ensuring the UK’s animal welfare standards were never lowered, as well as using Brexit to reform EU policies including the Habitats Directive and fisheries restrictions, Gove explained.

When Prime Minister Theresa May appointed Gove Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), some green groups cleaimed her decision was like putting the “fox in charge of the hen house” due to his patchy record on climate change while education secretary.

Evidence and science

Referring to his controversial efforts to cut climate change from the national curriculum during that time, Gove said:

“When we were thinking about how to deal with climate change in the curriculum, I wanted to make sure it was done on a properly rigorous and scientific basis, and that people understood the physics of climate change.

“And I won’t blame anyone, but one or two people thought this was an opportunity to exploit this to suggest that they had somehow saved climate change in the national curriculum. And my view during the coalition was that our junior coalition partners had enough bad happening in their lives for me to be prepared to be forebearing if they wanted to make a political point at the time.”

Gove also indicated that as Defra secretary he is trying to listen to a wide variety of experts.

“I’ve taken the view that in an area that relies so much on following the evidence and the science, that it’s important for me to get to grips with that evidence and that science as quickly as I can, and get to understand the range of views that exist from lobby groups to enterprises to individuals who have a long track record in campaigning, to the huge number of people who are members of environmental or conservation organisations.

Transitional period

“I’ve gone deliberately out of my way to try and get a sense of where the need for change is greatest.”

He was quick to deflect credit for leading efforts to campaign for the UK to leave the EU, however, despite being one of the most prominent faces of the campaign.

The title of leader belonged to foreign secretary and political rival Boris Johnson and the campaign staff, he said, with Vote Leave’s headquarters at times “feeling like a start-up” such was the level of enthusiasm for the cause and commitment of young, underpaid staff.

Nonetheless, “Defra is getting ready for Brexit” he said, as he re-affirmed his commitment to a transitional period of around two years, in line with the prime minister’s pledge.

This Author

Mat Hope is deputy editor of DeSmog UK, and previously an Associate Editor for Nature Climate Change. He tweets at @Matjhope. 

Environment secretary Michael Gove yesterday told Conservative Party conference that an ‘exit from Brexit’ is not an option.

The ‘there is no alternative’ line is no great surprise. The appointment ofMichael Gove as Environment Secretary, with his long history of involvement with American and UK neoliberal think tanks, has heightened concerns that Brexit is a ‘shock doctrine’ event.

Gove’s renewed claims yesterday that we can have a ‘green Brexit’ also stretch credulity.

According to our analysis, removing, attacking and undermining environmental and labour rights regulations was a likely motive for many of those at the heart of the Leave campaign. A motive hidden in plain sight but rarely reported.

More than half of the 72 leading members of the Vote Leave (VL) and Business for Britain (BfB) campaigns – those who appear on the group websites and in the press – have links to investments in companies that would directly benefit from a ‘bonfire’ of EU red tape.

Millionaires bypassing electoral rules 

A total of 17 senior members of Vote Leave and BfB have been involved in carbon intensive industries – including energy, transport, construction and tourism. Nine had investments or work for investment companies with interests in oil and gas. At least two others – PR professionals – represented the interests of the energy industry.

Among the most influential is David Wall. Wall was at the time of the referendum on the academic advisory board of BfB. He was also the Director of Business Development for IM Group, which imports cars from Japan. According to its website its activities included the “launch of 5th generation Subaru Legacy and Outback across all eight markets where IM Group sells Subaru.”

The press release boasts: “IM Group’s longstanding relationship with Subaru has now spanned over 30 years, and its success continues to the benefit of both manufacturer and importer.”

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