Posts Tagged ‘biodiversity’
Restoring a River and its Wildlife: People Power
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on September 14th, 2011
Source: guardian.co.uk
Photo by danielbradberry via flickr CC
From “Yorkshire’s revived river Aire is a lesson in people power” by Peter Lazenby:
News that Britain’s once foully polluted rivers are achieving levels of cleanliness and wildlife occupation not seen since the industrial revolution is to be welcomed. But credit for this cannot be claimed only by the government’s environment agency and anti-pollution legislation. Behind many of the improvements lies people power – the mobilisation of individuals and organisations to force polluters to clean up their act. In the 1980s and 90s, that is exactly what happened in my part of the world, industrial west Yorkshire.
The river Aire starts out as a healthy river in the Yorkshire dales, springing from beneath a limestone cliff known as Malham Cove, where falcons nest. By the time it wound its way through Bradford and Leeds, some 50 miles downstream, it had received the industrial waste of textile, chemical and engineering industries, plus the domestic waste of more than a million people. The pollutants killed off the river’s oxygen supply.
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In the 1980s, a group was formed called Eye on the Aire. Its volunteers brought together more than 30 organisations with an interest in the river. They included community groups representing people living near its banks, conservation and environmental organisations, sporting groups such as rowing clubs, local councils and companies such as Tetley’s brewery, which had a riverside location. For a decade the group campaigned to press Yorkshire Water to install an extra level of filtration at its sewage works – tertiary treatment. The system involves the filtering of already treated sewage effluent through pebbles and increasingly fine layers of sand. It took a decade to win the campaign, which included the harnessing of government influence and action by the environment department.
Yorkshire Water installed the tertiary treatment at a cost of millions of pounds. The effluent it produced was often as clean as the fresh river water into which it passed. The effect was near miraculous.In the late 1990s, more than a decade ahead of much of the rest of Britain, otters, heron and other wildlife began to return to the river Aire in the heart of industrial Leeds. Salmon appeared in the lower reaches, blocked only by weirs and other obstacles. Water passes will eventually allow them to reach spawning grounds in the Yorkshire dales where they have not been seen in more than two centuries.
There was an economic spin-off. The Aire in Leeds had been part of a comprehensive canal and river transport network in the days before rail. Its city riverside was littered with semi-derelict warehouses and factories not used in decades. No one wanted to invest in and develop buildings adjacent to a stinking open sewer. The restoration of the river to life changed all that. Today the Leeds waterfront thrives with homes, restaurants, bars and markets. The Aire hosts an annual water festival.
The driving force behind the return to life of the river was Eye on the Aire, an organisation made up of ordinary people with determination and a belief in their cause. We should remember their example in the face of future struggles.
Read the full article by Peter Lazenby for the Guardian
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The Slow Food Almanac for 2011: Out now
Posted in Movements, Research by Kate Archdeacon on September 12th, 2011
The Slow Food Almanac for 2011 is now available to read online. Introduction by Carlo Petrini:
A recent addition to the movement’s publications, each edition paints an increasingly effective picture of what we are doing in the world. Once again the Almanac is rich in stories that describe who we are and what we do: Slow Food and Terra Madre’s activities on every continent to defend biodiversity, promote local food through taste education and grow our network with projects, meetings and exchanges. They are stories of men and women, young people and elders, cooks and teachers who are united by the Slow Food movement – active, determined, working together to bring change to their communities. Through their perseverance and imaginative approaches, and sharing in our global network, their examples become a stimulus and an opportunity for common growth and exchange.
The 2011 Almanac speaks about us and the land we live on – our true wealth. It offers a glimpse of how vast geographic diversity and human interactions with ecosystems have allowed us to be creative and produce food in a good, clean and fair way, and thus continue to hope for a better world. This is our culture, the culture of Slow Food.
I hope you will enjoy the inspiring stories and wonderful photographs in this electronic publication. It also contains links for further information – connecting to the various sections of the Slow Food website, as well as other websites, photo galleries and video footage. Please share it with friends who may be interested in joining Slow Food.
To read the Almanac, click here.
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Public Health, City Health: Exercising & the Value of Local Parks
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on May 16th, 2011
Source: City Parks Blog via Sustainable Cities Collective
Photo of Green Gym members: Scottish Government via flickr CC
From “Green Gyms and Medical Miles: Promoting Public Health with Parks” by Ryan Donahue:
We’ve previously looked at ways in which the medical community is using exercise prescriptions as a way to combat obesity and inactivity. Park prescriptions are only a portion of the spectrum of exercise prescription programs. Fortunately, the growing awareness of the benefits of outdoor exercise – in addition to the cooperation of parks departments, environmental nonprofits, and individual parks – means that these programs should continue to grow. Once patients have left the doctor’s office with a prescription in hand, there’s still plenty of work to be done. Someone has to ensure that public parks are meeting the needs of people trying to develop good exercise habits, and that newly inspired patients can find interesting and engaging ways to exercise in local parks. A growing body of evidence that suggests that exercise in the outdoors provides some quantifiable benefits over indoor exercise. A study released February in the journal Environmental Science and Technology analyzed data from 11 different studies that compared benefits from outdoor and indoor exercise programs, and found that outdoor exercise was associated with “greater feelings of revitalization, increased energy and positive engagement, together with decreases in tension, confusion, anger and depression.” Not surprisingly, those who participated in outdoor exercise “stated that they were more likely to repeat the activity at a later date.”[1]
Read the rest of this article by Ryan Donaghue to find out more about Green Gyms, Prescription Trails and an Urban Ecology Centre in Milwaukee.
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Banking on Biodiversity: Joined-up Thinking at its Most Urgent
Posted in Movements, Research by Kate Archdeacon on February 4th, 2011
Source: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
Banking on biodiversity by Dilys Roe, Pavan Sukhdev, David Thomas and Robert Munroe
We’re in the midst of a biodiversity crisis. For those of us in the North, that can seem abstract; for the rural poor in the developing world, it’s all too real. Their absolute dependence on the bounty of forests, deserts and coasts means ‘biodiversity loss’ can mean losing all: food, fuel, building material, medicine, forage, livelihoods and culture. The good news is that it can work the other way. Poor communities, as long-term stewards of the South’s natural riches, are steeped in profound knowledge about them. As this pocketbook shows, working with them can reverse the downward spiral of environmental degradation. By banking on biodiversity, we can protect our natural legacy while tackling poverty locally, nationally and globally.
New wealth of nations: biodiversity and poor economies
Take a forest in rural India. Local villagers graze their livestock, gather fuelwood, fruit and medicinal bark, and hunt for honey. The trees help prevent drought and flood damage by drawing up groundwater and anchoring soils with their roots. Most, if not all, of such direct and indirect ‘flows’ of value into rural or forest-dependent households are public goods and services — received free from wild nature, and not priced or traded in any markets. Because of this, ‘ecosystem services’ are economically invisible. And they do not generally figure in the national accounts that measure a country’s economic activity. Does this matter? Yes. We cannot manage what we do not measure, and economic invisibility is not a good starting point for ensuring that ecosystem services thrive. We risk depleting them because of tradeoffs such as replacing forests with cultivated crops. Putting a value on nature and factoring that into national accounting can help governments and business wake up to the fact that healthy economies rest on healthy ecosystems — as do the wellbeing and livelihoods of the poorest of the rural poor.
Chapter 3, Big ideas in development: Banking on biodiversity
Visit the site to download the free PDF.
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Biodiversity 100: Australia
Posted in Movements, seeking by Kate Archdeacon on October 8th, 2010
Source: guardian.co.uk
From “Back Biodiversity 100, save our wildlife” by George Monbiot & Guillaume Chapron:
A few weeks ago, the Guardian launched the Biodiversity 100 campaign to prod governments into action. We asked the public and some of the world’s top ecologists to help us compile a list of 100 specific tasks that will show whether or not governments are serious about protecting biodiversity. Each task would be aimed at a government among the G20 nations, and they would be asked to sign up to it at Nagoya.
Biodiversity conservation is, or should be, all about specific action. It cannot be achieved by vague commitments. As the celebrated British ecologist Prof Sir John Lawton says: “Politicians keep talking about the threat of the loss of biodiversity. But nothing happens. Those of us who care have got to put pressure on the world’s governments to stop saying one thing and doing something completely different. This campaign will make a real contribution.”
We hope he’s right. And we see no reason why he shouldn’t be, given the recent conservation successes – Montenegro’s decision to postpone its dam-building programme; Russia’s vast new national parks; Ecuador’s determination not to allow new oil drilling in its rainforests. But to make this campaign work, you have to get behind it. That means pestering your MP, bothering your environment minister, demanding that your government stops hiding behind platitudes and starts talking about specifics. It means insisting that they treat the world’s natural wonders not as a disposable asset but as a precious charge.
Biodiversity 100: actions for Australia – Recommendations for Australia focus on invasive plants and fish that damage native populations.
Visit the campaign website for more information, including links to other regions’ actions.
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Building Niches for Biodiversity
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on August 26th, 2010
Source: Treehugger
From “Biodiversity for Low and Zero Carbon Buildings: A Technical Guide for New Build (Book Review)” by Kimberley Mok:
With major declines observed in bee, bat, bird and other critical species, it makes sense that newer built environments now being designed with zero- or low-carbon status in mind should also integrate ways to boost wildlife diversity as well. That’s the premise of Biodiversity for Low and Zero Carbon Buildings: A Technical Guide for New Build by Dr. Carol Williams.
Dr. Williams, who is associated with the UK-based Bat Conservation Trust (BCT), points out that imperfections in the craftsmanship of traditional buildings allowed certain species to find ecological niches and roosting opportunities right alongside humans. Not so with newer, ‘air-tight’ construction, hence the need to accommodate and integrate built-in habitats for now-threatened species ranging from certain bats, owls and peregrine falcons. Thus, the book is apparently the first of its kind to consciously target biodiversity enhancement in new developments, rather than retrofitting existing structures.
Unless biodiversity is considered early on in the design process, these ever more stringent demands for increased energy efficiency of buildings will lead to losses in the biodiversity that have shared our built environment for centuries. This book addresses this issue because if we do not, there will be very few, if any, future roosting opportunities for bats or nesting opportunities for birds in our buildings. Without these measures, key species will be adversely affected by new developments; not only meaning a failure to achieve truly sustainable building, but also an erosion of the quality of life we all hope to experience in our working and home environments.
With a focus on the sustainable building process and wildlife in the United Kingdom, the book is practical in its scope, providing plenty of tables and technical information on how to size and orient suitable building elements that each particular species could call home. There’s also valuable information on prefabricated wildlife-friendly components from various manufacturers, plus a chapter on living walls, roof gardens and artificial lighting. Full of clearly annotated architectural drawings, colour photos and well-organised information, this book will be an excellent reference for architects and developers in the sustainable building industry.
Original article by Kimberley Mok on Treehugger.
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Integrating biodiversity into water sensitive urban design
Posted in Research by Virginia on June 19th, 2009
Water sensitive urban design is still at an infant stage and there’s been much research into integrating biodiversity values into water sensitive urban design. A model used to increase the water sensitive design of an urban area is through the use of wetlands. Wetlands can act as storm water treatment points whereby wetland plants soak up nutrients and metals from incoming storm water and discharge cleaner storm water back into the waterway. An aspect that is often missing when building these remedial wetlands is the idea of integrating biodiversity regimes into the construction of the wetland.
Wetland projects tend to concentrate on the use of native vegetation and the attraction of wetland birds as an achievement in biodiversity conservation. Whilst that goal can hardly be undermined, nor disagreed with, it is a question to ponder whether such a goal truly reflects the notion of biodiversity conservation.
In itself, biodiversity conservation is much like the term sustainability- vague, ambiguous and lacking a precise quantifiable form of measurement. For what does it truly mean to conserve something? In terms of urban biodiversity, the precise definition of conservation becomes highly problematic in that, to what extent do we conserve the environment? Do we try and restore the environment to a pre-urban settlement environment or to an even earlier era, for example, pre-European settlement? Therefore, in order biodiversity conservation to have some meaning, a reference point must be established.
The problem with many urban sustainability projects advocating biodiversity conservation aims is that many don’t specify what sort of biodiversity conservation they are aiming for, that is, to what extent, if any, are the projects aiming to restore the environment. Using wetland remediation projects as an example, many such developments have cited biodiversity conservation as a result of implementing wetlands, however it is not clear as to what they were trying to conserve. In truth, perhaps the particularities of what was conserved is not important and it’s perhaps the overall picture of a greater presence of species within an area which should be celebrated.
However, the issue of not having a clear idea as to what type of biodiversity conservation the project is wanting to achieve is the result of having species that may not be wanted suddenly appear in the neighbourhood. An example of this is the much maligned kingdom of insects represented by the mosquitoes and associated larvae. There’s been community concern over the spread of mosquitoes in wetland areas and the risks associated with that. As a consequence of community concern, there has been initiatives by local governments to prevent them from establishing. However, mosquitoes play an integral role in both the maintenance and as a provision of food in the wetlands ecosystem. Therefore, whilst the increase in wetland birds have generally been celebrated, the overall increase in lifeforms such as insects must too be embraced if a more holistic view of biodiversity conservation is to occur.
Integration of Community Gardening and Biodiversity
Posted in Models, RDAG by Virginia on June 11th, 2009
Ecological restoration and community gardens have been begrudgingly kept separate from one another. The integration of biodiversity with community gardens has received very little attention, which is surprising seeing that they have both been important contemporary environmental initiatives.
In essence, both these initiatives are interlinked. Biodiversity concerns are due to habitat degradation because of an ever increasing land required for urban developments. Urban developments in turn forces the relocation of land that had been traditionally used for farming into increasing wilderness areas therefore exacerbating biodiversity problems.
The Alex Wilson Community Garden(AWCG) established in Toronto in 1998 sought to rectify the divergence of ecology and community gardens by attempting to consolidate the two goals into one project. In trying to achieve this, the AWCG planted exclusively native species whilst maintaining space for a community garden.
Alex WIlson Community Garden
The AWCG can be used as a model for future community gardens to demonstrate the importance and feasibility of integrating biodiversity values with community garden initiatives.