Tuesday 5 March 2024

Tree planted in Evington Park for nature-friendly park award

Yesterday, we planted a tree in Evington Park in recognition of the park winning our nature-friendly park award. (See all our posts about this project here.) 

There is some excellent work happening in Leicester’s parks to encourage wildlife and we wanted to celebrate that. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, with more than one in seven of our native species facing extinction. It is therefore more important than ever that we make space for nature in our cities. All of us involved in this project have really enjoyed visiting all the parks and we were amazed at the range of wild plants and animals we found. We are so lucky to have these green oases in our neighbourhoods. 

We donated a native Crab Apple tree to celebrate the award, which will provide blossom for pollinating insects and fruit for the birds. We brought it to the park by bike trailer, along with a plaque which they presented to park officers. The event was attended by Evington councillors, Deepak Bajaj, Jenny Joannou and Zuffar Haq, the Police and Crime Commissioner Rupert Matthews, who was visiting the area that day, a representative of Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, local residents and some children from a Leicestershire school who wanted to learn how to plant a tree! 

Deputy city mayor Cllr Elly Cutkelvin, who’s responsible for the city’s parks, was not able to attend but sent the following message: 

“We work hard to ensure that our parks and open spaces are a haven for both people and wildlife, so it’s great that our efforts have been recognised by Leicester Friends of the Earth.

“The trees, ponds and planting in our parks provide a wide range of habitats for insects, birds and small mammals, helping to create space for nature in the heart of the city.

“I’m delighted that Leicester Friends of the Earth will be planting a tree in Evington Park to acknowledge its designation as a nature-friendly park, and I hope that people will enjoy visiting their local park to discover the wildlife on their doorstep.”

Sunday 25 February 2024

Announcing the winner of the Nature-Friendly Park Award

We have some exciting news today, which we know everyone has been waiting for. We can now announce that the winner of our Nature-Friendly Park award is... [drum roll]

Evington Park!

You can download the full report on our habitats assessment visits last summer here if you'd like to read that. (And for anyone new to blog, you can read more about our nature-friendly parks project here.) In recognition of the award, we will be planting a Crab Apple tree in Evington Park and presenting a plaque on Monday 4th March at 1:30 pm, in the fruit garden area just behind the park house (https://what3words.com/learn.state.quest). Park officers and the Evington councillors will be attending. You are very welcome to come too. 



Monday 19 February 2024

Artificial Turf – what is the true cost?

 

Have you been for a nice walk lately and seen what is beginning to appear on front gardens?

Artificial turf – better known as plastic grass – and if you will excuse the pun it is sprouting up everywhere – and that is of course just what it isn’t doing because it is plastic and it doesn’t grow!

It’s tempting, isn’t it?  No more mowing.  A perfect looking lawn. A surface the children can play on all year round and without mud being walked into the house afterwards.

There are downsides though….  It needs to be cleaned as there is nowhere for leaves and other debris to go. It can get too hot in the summer to play on and given the way our climate is changing this is likely to become more of an issue. It can also set on fire – there have been incidents of it burning when the sun hits glass or a mirror and shines directly onto the ‘grass’ it scorches it and can cause a fire. I’m fairly sure this is something the manufacturers never mention in their advertising.

From a wildlife perspective there is no life underneath artificial turf.  There is no soil, so no worms for birds to feed on, no worms to pull the dead leaves down into the soil and nowhere for leaves to rot down. Whilst your children might enjoy playing on it wildlife certainly does not.  Our gardens form some of the last refuges for wildlife due to the way intensive farming has reduced wildlife in our countryside.  Surely, we need to nurture our gardens and develop them into oases for wildlife.

Then what about the environmental impact?  Artificial turf is made from a mix of plastics, typically polyethylene and polypropylene, that give off harmful fumes as they degrade, as all plastics do.  As they break up, they release plastic pieces into the environment, some of them so small they can barely be seen, but can end up in our water courses and ultimately in us.  A recent study of the plastic pollution in the sea off Barcelona found that 15% of the plastic particles above 5mm long came from artificial turf.  Plastic particles released into our soil are virtually impossible to remove. There is a high carbon cost in its manufacture and when it comes to end of life and recycling that’s virtually impossible due to the number of containments embedded in it. 

Looking at the advantages and disadvantages, can we really afford it?

Sunday 10 December 2023

Now We Rise - COP28 March

On Saturday 9th December, we stood with XR Leicester, Leicester Animal Rights, Green Guardians Leicester and Climate Action Leicester for a march through the streets of Leicester to mark the International Day of Action for Climate Justice.

Speeches were made at Leicester’s Clock Tower and then we marched to the Town Hall Square where an aerial picture was taken. People were dressed in black to represent an oil slick as they asked world leaders meeting at COP28 in Dubai to stop drilling for new oil: ‘Rosebank Oil Wells’ has recently been approved. We don’t need to drill for new oil we have enough for our needs already.

Thousands of people across the world rose up on Saturday; people from 4 continents, 50 countries, 300 locations – standing together to raise awareness of the need for action to stop global temperatures increasing more than 1.5 C.

Melanie Wakley from FoE said “We want promises that mean something. Promises that stand for a reality of things we can achieve to save our planet from environmental disaster and promises that are made and are kept, not watered down once everyone goes home from Dubai.”

The march ended with the chant from XR Leicester “We want action! Action for the Climate! Action for Nature! We want Climate Justice! The people have spoken – Now We Rise!”

Melanie Wakley

#NowWeRise





The Mind of a Bee written by Lars Chiltka and reviewed by the Green Book Group

This is a fascinating book delving into the mind of a bee supported by hours/years of scientific research.

The book begins with the introduction of ‘What’s it like to be a Bee’ discussing a bees first journey after it leaves its nest – describing how they have to immediately remember their route home and also how they can make choices – so everything in their world is not decided by innate priorities. They can choose their own predispositions. It is this first bit of information that makes you immediately realise how clever bees are especially when the author describes how they also communicate in the hive in the dark – sorting out who does what job – just by using their pheromones.

The book itself – although fascinating – does contain a lot of scientific knowledge though and assumes that everyone has that knowledge. I wonder if some of this technical detail could have been simplified slightly to make it more accessible to all readers.

The last chapter in the book about why we need to conserve bees is definitely well worth reading. The last paragraph of the ‘Afterword’ leaves you with thoughts to ponder on…..

‘The ancient bees honey might well have provided the necessary carbohydrates for our ancestors’ costly brain enlargement, and might thus have fuelled the evolution of the human mind.

We owe bees. Act accordingly.

A very thought provoking read about the value of such a small insect to humankind.

By Melanie Wakley

Wednesday 6 December 2023

Climate Emergency Action Plan consultation - respond now!

Leicester City Council are currently consulting on their new Climate Emergency Action Plan, which will cover the next five years until 2028. The consultation is open until Sunday 28th January 2024 and you can read the consultation documents here. We are writing a detailed response from Leicester Friends of the Earth but it will have more impact if as many people and organisations as possible respond to the consultation. You can complete a survey at the link above or simply send an email to sustainability@leicester.gov.uk with your thoughts.

Here are our suggestions for the key points to include:

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Although there are many good actions included in the new plan, there are also too many points without any defined targets, so that there is no way of measuring whether the Council is making progress towards reaching net zero by 2030. There are also too many ‘actions’ listed which are in fact only plans to make plans. These are not actions and should not be listed as such.

The Council

The Council recognises that the most impactful actions they could take to reduce the carbon emissions of their own buildings are to retrofit insulation, install heat pumps and connect more buildings to the district heating networks. However, insulation and connections to district heating are not mentioned in the actions listed in this section. There is only a plan to make a plan! Why not start trying to fund those projects immediately, while creating the roadmap? When we are facing a climate emergency, we haven’t got two years to waste in only writing the plan.

Housing

The ongoing programme of insulating council homes is good but nowhere near ambitious enough. There needs to be a target to retrofit all council owned and managed homes, as well as a target to get all homes in the private rented sector up to standard. We would also like to understand what more will be done to encourage privately owned homes to retrofit, as they make up a significant proportion of the city’s housing stock.   

Business, public services and community

The tree planting and Tiny Forests projects happening on school grounds are excellent but they could be more ambitious; aiming to plant five more Tiny Forests by 2028 is only one per year! Could the Council aim to plant a Tiny Forest at every school that has sufficient green space within the next 5 years? That would be a significant number of trees and ensure that most children in Leicester had access to a Tiny Forest.

Transport

To make active travel more attractive we need to find ways of reducing traffic levels, so that it is safer to walk and cycle. One of the key factors driving increases in road traffic is light goods vehicles, driven by online shopping.  This is recognised in government statistics but not addressed in this plan (apart from with a plan to make a plan!). More urgent action is needed. For example, the Council could work with online retailers to install more parcel lockers around the city so that deliveries could be dropped at one point for people to collect.

Land and infrastructure

The glyphosate reduction trials in city parks are welcome but we would like to see this expanded. It is possible to manage parks and green spaces without using any chemical pesticides (herbicides, insecticides etc). Other local authorities are also managing their streets without using chemical pesticides and we would like to see the Council follow this best practice and phase out the use of all pesticides in the next five years.

Consumption and waste

The Council state that food waste is being separated from other household waste. How is this done? And is it as effective as a separate food waste collection would be? We are concerned that this is not the most effective way to manage household waste.

It is good to see that the Council intends to increase the choice of meals in schools, to address the climate impact of food. This should apply to all institutional settings, including hospitals, care homes and prisons, not only schools. Vegan options of similar nutritional value to other meal options should be made available for every meal.

Thursday 28 September 2023

Warm Homes Coalition

We have joined the WarmHomesLeics coalition, led by Climate Action Leicester and Leicestershire, along with other groups including The Race Equality Centre, Loughborough Climate Vigil and Muslim Green Guardians. This is part of a national campaign calling on the government to do the following:

  • Roll out a street-by-street insulation programme
  • Provide targeted financial help for people in fuel poverty
  • Act to switch the UK to cheap, home-grown renewable energy
  • Stop providing support for the fossil fuel industry
Find out more about how you can get involved here



Sunday 27 August 2023

Survey - tell us your views about your local park!

We've now completed our visits to the seven Leicester parks we are considering for the nature-friendly park award. We are going through all the information we have collected and writing up a report for the City Council, which will include some analysis of the questionnaires we conducted in the parks. If you didn't manage to come to any of our stalls, you can still share your views by completing the online version of the questionnaire here

Sunday 11 June 2023

Nature-friendly parks: an update

We're now over halfway through our parks assessments. After getting caught in a sudden deluge in Hamilton Park, we've been lucky with the weather and we've completed data collection in Evington, Spinney Hill, Willowbrook and Humberstone Parks. We'll be returning to Hamilton Park in July to conduct surveys of park users. 

Assessing the wildlife habitats in each park has been a fascinating experience. We've found a lot of diversity and some species that we didn't expect to see or hear. Two local botanists have accompanied us on these visits and conducted full plant surveys. A member of the local bat group has also been coming along to help us find and record bats and the keen birdwatchers in our group have been listening and looking for birds. We will share all of the information we have collected with the City Council. While we walk round, we all complete an assessment sheet with categories for wet areas, trees, grass management, flowers, bats, birds re-wilded areas, interpretation boards and harms (litter etc). One definite piece of good news is that we've seen no sign of herbicide use in the parks this year!

At our Saturday stalls, we've been conducting a questionnaire to find out people's experiences of nature in their local park and their opinions on the park's management. There will be an online version of this survey soon, if you've not managed to come along to one of our stalls and still want to have your say. To encourage people to come and talk to us, we've been making seed bombs with children (and some adults too), so that people can help to spread wildflowers in their gardens and their streets! These have been very popular. 

Finally, we've now come up with a definition for what we think constitutes a nature-friendly park, which we're using as a guide for our assessments:

A nature-friendly park creates as much space as possible for a diversity of wild plants, insects, birds and animals, while also being accessible to the surrounding human community and encouraging people to appreciate the wildlife on their doorstep. 

We'd love to hear what you think!





Tuesday 6 June 2023

Highfields Centre garden spring clean

We've been back to the Highfields Centre garden for a spring clean. Everything has been growing well with the wet spring so we had to remove a lot of weeds and also do a big litter-pick, but it's now looking like a garden again!