March for the Earth - Earth Day

When in London can you see people dressed as parrots, giraffes, lions, tigers mixed in with foxes, and badgers all marching through the streets accompanied by birdsong being played on phones?

On Earth Day of course! Leicester Friends of the Earth joined thousands of people on the peaceful march through the streets of London on Earth Day (April 22^nd 2023) to raise awareness of the plight of nature due to global warming. 

It was a wonderful day, the sun shone, we met old and new friends, sang songs and listened to a speech by Chris Packham. We also took part in a ‘die-in’ where everyone lay down in the road looking at the sky, listening to the birdsong, left with their own thoughts about what we want for the planet – it was very emotive.

But although it was a wonderful day my daughter Hannah captured it all when she said - she looks forward to the day when we don’t have to march for nature – when everyone cares and fights to save the planet.

Dawn Chorus

 My alarm clock went off at 4.00am – it was ok – I wasn’t asleep. I hadn’t really slept at all – I was too excited, waiting to get up…I got up quickly, pulled on clothes, made toast and hot chocolate in a flask, then scurried out of the house with my daughter Hannah.

We had a short drive – a bit early for cycling so we used the electric car – and drove to Evington’s Arboretum.

It was still dark, as we walked in under the canopy of trees, I had to flick the torch on, so that we didn’t stumble…

We found a fallen tree trunk to sit on and listened…it was May 1^st – Dawn Chorus Day – and we were there to watch the sunrise and listen to the birds – they didn’t disappoint.

The Robins are the first to sing – always pre-dawn because they want to prove they are the toughest and can get through a cold night but be ready to sing for a mate before dawn. Then it is the Blackbirds, Wrens and Pigeons turn, followed by Song Thrush, Greenfinch and Warblers, last to join the party, as the sun rises, are the Blue Tits, Long Tailed Tits and Dunnocks as they are a bit nervous so wait for the sun.

And there it was rising above the horizon, heralding a new day and what a way to begin it – sitting on a tree trunk in an arboretum, drinking hot chocolate and listening to the birds singing…… 

Campaign video about pavement spraying

We have recently been lucky enough to work with students from Leicester College to put together a video about the spraying of pavements with glyphosate. We think this is a harmful practice and there are much better solutions - leave the wild plants alone and create more space for wildlife, or remove them with a wire brush when absolutely necessary. Check out our finished video here. 

Constructing accessible raised beds at Caribbean Court

To support Caribbean Court's gardening project, we applied for a grant from national Friends of the Earth's local groups fund and bought two raised beds. One has been designed for seated gardeners, including wheelchair users. The other is designed for standing gardeners, to help those who might have problems with bending. We constructed them on Saturday 15th April and delivered a load of compost and top soil, also bought with grant funding. The elders who use Caribbean Court will now be able to start gardening!

Our schedule of park visits for Friday evening surveys and Saturday afternoon stalls

To give an award to the most nature-friendly park, we need to assess their current state and survey people who use the park. This is our schedule for visiting each of the parks:   

	Fridays (evening visits looking at habitats)	Saturdays (stalls with questionnaire)
Hamilton	5th May	6th May
Evington	12th May	13th May
Spinney Hills	19th May	20th May
Willowbrook	26th May	27th May
Humberstone	9th June	10th June
Stokes Wood	16th June	17th June
Appleton	30th June	1st July
Reserve	7th July	8th July

Friday evenings in May will start at 7:30pm and in June at 8pm. We will be starting later in June as we are aiming to check bat populations so we need the twilight to arrive for them to come out.  

Our Saturday afternoon stalls will start at 3pm. We are aiming to survey park users while we entertain their children by making wildflower "seed bombs".

If you can spare the time to join us in any of the parks, especially if you are knowledgeable about an aspect of wildlife and can come along on a Friday evening, you would be very welcome to join us!

Announcing our award for the most nature-friendly park

We will be presenting an award to the most nature-friendly park in the city this summer.  The ‘Save our Wild Isles’ campaign, launched alongside David Attenborough’s new Wild Isles documentary series, encourages everyone to ‘go wild once a week’. We will be highlighting wildlife to visit on our doorsteps in Leicester.

There is so much excellent work happening in Leicester’s parks to encourage wildlife and we want to celebrate that. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world and more than one in seven of our native species is facing extinction. It is therefore more important than ever that we make space for nature in our cities. We need to allow wildlife to thrive alongside us. 

We will be looking at parks between 8 and 20 hectares, to ensure that we are not trying to compare the smallest and largest parks in the city and to make the process as fair as possible. We are creating an assessment scheme, working with local botanists, birdwatchers and ecologists, to determine how to choose the most nature-friendly park. We will look at the types of habitats in each park, from ponds to meadows to trees. We will visit each park twice, at different times of day, and try to record the species that they see and hear. (If you want to get involved in this work, please get in touch!)

We have also created a survey for park users, to collect their views on the space for nature in their local park and what else they would like to see. After the award has been presented, we will share the survey data with the City Council. 

When we visit each park, we will keep notes on the wildlife that we have seen and share them here on our blog and social media afterwards. We hope that this will encourage people to learn more about the biodiversity on their doorstep. It is widely recognised that feeling more connected to nature is beneficial for our mental health. We are also more likely to protect what we love. Where better to start learning more about nature than in your local park?

Green Book Reviews: The Third Plate by Dan Barber

The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food by Dan Barber

As a permaculturist, the main message of this book made complete sense to me. Dan Barber argues that, rather than continuing to follow our current diet and striving to produce that food more sustainably, we should instead look at what food we can produce while supporting the health of our soils and ecosystems and then learn to cook well with that. Happily, food that is produced by flourishing ecosystems is always more nutritious and tastes better too. 

The book is divided into four parts: soil, land, sea and seed. Having been vegetarian and then vegan for a number of years, I found the land and sea sections more difficult to read than those that focussed on soil and seed. In particular, I was quite disgusted when the author admitted that he had known about the animal welfare concerns around foie gras for some time but had carried on using it in his kitchen anyway, due to the exceptional taste. To me, no taste can justify what amounts to torturing an animal. However, most of the discussion around eating meat and fish felt more balanced. The author admits that we need to eat much less meat and that we should eat the whole animal, rather than wasting much of it. The farms he applauds all treat their animals much better than ‘conventional’ industrial agriculture, allowing them to live a more natural life. If some people are going to continue to eat meat, the farms he visits provide a good model for how those animals can be reared. 

The soil section fitted perfectly with what I have learnt through permaculture about how to care for the soil. It provided a useful reminder of the importance of rotations and covering the soil as much as possible. Healthy soil always produces tastier food, as well as giving plants more resistance to pests and diseases. The seed section looks in detail at plant breeding (not to be confused with genetic modification) and warns that we should not be obsessed with fixed, heritage varieties but rather we should continue to encourage plant diversity and breed new varieties of vegetables and grains that are better adapted to our changing climate and that taste better. With more and more seed companies focussing on F1 seeds (the first generation of a hybrid cross, bred to be highly uniform), this was a useful message for gardeners: we should all be seeking out open pollinated seeds. 

The one thing that really lets this book down is the length. It felt to me like the author had obscured his message by providing too many anecdotes and repeating some of his points several times, which can be exasperating for the reader. In a few chapters, he introduces so many people (and describes so many meals!) that I found I’d lost the thread several times. This book could have had more impact if it were shorter.

Going peat free

 As the snowdrops break out in bloom, the daffodil shoots show and the seed catalogues drop on the mat our thoughts are turning to spring, that is just around the corner.  What will we grow?  What seeds do we need?  What compost will we grow them in?

This is the last year of retail sales of peat, with a ban on retail peat sales coming in 2024.  At last you may say!  Peat accumulates in waterlogged bogs at the rate of about 1mm per year, so it takes a 1,000 years to grow a metres depth of peat and yet we are getting through 3 million cubic metres of peat a year (DEFRA figure), nearly two-thirds of that being through retail sales of peat.  Peat holds more carbon than all the other carbon stores combined.  They are also a biodiversity hot-spot too, providing a home to countless types of plants and animal species

Why not make this year you only buy peat free compost?  There are an increasing number of peat free composts available as retailers prepare for the coming ban.  If you have a Which? subscription you will have access to the latest best buy guides that have just been published.

The bad news is that a ban on the use of peat by the horticultural industry is not expected until about 2030, so plants being sold in garden centres will often be grown in peat.  Peat is not fertile, it is only made fertile through the addition of fertiliser after it is harvested.  It is just a growing medium, so the creation of an alternative growing medium, with added fertiliser, is perfectly possible.  Peat use is more about cost (it’s cheap) than its performance comparted to peat free alternatives.

When buying plants this year why not check to see what compost they are grown in?  One of our most powerful campaigning tools is to decide how we spend our money.  It’s time to start checking the small print on that plant label and if it isn’t there start asking the retailer how the plants are grown. The power to change the horticulture industry over to peat free alternative composts is in our hands.

Lastly have you ever considered what compost our food is grown in?  It may surprise you to know that some foods, e.g. mushrooms, are grown on peat based compost. Where possible why not try and find out how your food is grown and steer clear of peat grown food?

Green Book Reviews: Wild Fell by Lee Schofield

Two members of our Green Book Group share their thoughts on our last Green Book of 2022.

By Anne Scott

In this inspirational book, Lee Schofield (site manager at RSPB Haweswater in the Lake District) takes us on a journey of discovery as he looks to see the return of the eagles to this wonderful habitat. The surprise is that in order to restore the king of the sky, his attention needs to be on the health of the soil.

The project he embarks upon seeks to accommodate his aim to restore wilderness, alongside the thriving farming economy and traditions of the local area. He finds himself wrestling with a common mind-set of privately owned land which needs to be farmed in order to support the local economy and individual farmers, whilst also viewing the services which the land provides as vital to all life: air, water, climate regulation and wildlife habitat.

Through the first part of the book, Schofield gives space for real lament as he discovers and describes species depletion within his sphere of influence: his grief is keenly felt as he writes, “The more I read, the more robbed I felt.” (p.100) The blame for much of the loss of flora and fauna is placed within the context of intensive farming and the failure of government policies to protect the land whilst trying to feed an increasing population. He also feels the hardship of trying to communicate his findings to other community stakeholders.

Schofield then takes us on a world-wide tour to gather hope and inspiration from other countries with similar climates. As he observes areas of flourishing wildflowers and lush grassland, he learns about how to use the land carefully, working with livestock, protecting areas from over-grazing and using other naturalised resources, such as rivers and fells, to stimulate an increased biodiversity. As he described the wonder of the wildflowers on the mountainsides, I sat with a wildflower book beside me so that I could join in the wonder with him: it was an education as well as a celebration.

The final section of the book returns us to northern England where we see plans put into action. With a renewed vision and stronger sense of team, we are invited to see the possibilities that are being actioned stemming from the learning that’s been accumulated. There is hope at the end of the book as he describes a possible future which he dreams as a possibility with the actions he is enabling to repair and restore RSPB Haweswater.

I loved Schofield’s passion and love of the space he lives and works within and it challenges me to consider how I can better care for the area I live and work within. “As I walk back… I remind myself how fortunate I am to be able to call this work. It’s not a privilege I wear lightly, and everyday I am striving to be worthy of this place and the stewardship I’ve been entrusted with.” (p.5)

By Melanie Wakley

I enjoyed reading Lee Schofield’s book about his restoration work of the site at RSPB Haweswater as he tries to ‘breathe life back into 3,000 hectares of sprawling upland habitat’.  I loved his exploration of the wild fells of Norway and the pristine meadows of the Alps, although I find it worrying/disappointing that other countries have managed their wild areas so much better than we have as a nation. Schofield tries to bring back the lessons he has learnt from other places and hopes to introduce some of the ideas at Haweswater – for instance, changing the way we graze the land to help with the recovery of nature. However, he writes about his battle with authorities to introduce his conservation ideas and also the opposition he encounters from local farmers.

I read the book while we were on holiday in Scotland and it is interesting how it made me look at our pastoral land differently. Instead of looking at the fields and thinking they are good for nature I realised that a lot of them are over grazed, over sprayed with pesticides and lack hedgerows, trees, and therefore become barren of wildlife.

A good read, with lots of information but made me sad once more for our loss of natural habitat – let’s hope Schofield keeps on working at his restoration!

Say no to consumerism on Black Friday

We joined members of Leicester Animal Rights group and Extinction Rebellion Leicester on so-called Black Friday, to stand outside the shopping centre and remind people that consumerism is costing the Earth. The sign prompted some interesting conversations with passersby, many of whom were supportive and agreed that the way we are using and wasting resources is out of control.