Over the 20th century and to this day, several wildlife trusts have taken charge of separate tracts of land to help them recover lost green cover and certain animal species. These trusts and other independent organisations are doing ground-breaking work in helping the UK and other countries maintain their ecological framework, primarily by working to save endangered animals and birds. The following section highlights some of them and the peerless work they do.

Take a look at some of the local efforts to save endangered animals in the UK:

* The PTES (People’s Trust for Endangered Species) works with the vision of protecting and saving endangered animals in the UK and around the world. They do this by working closely with on-ground organisations and locals in affected areas to save endangered animals from extinction. They also fund extensive research in wildlife conservation and provide financial grants for those working in the area of conservation (researchers and experts are often selected for these).
How you can help: Donate to them or volunteer with local organisations that partner with them.

* The Natural History Museum does a large amount of work in the area of awareness and community education to shine a spotlight on endangered animals and birds in the UK. Thus far, it has successfully participated in campaigns to save animals and birds on the brink of extinction, from the Peregrine falcon to the sea otter, and from blue whales to Fisher’s estuarine moths. They also work extensively for flora in the UK.
How you can help: Stay in touch with their programmes on their website and support their team of 300 scientists and their research via donations.

* The Wildlife Conservation Society has offices in several countries, including the UK. The organisation collaborates with local communities in every area of its work to shape their future and take their help in preserving and conserving wildlife. It works for global conservation of endangered plants and animals, proper maintenance of zoos and aquariums, and towards mitigating climate crises and pandemics.
How you can help: You can donate for their work or volunteer in their target areas in your home country. Corporates are also encouraged to tie up for several conservation and awareness programmes.

What you can learn from their efforts

Saving endangered animals in the UK is not the sole responsibility or purview of a few committed organisations and the Government. Indeed, the Government announced a £220 million biodiversity fund to save endangered animals, in 2019. But these efforts can get a considerable boost with the active participation of every individual in the UK.

It’s quite simple to do, too: engage with the local wildlife conservation communities, abstain from purchasing products and services that use illegal animal parts or employ animals for laboratory testing, visit local parks to help wildlife tourism and donate to several related causes. Above all, do spread the word about the issue in your local community at every opportunity, be it by organising seminars or engaging the youth in fun events aimed at animal protection and conservation.

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“Are you sure this is the way?” said Alfie, scrambling up the hill after his sister.
“I don’t know alright?” replied Eva sharply, staring at her phone as she strode on ahead. “I’m still trying to get a signal.”
“That’s what you said, like, half an hour ago.” said Alfie, holding up a chubby wrist. “We should have stuck to the path like I said. Then we wouldn’t be lost!”
“We’re not lost.” retorted Eva. “Look, we’re nearly at the top of the hill. There’s bound to be something on the other side.”  

But there wasn’t. There were only more trees, thickening into an impenetrable distance.

“Great!” sighed Alfie. “What now?”   
“I dunno,” replied Eva, uncertainly. “Keep going until we get signal, I guess…” 
“But what if we don’t?” asked Alfie.
“We will.” snapped Eva. “This is Wales, you know, not the end of the world!” 

The forest seemed to grow darker here, more gnarled and the children were quieter as they went, nervously looking up at the great oak trees that surrounded them. With their wrinkled old trunks and branches bearded in moss, the trees looked like sentinels, silently watching as the children passed deeper into the forest.

“Evie,” said Alfie in a small voice after a while. “I’m a bit scared.” 
“Scared? What’s there to be scared of? It’s only a bunch of old tr… ” began Eva but then she stopped. Standing in front of them was an old man. 
“Where did you come from?” exclaimed Eva, staring at him in astonishment. He was, in fact, an extremely old man with a tangled white beard and even whiter hair and he was carrying a wooden staff. 

“From the forest.” replied the man in a melodious voice. “Where did you come from?”   
“We were on our way to the seaside but our parents got lost!” said Alfie excitedly. “So they parked up to look at the map – only they can’t read maps so they started arguing! And me and my sister went to check out the forest – then we got lost!” 
“You do not live in the forest?” asked the man. 
“We live in London!” replied Alfie, grinning confusedly. 
“Who lives in the forest?” said Eva, staring at the man.
“Once upon a time, we all lived in the forest.” replied the man and his eyes, which were a brilliant azure blue, seemed to darken with the weight of the loss. “Once, forests like this one covered the entire country.” 
“Right…” said Eva, frowning. “And…do you live in the forest?” 
“As long as there is a forest, I shall live here.” replied the man. 
“Great! Then you must know the way out?” said Alfie briskly. 

The man bowed wordlessly, gesturing for them to follow him through the trees. 

“So do you, like, live in a tree-house?” asked Alfie.
“I have no house.” replied the man. “The trees provide my shelter. The leaves, comfort. The wood, warmth.” 
“Is that why you’re not wearing any shoes?” asked Eva suspiciously. 
“What need have I for shoes when the forest provides such a carpet?” he replied and the children saw that up ahead, the floor of the forest was sprinkled with thousands of tiny blue flowers, glowing like fairy lights under the darkened canopy. 

They followed the old man through the flowers to a tinkling stream that led off down the hill.

“Ah, we’re back here.” said Eva, looking around. Then she frowned. “But how did you know where our parents were parked?” 

The old man pointed to the canopy and through the leaves, hanging behind them like a painting, the children could see fields, great dazzling squares of green rolling one after another, into a cobalt sea.    

“What you were looking for?” he said. 

They followed the stream down the hill until the children spotted a splash of yellow paintwork and then their parents, hunched over the bonnet of an enormous 4×4. Amazingly, they were still arguing.    

“So much for mum and dad being mad.” snorted Eva. “They haven’t even noticed we’re gone!”
“But they must of! It‘s been, like…” began Alfie. Then he stopped. 
“What?” asked Eva. 
“My watch says it’s still two!” replied Alfie, staring at her. 
“Two? As in the time we left mum and dad?” exclaimed Eva. “You must be looking at it wrong!”
“No I’m not!” said Alfie indignantly. Then he turned to the man. “Have you got the time?”
“Time passes differently in the forest,” he replied.
“But we’ve come out at the same time?” said Eva, frowning perplexedly at her phone. “The same time, although we’ve been walking for ages! How is that even possible?” 
“Think of the forests… as a way into the past.” replied the man, closing his eyes. “You may enter them in your time but if you keep on walking, who knows where you will end up. You may end up in my time – or some other time entirely. But what I do know is that without the forests, there is no way back.” he went on, opening his eyes and looking directly at Eva. “That is why you must protect them.” 

Eva was staring at the old man but then she heard her parents, distantly calling their names. Alfie set off down the hill, waving excitedly, but Eva turned to the man.

“I‘m sorry – what did you say your name was?” she said. 
“My name is Myrddin.” replied the man, his face crinkling into a kindly smile. “But in English, you would say Merlin.” 
“Merlin?” repeated Eva incredulously. 
“Come on Evie!” called Alfie from the bottom of the hill. 
“I’m coming!” shouted Eva. Then she turned back to Merlin. But he had disappeared into the forest.

Author: Tim Davies, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Sacred Groves Founders’ images of Coed Rhyal

The post Found in the Woods – short story inspired by Coed Rhyal appeared first on The Sacred Groves.

Carmarthen Bay in West Wales is much loved for its broad, peach-white sands, its migratory birdlife and its sweeping sand and mud flats and salt marshes. It’s the birthplace of the Arthurian legend of the magician Merlin and one of the landscapes that inspired celebrated Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. In 2009, the UK’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee listed Carmarthen Bay and Estuaries as a Special Area of Conservation, for the presence in the Bay of and its saltmarshes of sea rush (Juncus maritimus) and marsh-mallow (Althaea officinalis), rare invertebrates  and the twait shad (Alosa fallax), a threatened migratory fish.

Coed Rhyal – an ancient oak woodland – occupies a northwest-facing slope overlooking Carmarthen Bay. Whilst the inland Bay is less visited than its coastline and marshes, and certainly less studied, ancient deciduous woodlands such as Coed Rhyal, a recent acquisition by Sacred Groves, are also key to the region’s rich ecosystem. At Coed Rhyal, a closed canopy of ancient oaks provides both the moisture and shade for a host of symbiotic flora and fauna, from honeysuckle climbers, to edible bilberry, primrose and ferns and the bluebells that explode in a glowing counterpane of mauve each early spring.

“Coed Rhyal has some wonderful ancient woodland indicators, such as wood sorrel and campion,” says woodland and forestry manager Marc Liebrecht, custodian of Coed Rhyal for Sacred Groves. “There are veteran trees and, crucially for biodiversity, there is deadwood with plenty of friendly cracks and crevices for bats and birds to nest and floor as well as deadwood that’s great for fungus.”

A permissive path [a route designated by law for use by the public], thought to be an old horse and cart path, runs through the woodland and dog walkers and runners often use the route. On his last visit to the wood, Liebrecht met a local dog walker there who was pleased that Coed Rhyal – which translates as Rhyal’s trees – has been acquired to be kept wild for posterity. 

“Rewilding is usually appreciated by local communities who want to preserve their natural heritage,” Liebrecht says.

Although improvements have been made since the end of World War One, when woodland covered less than five percent of Wales’ landmass, today woodland only covers 14 percent of the current land surface in Wales (in comparison to a European average of 37 percent), and as of 1998, only 38 percent of Welsh woodland was composed of native species such as oak (Welsh Assembly Government, 2013). Wales’ ancient woods are worth preserving. Ancient woodland is the UK’s richest and most complex terrestrial habitat: home to more threatened species than any other natural environment. Centuries of undisturbed soils and accumulated decaying wood create the perfect home for communities of fungi and invertebrates, as well as specialist species of insects, birds and mammals.

Back in Coed Rhyal, as the path ascends, the route passes abandoned coal works and gaps in the canopy open out to glimpses of the estuary and Carmarthen Bay. These snatched vantage points make Liebrecht privileged to be able to visit this ancient wood. 

“The path meanders up the slope and has such a nice feel about it,” Liebrecht explains. “There is a viewpoint where you have unbroken views of the estuary and its setting in the wider landscape. It’s breathtaking and also somewhat soothing as you feel so cool under the forest canopy.”

WHAT IS FOREST BATHING?

Forest bathing became part of a Japanese national public health program in 1982 when the forestry ministry coined the phrase shinrin-yoku and promoted topiary as therapy. Shinrin-yoku, or is defined broadly as “taking in, in all of our senses, the forest atmosphere”. The program was established to encourage Japanese to get out into nature, to literally bathe the mind and body in green spaces, and take advantage of public-owned forest networks as a means of promoting health. Some 64 percent of Japan is occupied by forest, so there is ample opportunity to escape the megacities that dot its landscape. Now there’s scientific evidence to bolster the claims of shinrin-yoku,with phytoncides, compounds released by plants and trees, have been shown to reduce the stress hormone cortisol and activate the immune system. 

Tommy Carr, leader of Welsh forest bathing group Mindful Walks (@mindful_walks) on Wales’ ancient woods:
“Old woods differ from younger woods for me in terms of a feeling of being something greater than just trees, there’s a sense of the whole ecosystem and the sheer size difference which affects light and shade. Younger woods can have their own quality but it’s the ancient woods I love. Walking together in these woodland landscapes I think that people cannot help but build a greater appreciation and love of them. Though it isn’t always explicit that we talk about the woodland and conservation itself, taking people who rarely walk in nature and reconnecting them to their own nature is crucial. There’s been a big increase in small woodland ownership in Wales since the pandemic and lockdowns. I hope that the increase in interest and desire to protect these habitats will continue and we can recognise the true natural resources of Wales.”

Monisha & Vikram Krishna, Co-Founders Sacred Groves:
“As we walked down the path less trodden at Coed Rhyal, we felt that we had been taken back in time to the world of Enid Blyton and her incredibly imaginative stories set in the backdrop of the enchanted woods. We dedicate Coed Rhyal to the children of Wales and hope to support many more such treasures in the future. We have miles to go and many promises to keep!”

Author: Sally Howard, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Founders, Sacred Groves

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In spring, the woodland in Blean, Kent, is rich in fresh greenery and soundtracked by trilling birdsong. Soon, this will also be a place where you could glimpse an animal that hasn’t been seen here for 6,000 years. In the distance, you might see a furry brown bison rubbing its vast form against a tree to scratch an itch, or taking a crashing dust bath.

European bison are regarded by conservationists as a ‘keystone’ species, missing from UK landscapes; animals whose natural behaviours are invaluable for woodland ecosystems. Bison help to kill off some trees by eating and rubbing up against their bark, which allows light and new vegetation to come through; and stir up soil by taking ‘baths’. All of this can boost an area’s biodiversity, having a significant positive impact all the way up the food chain. And destroying some trees and plants, bison can even help to kill off some invasive, non-native species. 

“Most English woodland is in a really bad ecological state,” says Evan Bowen-Jones, chief executive of Kent Wildlife Trust, which is behind the reintroduction of bison to Blean in spring 2022. “Everywhere in the UK, biodiversity has been plummeting, and one of our big risks nationally is that our ecosystems are so simplified that we are vulnerable to collapse under climate change,” he explains. “We need to create more ecologically resilient landscapes – and bison are animals that are ‘ecosystem engineers’, that will do the work for us.”

The UK’s leading conservation charity, Kent Wildlife Trust owns almost 2,500 acres of ancient woodland in Blean. Its ‘Wilder Blean’ rewilding initiative will see, initially, a small herd of bison released to roam in 1,000 acres of it, safely fenced off from public footpaths. The landmark £1.2m project will be carefully monitored and if successful, has the potential to be replicated more widely. 

Initially, a herd of just six bison will be released, with the hope that they will breed. The trust has not yet revealed where the animals will come from, but similar projects include one in Zuid Kennemerland National Park in The Netherlands [some members of which are pictured here]. UK animal licensing laws mean that the initial herd can’t exceed ten animals, but when they do, a second herd can be created in another part of the woodland, as well as in partnerships with charities that own more nearby woodland. The areas in which bison are present will be contrasted with those in which they are not, creating a new body of data to demonstrate the transformative impact of bison on English woodlands. This could be leveraged to help persuade lawmakers to lessen the costly legal and financial restrictions on managing bison, which are – arguably illogically – categorised as dangerous wild animals in UK law, and require more safety infrastructure and spending than in other countries. 

For this reason, the Wilder Blean bison project, including multiple layers of specialist fencing and tunnels, has cost more than £1.2m (sourced primarily from a lottery grant).

Kent Wildlife Trust’s plan was inspired by the success of bison reintroduction in The Netherlands, where there is two decades’ worth of evidence to support bison as a conservation tool. “In Europe they are further ahead with this,” says Bowen-Jones. “We need to re-prove everything in the UK context, and we accept that, but the learning from Holland is clear.”

Given that bison would naturally have roamed across a wide variety of landscapes, their reintroduction is an ecological tool that might, in theory, be widely replicated across the UK; Bowen-Jones mentions sand dunes in Cornwall and national parks in the north of the UK as examples. More data from what happens once the bison are ensconced in Blean will help prove what the reality of their presence means for today’s United Kingdom. 

“Their natural behaviours will have all sorts of effects, some of which we know about and some of which we don’t,” says Bowen-Jones. He has seen evidence from The Netherlands that bison themselves are a versatile conservation tool, but he emphasises that the financial and legal  constraints on bison reintroduction limit the application in other contexts.

That said, Bowen-Jones is heartened by the prospect of these great bovines grazing the garden of England. “Bison would have roamed over massive areas; they are a missing component from the vast majority of habitats in this county,” he says. Blean, he hopes, will be key to making the case for bison as a conservation icon for a new era of rewilding.

Author: Sophy Grimshaw, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Banner image and 1. Ray Lewis, 2. Tom Cawdron, 3. Evan Bowen-Jones

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Turnips share their moist alluvial bed with leeks and chards, courgettes stroke the cheeks of plump pumpkins and yellow ears of corn reach for the cloud-scuffed Normandy skies beneath fruit trees heaving with apples and plums. In the middle of this picture of Eden, a 63-year old man is in charge of a piece of equipment that’s more like a giant hair comb than an agricultural tool. Gingerly he pushes the device forward, carving neat cultivation channels into an unplanted vegetable bed. “Worms, woodlice, beetles, microorganisms. The whole diversity of nature remains undisturbed,” Charles Hervé-Gruyer, a sailor turned permaculture pioneer, explains of his willfully rudimentary farming technique.

With tools that owe more to ancient peoples than modern Western agriculture, the Bec Hellouin farm in Normandy, northwestern France, offers a vision of what nature-inspired food production could be: not a mass-scale high-technology pursuit but instead a practice that draws on the manual, handed-down techniques of centuries of farmers from rural India to 19th century France.

“With tractor-cultivated land soil is exposed and requires external inputs in terms of fertiliser,” Charles explains. “With our dense planting and biomass method the farm self-fertilises, as it stores carbon and protects biodiversity.”

Only four souls farm Bec Hellouin’s 20 hectares: Charles, his wife Perrine, 46, a former lawyer, and two hired gardeners, yet their yields are so impressive they are the subject of a series of studies, including by the French National Institute of Agricultural Research.

Key to the Hervé-Gruyer method is dense and complementary planting: rapid-growing radishes provide shade for neighbouring carrots, which need a cool climate to thrive. In the space left by harvested radishes and carrots, winter cabbage is planted. Densely planted beds, interspersed with ponds and patches of woodland, also mean that nutrients and water are retained, with little opportunity for weeds to take hold. Ground-level clover, sorrel and mint, Charles adds, fix nitrogen and mulch and rotting plants nourish the beds in unplanted spots. The couple only use manual tools and boast they never have to water their farm, even in the climate-change induced summer heatwaves of 2019 and 2020.

This verdant picture is in marked contrast to the inhospitable tract of land the couple bought, on a utopian whim, in 2006.

“It took us two years to clear the slopes,” Charles recalls of the land that, with its meagre layer of humus, was only suitable for pasture. “It seemed like heresy to plant anything here.” It was the discovery of permaculture, an Australian philosophy that sees nature as an intelligent toolbox to mimic rather than master, and reading up on the farming methods of old Parisian market gardeners and Amazonian forest farmers that transformed the couples’, and Bec Hellouin’s fate.

“We’d started from a point where the earth was very poor, just grass, and nature responded very quickly,” Perrine says of the farm’s remarkable productivity. A 2018 study found that, by reusing using biomass from their own farm, the Hervé-Gruyers have produced the most fertile soil in their region, known for its poorly drained, calcareous soils: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2018.00116/full

Despite their successes, Perrine admits that they have faced some resistance to their methods from the French naysayers they call the ‘little grandpas’, who sometimes characterise them as bohemians, or cranks. And their model, they admit, is not suitable for all contexts due to the level of expertise and trial and error that it requires. But for the couple, who now tutor would-be organic farmers from across the world at the Bec Hellouin institute, it’s not if their method should be replicated across the West, but when.

“By using the wisdom of generations of farmers informed by the latest science, we can create a world of small farms that are carbon sinks, oases of biodiversity, a place to regenerate soil and to create abundance for local communities,” Charles says, adding: “As a friend of mine says, utopia is like spinach in the pan: it reduces so quickly we have to keep adding more.”

Author: Sally Howard, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: the Hervé-Gruyers and Luke Duggleby, the Climate Heroes Project

The post A Farm For All Ages – Especially Our Own appeared first on The Sacred Groves.

A Welsh folk poem dating back to the 14th century Derwen Ceubren yr Ellyll, or ‘The Hollow Oak, Haunt of Demons’ tells of an ancient oak that bears witness to the betrayal of Welsh revolutionary Owain Glyndŵr by his cousin and English royalist Hywel Sele, supporter of King Henry IV. The cousins embark on a deer-hunting trip, when Hywel turns his sword on Owain, who has suspected his motives and worn chainmail. In a fight to the death, Hywel is vanquished by Owain and:

“Pale lights on Cader’s rocks were seen,
And midnight voices heard to moan;
‘Twas even said the Blasted Oak,
Convulsive, heaved a hollow groan…”

Owain conceals Hywel’s body in the old oak’s great trunk and never tells of the murder, only bespoken by the oak, which grows gnarled and twisted in its dark knowledge until, many years later, Hywel Sele’s widow leads a band of men to split the oak’s great bole to find her husband’s body within, a rusting sword clutched in its skeletal hand.

Hallowed by the Celts, great oaks traditionally served as meeting spots and boundary-markers to Welsh wayfarers in an era when upland oak woodland – dominated by sessile oak (Quercus petraea) and local pedunculate oak (Quercus robur) and typically supporting 500-plus plant and animal species as well as other trees such as alder, ash, birch, hazel, holly, and rowan – covered much of Wales’ landmass.

These days woodland only covers 14 percent of the current land surface in Wales (in comparison to a European average of 37 percent), and as of 1998, only 38 percent of Welsh woodland was composed of native species such as oak (Welsh Assembly Government, 2013). This process of gradual deforestation is thought to be down to many factors, including destruction of woodlands during English King Edward I’s seizing of Welsh territories and the hunting-to-extinction of apex predators such as the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), European brown bear (Ursus arctos) and the grey wolf (Canis lupis) from the early to late middle ages (700s to 1500s) resulting in an irruption of herbivores that devoured emergent tree saplings.

The final crisis point for many of Wales’ upland oak woodlands were the World Wars, when a rapacious appetite for timber led to upland oak woodlands being force purchased by the British government’s Forestry Commission, felled and in many cases replanted with non-native fast-growing conifers.

One woodland’s tale: Gigrin Prysg

I’m standing in a stretch of upland oak woodlands in a region of mid-Wales whose fate charts the turbulent fate of Wales’ upland oak woodlands. From its slanting escarpments are visible the brooding blues of the Cambrian Mountains and the sheening dams and reservoirs of the Elan and Claerwen Valleys; brushing my ankles as I walk along the woodland’s steep-inclined pathways are mauve heather, fronded ferns and bushes of bilberries, a tiny dark berry that makes a fine late summer pie.

“Those are good indicator species that this is ancient woodland,” says Marc Liebrecht, a Sustainable Forest Management specialist who maintains Gigrin Prysg for Sacred Groves. “As are the lichens that you see on the oaks over there, such as wood bristle-moss and old man’s beard lichen.”

An 11.8 acre stretch of mature oak woodland, Gigrin Prysg translates as ‘Gigrin’s grove’, for an 18th century local farm owner. Its ancient trees were felled, Liebrecht believes, for World War Two timber and have since grown back and reseeded naturally from dropped acorns, in higgledy piggledy patches and clusters of oaks.

The oaks also support the growth of rowan and birch trees in the gaps in the canopy left by this natural dispersal of saplings. Deadwood left to rot on the site provides a home for species including blue ground beetle (Carabus intricatus) and crane fly (Lipsothrix errans).

The lack of ruminant grazing on the site will allow further trees to grow from the tender saplings at our feet, Liebrecht says, as Sacred Groves plan to leave the woodland to rewild and reseed naturally, with the help of supporters.

Regenerating Wales’ lost woodlands is, Liebrecht admits, a long game. Easily felled, oaks grow slowly (at around 50cm a year), and it’s hard to predict if pests or erratic weather conditions borne of climate change will threaten the viability of this native species, as has been seen with Ash dieback (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus), a fungus that arrived on British soil in 2012 and which is predicted to kill 80 percent of native ash trees (including a patch on the western edge of the Gigrin Prysg site).

“For dynamic resilience you need mixed wooded ecosystems with different species and ages of tree, and you need time,” says Liebrecht, gesturing at Gigrin Prysg’s boughs. Gigrin Prysg’s venerable Welsh oaks will live, he predicts, to witness other tall tales.

Author: Sally Howard, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Sally Howard and Hollow Oak illustrations out of copyright

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Think of the Cotswolds countryside and what springs to mind? Green, sheep-dotted fields? Honey-stone cottages? Neatly tended gardens with flower beds in full summer bloom? What about lawns and verges that sprawl unmown as they sprout daisies, clover and that most reviled of gardeners’ weeds, the shock-haired common dandelion?

One Cotswolds village has challenged British gardeners to cast aside their famous prediction for neatly trimmed lawns and rigorous weeding of unwanted plants. Tysoe’s journey began in spring 2019, when a handful of its residents refrained from mowing their lawns during May, the month when emerging bumblebees and hoverflies are feeding on the rich nectar of wild plant species such as dandelion, bluebells and cowslips. The campaign, dubbed #NoMowMay, was first proposed by British wild plant conservation charity Plantlife in 2019, as a way to protect endangered species as well as the fast-disappearing natives that feed on wildflower nectar and whose populations are threatened by factors including global warming.

In Tysoe, locals took to it with gusto: sowing wild flower seeds, refraining from mowing and installing Brian May, a scarecrow who inadvertently resembled the legendary guitarist with British rock group Queen, to deter birds from pecking at wildflower seeds and shoots.

“The effort has been growing every year since,” Rosemary Collier, one of the project’s local coordinators and an entomologist at Warwick University. “The idea to make space for nature came from members of the church and we first rewilded parts of the churchyard. Then the parish council came on board and we re-wilded some of the parish’s verges. We also harvested seeds from local native wildflowers and sowed these alongside yellow rattle, which is semi-parasitic and suppresses grass, allowing other wildflowers to grow.”

Tysoe villagers are part of a broader citizen-led British green volunteering trend that’s been dubbed ‘ungardening’, which urges Britons to let 30 percent of their gardens and public spaces grow wild for the benefit of native wildlife. The trend can present a challenge to British tastes, admits Shirley Cherry, who coordinates a conservation campaign to turn Tysoe into a year-round wildlife-friendly village that’s sprung from the village’s rewilding efforts, Tysoe Wildlife.

“You won’t win everybody over because some people like primness in their gardens,” Cherry says. “Nature likes things messier: curving lines rather than straight lines, plants left to grow.”

On a mild day this May, Tysoe’s verges bloom with daisies, buttercups and wild violets as bees fly in busy arabesques and passersby quizzically stop to read the signs erected to explain the thinking behind the villages’ unkempt verges. Collier, who studies insect counts in her work at Warwick University, says that quantitative analysis of the impact on Tysoe’s insect life is tricky but that she had noticed more bees in the village this year, as well as a greater range of insect species.

Any good news is much needed. A 2019 study found that a third of British wild bees and their pollinating relatives, the hoverflies, are in decline, with habitat loss and climate change thought to be the principal causes of the insects’ demise.

Collier has enjoyed the flowers that have sprung up on her village’s unmown verges, including nectar-rich wildflowers such as oxeye daisy, field scabious and knapweed. She’s also pleased that dandelions, unsung kings of the pollinating world, are being rehabilitated, in Tysoe and beyond.

“People get annoyed with dandelions because they’re so good at dispersing their seeds but they’re amazing pollinators because they’re composite flowers with lots of little flowers in their head,” she says. Collier hopes such efforts will lead to a renewed appreciation of the environmental benefits of wildflower such as dandelions and nettles and the important role they play in supporting insects and animals higher up the food chain.

Author: Sally Howard, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Unsplash, Rosemary Collier and Sylvia Davies

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The tiny ice crystals on the dark green leaves sparkle in the winter sun. Wolfgang Palme breaks one leaf off the palm cabbage to eat. “It tastes nutty, elegant and sweet”, he says, smiling. An icy wind blows over the fields. Wolfgang Palme pulls up the zip of his weather jacket. The agronomist and head of the Austrian Research Institute of Horticulture has come to enjoy the taste of winter. The cold does not seem to harm the vegetables in his field. Chard, spinach, purslane, radish, turnips, leek, herbs and many species of cabbage are surviving undamaged despite temperatures falling far below zero on the day we meet. Nearby, in unheated soft-plastic tunnels, salads, carrots, celery or pea sprouts are thriving. Wolfgang Palme and his team planted them in late summer last year. Now it is the end of winter. There is still snow on the mountains around the Zinsenhof, an experimental farm between Linz and Vienna. But the vegetables are ready to eat.

It is a boon for his community, where in winter, fresh vegetable consumption entails buying produce grown in faraway, warmer climates. In fact, this is how most of Central Europe sources vegetables in winter. These, however, come with hidden costs. According to WWF Switzerland, a kilogram of asparagus flown in from Peru results in 15 kilograms of carbon emissions, compared to less than one kilogram had it been locally cultivated in the field. Green beans arriving from Morocco emit more than 30 times carbon than those that are locally grown. And what is available in winter locally is typically grown in heated greenhouses. “On a cold winter night, a heated greenhouse of 1.5 acres emits as much carbon as a detached house in a whole year,” says Palme, adding, “mankind can no longer afford this”. His innovative farming techniques balance the need to save the environment with meeting the consumer demand for fresh produce.

Palme has identified and published nearly 80 varieties of veggies which stand the Austrian frost. The idea of growing them in sub-zero temperatures came to him by chance. In an experiment, Asian salad greens were surprised by frost. But in spite of minus 11 degrees they remained undamaged. The technical literature had stated that they could withstand frost of only minus three to five degrees. “Fortunately, the lettuce had not read the literature,” he quips. This experience made him realise that often the growing conditions listed on seed packets, especially about how much frost they can bear, is not wholly accurate. So he redefined it.

With his work, the scientist wants to provide practical knowledge to other farmers. He is presently working with seven vegetable farms all over Austria. “Winter vegetables are good for small and medium-sized farmers,” says Palme. “They can be grown on land and soft-plastic tunnels all year round and save energy. Even in winter, they can offer fresh produce from their own cultivation.” The all-important question is how these vegetables manage to survive the frost. Palme plucks a lettuce leaf and takes a nibble. “Many vegetables form a kind of frost protection in their cells, which is made of sugar.. ” he says, through happy chews. “This is the reason they taste so good…”

Author: Klaus Sieg, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Wolfgang Palme

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The Covid-19 pandemic showed many global city dwellers a future in which we might all breathe more freely. Across the world, as populations were subject to stay-at-home orders and road transport activity dipped, city-dwellers enjoyed clear skies; and a respite from road traffic produced pollutants such as nitrogen dioxides, carbon monoxides and the dangerous vehicle particulates PM 2.5s: tiny specks of pollution which, once inhaled, lodge in the lungs and can cause a variety of health problems.

Those traffic-borne emissions prompted the World health Organisation, in 2019, to characterise air pollution as the number one environmental health risk globally, the cause of an estimated 7.1 million premature deaths per year.

One solution to cities’ pollution problem is air purifiers and, as populations demand clearer air yet policies to reduce car-borne pollution lag behind, air purifiers are big business. Indeed market size is expected to reach USD 22.80 billion by 2028 and is expected to expand ten percent a year from 2021 to 2028.

The problem with standard electric air purifiers however is similar to air conditioners, in that they can compound the problem in themselves requiring power to run, which, in most global contexts, produces additional carbon pollution. Trees, of course, are excellent natural air purifiers but demands for land in cities make it difficult to plant the number of trees necessary to drastically improve air quality.

One answer to this problem also comes from nature, in one young German horticulturist’s design for an air filter that’s based on air-cleansing abilities of common-or-garden moss.

Green City Solutions was founded in 2014 by 29-year-old Peter Sänger, who brought together a team of experts in fields ranging from horticulture to mechanical engineering to design a novel bio-tech filter, the City Tree. “I felt the solution to air pollution can only emerge in combination with nature,” he says, of concentrating his research efforts on moss. “After all, nature has millions of years of experience in air purification.”

Moss is well adapted to the task of filtering polluted air, possessing the ability to bind fine dust and metabolise it. It can filter soot and particulates from the air breathed by 7,000 people every hour. In addition, mosses cool surrounding air by evaporating water on their leaf surface. The problem is that mosses can barely survive in cities due to their need for water and shade. So Green City Solutions solved this problem by connecting a range of species of mosses (with different filtering abilities) to low-energy water and nutrient provision based on unique Internet of Things technology, which measures the plants’ requirements and surrounding pollution levels in real time.

Independent field studies have shown that up to 82 percent of the fine dust in city air can be filtered directly by the City Trees, which the company has installed in cities across Germany, and in London and Paris. Each moss tower has the carbon dioxide absorbing capability of 275 trees.

Positioning is key; as Sänger notes: “Not all places where people live are polluted, and people aren’t everywhere there is pollution. Where the two meet, that’s where we place the trees.” Sänger would like to see his devices installed in the world’s most vehicle-polluted cities within the next decade.

The company is now developing moss-based air filters that are also suitable for consumers to use in their homes or that function – in an extra boon – as attractive greenery for vertical facades.

Author: James Gavin, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Green City Solutions; Peter Sänger and Peter Puhlmann for Green City Solutions; Nate Bell

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With its brilliant blue waters, the Adriatic Sea – the body of water separating the Italian peninsula from the Balkans – is a firm favourite with European holiday makers. Its shallow depth and species diversity also provide for a rich commercial fishing ground, with over 1,000 bottom-trawling vessels fishing its seas in a given week, chiefly Italian and Croatian commercial fleets in pursuit of bass, bream and mackerel.

The seafloor nets used by these trawlers are, sadly, a problem for non-commercial species too: dolphins, sharks and the sea turtles that flock to the Adriatic to feed on jellyfish and squid. Fishing trawlers inadvertently capture 6,500 sea turtles a year in the Adriatic, a phenomenon termed ‘bycatch’ or ‘wasted sea life’; over 2,000 of these turtles, it is estimated, will die.

“Bycatch is a very real problem that requires urgent attention and action,” says Lucy Babey, Deputy Director of marine charity ORCA. “Each year hundreds of thousands of turtles, sea mammals, and millions of sharks are incidentally caught and killed in fishing gear around the world.”

Sea turtle mortalities are caused by drowning, as individuals are ensnared and dragged underwater in trawlers’ nets; disorientated turtles find it difficult to change their swimming direction in order to escape through the net’s mouth.

Enter the TED, or Turtle Excluder Device, a structure fitted to the top or bottom of the trawl net that allows larger species to escape. The first TEDs, simple metal grids, were developed in the 1960s in the U.S., where green, leatherback and loggerhead turtles were routinely caught in the nets used by deep-sea shrimp trawlers. European commercial fishing fleets have, however, resisted the wholesale application of TEDs, in the belief the devices exclude larger commercial species, such as cod, as they reduce catch quality due to crushing against the grid. Traditional designs also become clogged with debris, meaning the TED can no longer either catch fish effectively or exclude turtles.

Now a new-generation ‘flexible TED’ is being pioneered in the Adriatic. Mounted on the rearmost part of the trawling net, a tubular potion known as the ‘codend’, the device, designed by marine experts at The Italian National Research Council (CNR), is a tilted escape hatch that acts like a valve, opening when it is hit by a larger weight, such as a turtle or dolphin. Additionally, the net is fitted with an accelerator funnel, to drive the fish down and away from the exit, protecting the quality of the catch.

In a 2019 pilot, CNR’s flexible TED prevented the capture of sea turtles as it affected neither the weight nor composition of the commercial catch and reduced debris capture.

The adoption of the device, says Claudio Vasapollo, a marine biologist involved in the research, “could avoid the bycatch of more than 8,000 sea turtles a year in the Adriatic Sea”. “Although,” he continues, “any solution will need to get the fishing industry on board”.
“It is a matter of urgency that governments invest in, and legislate for, effective bycatch solutions for larger species such as dolphins and turtles,” ORCA’s Lucy Babey adds, of the new-generation TEDs. “These animals play crucial roles within their ecosystem, which are at risk of collapse without them.”

Author: Sally Howard, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Turtle banner image and 3. Zdeněk Macháček & Kris Mikael Krister, 1. David Clode, 2. CNR

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