The Mysteries In The Forest Floor
December 19, 2011 by Doug Kennedy
Ancient woodland has been continually wooded since at least 1600AD, and some may even link back to the original wildwood that covered the UK around 10,000 years ago, after the last Ice Age. There are ancient beech woods in the Chiltern Hills which I explore at all times of the year. They are particularly lovely in the spring and autumn when the colours are vibrant with the changing season.
Beech trees are very stately, their smooth grey trunks, like cathedral columns rising from the leafy forest floor, often only spreading into a canopy dozens of feet up in the air. The foliage glows warm green in the spring against a blue sky, and in the autumn turns golden before the leaves fall and add to the deep litter on the floor.
When men go into a forest to chop it down, they see trees, and powered by burning the carbon of trees that grew 200 million years ago, smash their way through to bring down the trees and gain the timber. In an ancient wood, beneath the vast wheels and metal tracks they are also destroying an amazing complexity of life that thrives under the surface of the forest floor, and this is one of the reasons why ancient woods are so precious. It is also where the mystery dwells.
I have a favourite beech wood atop the Chiltern ridge which is reached by a small path running steeply uphill from a nice country pub. This wood is not only very lovely, with it’s open, leafy forest floor and towering columns of trees, but very rich in fungi. At first glance, the floor seems rather devoid of life as not much grows beneath mature beech, but look closer, particularly in the Autumn, and you will find all manner of colourful and exotic fungal life among the leaf litter. In parts it is carpetted with delicious black Horns of Plenty, stumps covered with little bonnets and small common puffballs, innocuous looking greyish Death Caps and occasional cepes and chanterelles (as well as many small brown jobs).
(Chanterelle, left; Common Bonnet, middle; Magpie Ink Cap)
Southern England has had a very dry, warm autumn especially during the peak mushroom season of late September to early November which worried some farmers (a bit), made it a lot easier to walk along Chiltern forest paths as the usual slushy mud was absent, and caused a near absence of fungi. On a foray I joined in October in my area we found almost nothing – a few ‘small brown jobs’ if you looked hard, but all of the normal exotic fecundity was absent: it was a disappointing day, so I went for a run instead.
The dry weather continued until the middle of November, when some heavy showers moistened the soil. Leaves were still on many of the trees, and a foxglove was flowering in my garden – a flower which would normally be long gone by October.
I kept visiting these woods and on November 16th, things began to get interesting again, but the fungi were a quite different range from last year: if 12 species, only 2 matched! These were funnel caps (some very large) and common bonnets (picture above) and two edible species, the Wood Blewett (below left) which is purplish and oyster mushrooms, below right.
Mushroom do not just grow from a seed, like green plants, but are the fruiting bodies of the main plant, which is the ‘mycellium’. This is a network of fibres, or hyphae, that can be absolutely enormous, spreading over acres of forest floor, or very localised on a single tree stump, or anything in between. Therefore, underneath the leaf litter on this beech forest floor is an amazing complexity of intertwining fungus hyphae of many different species, the overall mass of which is much, much greater than that of the mushrooms and toadstools that we see on the surface from time to time. Also, whilst the fruiting bodies are ephemeral, the underground plant, or mycelium, may be as old as the forest itself.
In fact, fungi are critical to a forest’s health as the trees grow in symbiosis with them. The roots of many trees are ‘infected’ with the fungi around them, and this seems to benefit both organisms, helping the tree gain nutriants and possible water. So a healthy ancient forest is one in which many species depend upon each other for their survival, not only in predator-prey relationships, but as symbionts.
The colourful and varied fungi shown here are manifestations of the real forest mystery that lies unseen beneath our feet and is much too complex and mysterious for us to competely understand. Thus I will keep visiting the forest during the autumn to see what is fruiting at any time, possibly finding something delicious for supper (only taking what I can eat), and always enjoying the beauty of the forest.
If you want to find out more about fungi and experience the delight of finding these ephemeral beauties, locate the nearest fungus group on the internet. In this area, we have the Bucks Fungus Group which can be found at http://www.bucksfungusgroup.org.uk/
A Walk In The Countryside – Get Involved In Nature’s Resurgance
August 14, 2011 by Doug Kennedy
[SinglePic not found]It is an August Sunday in Cuddington, in rural South Buckinghamshire. The air is a mild 20 degrees centigrade and an occasional breeze wafts the ripe wheat, and the sun has a pleasant intensity when it moves out from behind the broken cloud.
However, a little further on in Spickett’s Lane there are several more plum trees festooned with fruit of different varieties. The first of these are small and crimson when ripe, and quite deliciously sweet with an intense flavour. Juice dribbles down my chin. There are damsons, small and black and too high to pick without a ladder, more small yellow fruit and one in-between. On the other side the lane, the blackberries are not ready yet, but will be black and luscious in a couple of weeks.
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I turned right, past the piggery where a few Oxford black-and-tan rare pigs remain, snoozing in the gentle morning, then round the edge of the bean field down towards the river. Waddesdon Estates farm this land and, as part of their Environmental Stewardship Scheme, all of their fields have a wildlife strip around the edge where wildflowers (weeds) prosper and bees and butterflies dart and settle in their search for nectar. A month ago, when the wildflowers were at their best, there were lots of butteflies: meadow brown in particular, common blues and small whites, green-veined whites, red admirals, peacocks. Now these are fewer, but they are still to be found along with a gatekeeper (small meadow brown) or two.
[Gallery not found]There are rustlings in the high, scrubby hedgerow and I hear some squirrels having a fight, squeaking and jumping about but see nothing. I cross the stile that penetrates it and step into a cow pasture with a wooded, watery drainage channel on my left. This is where newts, grass snakes and waterfoul skulk and a source of dragonflies and damselflies, and I see a large one zoom over my head, too fast to identify.
There is a brown bull with broad shoulders and a deep chest right ahead of me, on the footpath route over the field, and I approach with a little caution; but he is quiet and docile as I skirt around him. The air is fairly quiet now where it was alive with birdsong a month or two ago, but there are birds about. A buzzard circles up on a thermal, but doesn’t come close enough for me to see his colours. There are a lot of crows in the sheep meadow, and rooks in the wood at the top of the field, and an owl box in the tree near the cattle bridge where I saw a tawny owl last march. And there are the ubiquitous pigeons, flapping away noisily as I approach, and sparrows.
The cattle bridge crosses the River Thame, and a pause to see if I can see any fish in it’s fast flowing water. The reeds are varied and luxuriant and a shy moorhen pokes it’s head out of them but doesn’t emerge this time. A couple of cows gaze vacantly at me as they chew their cud.
I cross a gate and a stile, entering the Eythrope Estate, home of Lord Rothschild, who also owns the entire Waddesdon Estate.
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Again there are wide, wild field borders, and as I skirt the field through longish grass, I see more white butterflies, and a couple of brimstones that look like a leaf when they stop to feed.
Above, buzzards and red kites glided under the blue sky and seemed to be gathering over the hill to the north: perhaps there was some carrion there.
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As I walk, young pheasants suddenly burst up from the wheat and tall grass, flying further down the track or running into the scrub for cover. These are being bred for the shooting season that starts in October, but that is not the only doom that awaits these tasty game birds!
[SinglePic not found]From only a few feet away, a fox springs up from the wheat where it had been lying in wait to catch a pheasant dinner, and runs off disconsolately through the golden crop. It is amazing what a wheat field conceals: along with the fox, and the pheasants, various small birds would suddenly appear, wings flapping at great speed in their panic to reach the nearby trees.
I come to a wider area of wildflowers still in bloom: this area would have been planted with a rich variety of native species as part of the Waddesdon environmental work. The air hums with honey and bumble bees, many different flies and some small blue butterflies. This is a sound I hear too seldom these days where it used to be the norm on a summers day. It is the sound of nature at work in a healthy countryside and alien to blank squares of monoculture. This land is intensively farmed, but space is left for natural ecosystems to work and it’s health protected from chemicals and machines.
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I stop to enjoy this buzz of life, then as I turn, a hare bursts out from the undergrowth a few yards away, and disappears into the hedge. About half a dozen kites are still circling in the air high over the hill, and a sudden birdsong bursts from nearby trees.
I leave the Waddesdon land, and climb through a meadow, then over another stile onto a neat and tidy field of rye grass: green and even and silent. The field edge has been mown, and it is empty of flowers, insects or any interest and the contrast is staggering.
We have turned much of our countryside into an aseptic monoculture which has been profoundly destructive to the diversity of nature in the British countryside. We have cut down hedgerows, ancient forests (over 80 percent have dissappeared this century), poisoned waterways and tried to turn the land into a factory floor which, for sterility, this field resembles. The terrible thing to me is that we have forgotten what the countryside should be like, and was like until very recently. The land along the Thame Valley shows that we can have both efficiently produced food and healthy natural ecosystems.
Waddesdon manages to farm profitably and efficiently, and because the people running it leave some land for nature and take care how they use modern technologies, after only a few years there is a resurgance of a diverse and healthy countryside. This creates a balance that protects crops, a balance that is destroyed by over-use of expensive chemicals and over-intensive practices. The result is that many of our species of birds and mammals are on endangered lists, and the countyside is often silent and boring.
My walk took me less than two hours, and in that time I have come across dozens of species, and been inspired and amazed by seeing the web of life at work. We do need more of it throughout our country, and it is us, all of us who have to make it happen realising that it is our health and quality of life that is at stake, and doing what we can to understand and restore our countryside.
[SinglePic not found]What connects a Pacific grey whale and you last visit to the shops?
July 18, 2010 by Doug Kennedy
What connects a Pacific grey whale and you last visit to the shops?
On your last visit to the shops, it is almost certain that you came home with some plastic that you hadn’t taken out with you: if you are really careless, then it would include the plastic carrier bags from the shops you visted, but it’s hard to avoid the odd polystyrene punnet in shrink wrap. Then there are the cardboard boxes with plastic wrappers on the food inside, and sometimes also on the outside!
Then there are those little bottles of water in shrink-wrapped multipacks, and packs of fruit drinks with tough wrappers that will be around long, long after the drink has been consumed and excreted into the sewage system.
Shrink-wrap can’t normally be recycled by local authorities, nor can polystyrene, nor many other packaging materials, so they end up in land fill or being burned in the incinerators that no-one likes in their back yard (so why do those same poeple continue to produce so much waste?), along with much of the recyclable plastic.
Some of it just gets chucked anywhere: just look at the verges of a major road that hasn’t been cleared by the local authority for a while. I have been picking up this sort of litter as I walk or run through parks and the countryside for decades, but what gets missed just blows somewhere. Today’s haul was a dirty nappy in Ashridge Forest, left just off the dirt footpath in a pretty piece of woodland. There was plastic in that too.
What has this to do with grey whales? Have a look at these web pages:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/11/plastiki-rothschild-plastic-bottle-catamaran (millions of tonnes of plastic swilling around in the Pacific Ocean while sea life disappears)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/20/beached-grey-whale-in-sea_n_544130.html (A beached grey whale contains large amounts of domestic plastic.)
None of these materials existed 50 years ago, when plastics were still relatively expensive and the technology was at an early stage, so the entire phenomenon has built up during one generation. Our society is more obsessed with cleanliness and smelling nice than it ever was, but we seem to pay less and less attention to the filth and pollution that we leave in our wakes as we drive on through our lives.
It cannot make sense that every time we buy a sandwich, a drink and a coffee, which are consumed in 10 minutes, we throw away:
Sandwich: shrink wrap or plastic sleeve, carboard pocket, the bits we didn’t want to eat.
Drink: A clear plastic bottle with label and coloured plastic cap.
Coffee: Polystyrene or carboard cup, plastic top, plastic or wooden stirer, paper sugar packet.
What can you do about it? Quite a lot actually, but only if you are willing to think a bit more about your actions, and to not just take the most convenient course every time, which usually means buying everything in one trip to the supermarket: local shops and outdoor markets usually put less packaging on food items. And you can always select items that have less packaging, or tell the butcher that you don’t really need two plastic bags and plastic film around those chops.
If you are feeling really bold, you could protest to the retailer.
If you disagree with all of this and are one of those people who think that their convenience is paramount, and that chops need 3 layers of plastic, then you won’t have read this far anyway. But if you did read this far, I’d be interested to hear how you can justify it.
A Rose, no poisons, just the odd thorn
July 14, 2010 by Doug Kennedy
Here is a nice pink rose that grows in our garden. This is the one of the second bloom of flowers we have had this summer: the first was of very large, multiple blossoms with a delicious scent.
The bush is perfect! No black spot or other diseases, no aphids to speak off (I do pick them off about once a week if I see a cluster). It has produced numerous shoots this year and stands about 120 cms tall, in spite of having been pruned quite hard in the winter.
So what am I doing? Boasting? Well, not really – there is a point to this. Our garden has had NO chemical fertilisers or pesticides put on it for the past 3 years. The entire garden is remarkably pest free. Now, that is in part due to the very cold winter, which killed off many nasties and seems to have left us with wonderful floral displays. But it is also due to the fact that this bush has had a dressing of our own well-rotted compost, and every day, gets a pot of cold darjeeling tealeaves and water poured over it.
I learned this lesson a long time ago from my uncle Tom in Jersey, who carried seaweed up from the beach to turn his patch of sand into a beautiful garden that produced the best peas and potatoes you have ever tasted each year. And, being a good Scot, he was much to careful to buy nasty poisons, and knew that the seaweed was far too good a fertiliser and soil sustainant to pollute with rubbish.
The agricultural and horticultural industries would like you to think otherwise, and festoon our garden centre shelves with vast quantities of potions and poisons and magic ingredients to ensure the fecundity and health of our gardens. But in fact, what they do is destroy the balance, which results in pests becoming far more prevailant than they would be without them.
Gardens are not like single-crop intensive agriculture: they depend upon diversity and a healthy ecosystem being sustained. Pest problems can mostly be dealt with by a bit of hard work, or sustained attention and husbandry: ie. good gardening. Chemicals are short cuts that often create as many problems as they solve.
Genetically Modified (GM) Foods Are An Unnecessary Evil
June 15, 2010 by Doug Kennedy
Yesterday I walked for about a mile through grassy fields, about half of them overgrown with grasses, nettles and other vagrant species. This was not in the middle of nowhere, but in prime Buckinghamshire farmland: some of the most fertile and longest farmed in England. These fields were completely vacant – no livestock, and certainly no crops.
Were these fields to be left alone, apart from mowing, for long enough, they could become meadows, rich in wildflowers, with nesting places for skylarks and other birds, and a refuge for hares. That is unlikely – it’s not the culture around here, but if we are so much in need of food that we want to plant GM crops, why are the in this state?
Much of the actively farmed land in this area has livestock on it – beef cattle mostly, some sheep and a little dairy. Cattle are notoriously inefficient in terms of food per acre, eating and drinking many times the weight of meat produced during their lives, let alone the methane they blow out of their rears.
Then there is all the land throughout the South East that is used for rearing horses, which are a hobby. There is an industry around them which provides work and pleasure for many of course, and they are lovely animals. But again, this is land that is supposedly so scarce that we need to plant GM crops.
Again the same question is begged – if we can afford to put so much land to livestock, can there really be a food crisis so severe that industrially produced GM crops are needed?
It may well be that the prices paid to farmers for crops make them less attractive, or even unaffordable to grow, but that raises questions about the ‘free and efficient market’ that is supposed to apply. The market for food is a bit of a free-for-all, certainly, meaning that it is the interests of the rich and powerful that are best served, rather than the good of the land. The fact that farmers are sometimes paid less than the food costs to grow creates great inefficiencies and waste, and also that the problem is not short supply.
It is a fact that the UK has a growing population. They need to be fed, and some very knowledgable people say that this will become a problem. But why are GM crops necessary? We seem to have plenty of land available for growing crops that could feed any number of people, but we just don’t use it. Of course, as long as supermarkets can import food cheaper than our farmers can produce it the problem is even less urgent. If we foresee a problem down the road, which is quite likely,we should plan for that both in terms of quantity of food grown and population size.
GM crops use lots of aggro-chemicals, including pesticides. Pesticides are intended to kill things – the bees, butterflies and other vital insects that unintentionally ingest them included. Even without GM crops this is a problem: One of our local villages had an open gardens day on Sunday and in 4 large gardens I didn’t see ONE honey bee (quite a few bumble bees) and few butterflies. The advent of GM crops in the UK is only likely to make this situation worse, owing to the quantities of chemicals needed for them.
Then there are the ‘unintended consequences’ of planting GM crops. By their nature, we don’t know what these will be, but these are alien plant types that require a lot of technology to make them successful, and their wide distribution could be catastrophic. You can forget about organic farms nearby as their crops are likely to become infected.
Then there is the fact that GM seed takes a lot of research and development – they cost millions and millions of pounds. So the companies that produce them own the genetic material, and will want to sell it as widely as possible once they are allowed to. They are very powerful and will offer big incentives to get farmers roped in. As the market grows, the company becomes more powerful, and eventually, the trap shuts, and the farmers and consumers are in it – you can’t re-use the seed, nor cross it with other varieties yourself. You have to buy the seed, AND the ghastly pesticides from The Company PLC (probably American or Chinese owned).
We have enough land to grow food for ourselves and more: it is a matter of how we choose to use it…. and whether we allow the global human population to continue to explode (http://www.optimumpopulation.org/).
One Sunday’s News: What Is Important?
May 2, 2010 by Doug Kennedy
From one Sunday newspaper today, May 2nd 2009:
Item 1: 33.8% of honey bees in the USA disappeared or died since last year. The picture is much the same in the UK, though figures aren’t all in yet and is a bad year in a continuing trend. The main, but not only cause, is ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’ where whole colonies just die or disappear: what triggers it isn’t known, but taking into account chemical residues in wax, hives and honey, pesticides are a likely contributor. And if you think that farmers all stick to the usage guidelines for these poisons, you are probably deluding yourself.
If flowers aren’t pollinated, then most fruit (which includes vegetables such as beans) can’t grow. The immediate effect on our food would be very sad, the long-term implications are frightening.
Millions of gallons of crude oil are being spewed out into the sea in the Gulf of Mexico from where they were stashed away by nature millions of years ago. There is no easy fix and vast areas of coast and sea bed in the Gulf and beyond are imminent danger of destruction. The cost in fish, birds and other sea creatures will be huge, even if they can stop the flow. If it goes on for weeks, as it may well, the size of the disaster will be enormous and terribly tragic.
This sort of news appears somewhere every day of course, and the scientists warn us that we are on a cliff edge. So what is actually important to each of us today?
Unless there is a World-wide revolution and What Is Important becomes OUR ENVIRONMENT, it is hard to be optimistic.
Gaia and The Greens
August 26, 2009 by Doug Kennedy
James Lovelock, the scientist responsible for the Gaia theory, today (Wednesday, August 26) describes environmentalists who campaign on climate change but ignore population growth as irrational, ignorant or “hiding from the truth”.
I rather subscribe to both the Gaia theory and to the idea that humanity will have to control it’s population at some point. The Gaia theory is that the Earth will tend to keep our atmosphere and biosphere constant within narrow limits until a certain point when, if the pressures on it continue, it will change rapidly to a new status which could involve dramatically different conditions across the globe. This would be cataclysmic for today’s life forms and only the most hardy would survive to rebuild.
The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is a pressure on the global system that could push it towards a ‘Gaia shift’, and it’s increase since the industrial revolution has been alarming and is still gathering pace. If you compare it to a chart of population growth, the two are very similar.
The effects of the increase in CO2 include storing more of the sun’s heat in the atmosphere, thus ‘Global Warming’, but we are also seeing an increase in the acidity of our oceans, which means that it is more difficult for organisms to use CO2 to make their shells, and can result in shell materials being dissolved. To put this in context, calcium carbonate shells and reefs built by tiny marine organisms account for all the chalk and limestone on the planet, and there is a great deal more spread through the oceans as living or recently dead organisms. If this material dissolves, it realeases yet more CO2 into the atmosphere and prevents more shells being made. If you think this through, it is a vicious cycle and not the only one we face.
The point is, the more CO2 we release by buring fossil fuels, the more is released from other sources around the planet. And even if humans were not responsible for global warming, even if it were true that we are going through a very rapid ‘natural’ cycle as some believe, then surely it would make sense for us to reduce our global warming gas output so as not to exacerbate a dangerous trend?
We cannot escape the logic that the more people there are, the more CO2 we will release by burning fossil fuels, an effect that will be magnified many fold as they all aspire to be richer and consume more.
There is much that we can, and must, do to mitigate our environmental impact, and this starts with each of us as individuals. According to Jonathan Porritt, the UK Government is very comitted to action on climate change and to helping individuals and communities play their parts whilst the government handles things at a national and international level: let’s hope so!
Internationally, the Copenhagen conference in December will be key in moving things forward; in fact in instigating a step change in the way governments behave.
We must make a start on working out how to control population growth, which does not mean that we put on hold reducing our energy use and environmental footprint: in fact that has to be where we start because it will take effect much more quickly than any population measures.
This all comes back to my “Death to The Environmentalist” blog: we can no longer be ‘greens’ and the rest but must pull together to stabilise the situation now as far as we can. People who believe that there is a problem need to work in concert, bringing their different expertises and energies to bear on its many facets, including global warming, biodiversity, habitat protection, equalisation of resources and population control.
Dr Lovelock is in good companyas Sir David Attenborough, Jane Goodall and Jonathon Porritt have all said that we must address the population issue.
To take a one-sided view and work as if the other stake-holders didn’t have a case is a recipe for disaster in the form of a Gaia shift.
One Environment, One Humanity, One Survival (continued)
August 24, 2009 by Doug Kennedy
Now Athens is burning. It was California earlier in the year, Australia, Spain, CA and Greece last year and Indonesia the year before. These are the forests that give us life. My condolences to those who now have only ashes to look where there were trees, birds and wildflowers before.
The bad news keeps rolling in, be it forests, glaciers, weather, fish, endangered species, or our ability to take action. There are still many global warming deniers, such as Mr Roger Helmer MEP, but I say to them that even if you discount our CO2 emissions as a serious cause of environmnetal degredation, you cannot deny that many species are under threat as a result of human activity, that forests, fish and other natural resources are being plundered or destroyed and that we are bequeathing a legacy of toxic waste and empty oil wells to our children.
Are we worried? Well, it depends. I believe that most people in the UK are, but some typical attitudes include:
A. It’s all part of natural cycles and as individuals there’s no point in changing our behaviour. Anyway, business as usual is too much fun and recycling is a waste of time. And as for those low energy light bulbs, well, just see what the Daily Mail says about them!
B. Well, there may be something in it, but I’m sure the government and/or technology will sort it out. Business as usual. Anyway, at our hotel we’re saving the planet by putting notices in bathrooms to re-use your towels.
C. There are too many people on the planet and there’s not much we can do about it. No point in me acting as anything I do will be countered dozens of times by the Indians and Chinese.
D. I’m really worried as we’re definitely damaging the environment. We really shoudl do something about it, but I’ve got a meeting in Edinburgh today and Brighton tomorrow, and it’s just too busy right now. On hols in a couple of weeks in Phuket where I’m really goin to chill. Could do something on my return. Anyway, we’re recycling our stuff now and I’ve got some of those new bulbs to put in.
There are many people who believe that we have a real problem; many regard themselves as environmentalists and many work for NGOs and/or spend much of their spare time doing voluntary work. There are also environmentalists who only focus on their own behaviour, lifestyle and footprint and others who work hard to change others’ behaviours. But their efforts are very unfocused – each NGO has it’s own priorities for action and needs to maintain it’s unique profile and message: as with any corporation, others in the same field are competition. Thus the efforts of the thousands of activists around the country are diffused and often conflicting.
There are many in government who believe we have a real problem, and Ed Milliband (Department for Environment and Climate Change) is one of those. He has produced and interesting white paper which is worth looking at (The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan available to read at www.DECC.gov) but whilst the same Government is subsidising the coal industry at far higher rates than the renewable energy industry, and insisting that we need new coal fired power stations (albeit on the proviso that ‘Carbon Capture and Storage’, a technology that doesn’t actually exist yet, is incorporated), he has a fight on his hands to get it implemented.
Much depends upon the Copenhagen summit in December when heads of government are meeting to work out our next steps in combating climate change.
So, if we are worried, (which I believe we should be), what can we do? Based upon the still valid premise, ‘Think Globally, Act Locally:
1. Tell your MP that you are worried about global warming and ask what he/she is doing about the environment. Can they lobby for action and leadership at national level and for a real result at copenhagen
2. Tell your local politicians that you are worried about the environment, and for action on reducing energy wastage in housing, better planning rules relating to renewable energy sources (solar panels etc), local sources of food such as markets.
3. Act on your own environmental footprint – carbon emissions and domestic energy (see Energy Savings Trust and Zapcarbon.com), sources of food, amount of waste, use and abuse of local countryside.
4. The Big One – what is the impact of a human population that is growing exponentially? Do we want to live in World with half-again as many people as today? What is your, and your family’s part in that?
Above all, let us us act together for a better World for us and our children – there is no longer time or value in separating into environmentalists and normal people – we need to harness all of our expertise and energy to the tasks.