What Are We Doing to Help it Recover?
This poem by American poet John Malinka reminded me just how important Nature and its wildness is to me. And not just to me, as we all need it in our fight to make our lifestyles more sustainable.
Of course we also need untamed Nature for our souls. The chance to walk in a forest, by a river or on a deserted mountain top refreshes us, reminds us who we are and what our purpose is in life.
Why we need Nature
- We are part of the physical world and yet for economic benefit we have learned to plunder and destroy it. However, gradually we are beginning to realise that being separate from Nature makes our spirits sick. Being in Nature contributes to our well-being and our ability to flourish.
- It provides us with clean air to breathe, fresh water, food, soil to grow food, and medicines.
- It has the ability to regulate our climate. Natural systems on both land and sea help to absorb our carbon emissions.
Why does Nature need our help?
Professor Tom Oliver says “Despite awareness of environmental challenges growing over the past century, humanity’s responses have been insufficient to protect Nature.”
Our desecration of the natural world has resulted in us facing the ever-increasing climate chaos that we have today. Nature desperately needs our help to recover its ability to provide what we need. We know that given a chance the environment can recover. It just needs a bit of help from us, or at the very least to be left in peace.
Saving our Bees is an example of how we need to Help Nature
The good news is that we are now waking up to this fact. Slowly the wheels of change are beginning to turn, and we are realizing that Nature is vital to us. It is clear though that we need to re-establish and protect it for the sake of future generations. I see there are some marvellous projects to restore Nature on a worldwide basis.
How can we restore Nature?
The UN Conference on Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted in 2022. Its vision for 2050 is a world living in harmony with Nature where “by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services (benefits provided by Nature such as oxygen to breathe), sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.”
To achieve this, they believe that by 2030 we must: “take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss to put Nature on a path to recovery for the benefit of people and planet by conserving and sustainably using biodiversity.“
What do we mean by Biodiversity?
Really it is all the different kinds of life we find on Earth: plants, animals, insects, fungi and so on. Each of those is individually important to the health of the planet but often it is the way these lifeforms act together that forms their strength and contribution.
The Conference uses some very grand words but are we doing anything about them? The answer I believe is too slowly, but it is happening.
Comments in a report from the Nature Conservancy Council state that: “The three main ways to limit the carbon in our atmosphere are by curbing the forces that are emitting too much of it in the first place, being more efficient with what we use, and actively capturing and storing some of what is already out there.”
Nature already provides us with a way of capturing carbon emissions. According to the report “We just need to actively give it the best chance to do that.”
What actions can we take?
According to this report there are a number of ways: Conservation, Rewilding and Regenerative Agriculture in land management.
Our oceans and rivers need protection, conservation and restoration. As their resources sustain the livelihoods of over 3 billion people worldwide we need to find a way to deal with some of the most deep-rooted problems in our societies.
These are all massive tasks, but nevertheless there are some interesting and encouraging projects being carried out.
Hope for the Future
Conservation (protection)
A recent Guardian article discussed how Joe Biden is starting to make climate targets a reality in America. Three years after his inauguration new protections have spurred meaningful progress towards meeting the targets by 2030. (These targets are: protect 30% of Earth’s lands, oceans, coastal areas, inland waters; reduce by $500 billion annual harmful government subsidies; cut food waste in half.)
Those efforts stretch from glacial lakes in Minnesota to tribal lands in arid New Mexico to huge expanses of the frigid Arctic and to archaeological sites on the doorstep of El Paso, Texas.
Rewilding
Rewilding offers hope according to this article by Rewilding Britain. Remember that rewilding is “the large-scale restoration of Nature until it can take care of itself.”
A fascinating project in Eastern Europe is the return of the bison. Bison are what is known as a keystone species, not only helping other species survive but keeping their grasslands open and healthy.
This article shows the success of rewilding a British farm and its effect on returning Nature to that farm.
A recent Guardian article talks about how rewilding is vital for the UK’s agricultural future. It is a lovely article and well worth reading. It certainly inspires me.
The Global Rewilding Alliance talks of its worldwide projects and how successful rewilding can be in allowing Nature to do its job. “These functional ecosystems capture vast amounts of carbon, provide fresh air and clean water, and stabilise extreme weather – they are vital to our prosperity, survival, and security.” They also talk of Rewilding Superpowers:
- Capturing carbon and mitigating climate change in an effective and cheap way
- Rebuilding natural resilience against floods, droughts, wildfires and alien species
- Restoring the web of life
- Reducing the risks of pandemics like Covid 19
- Creating jobs and economic opportunities
- Enhancing the natural provision of clean water, fresh air and thriving landscapes
Re-introducing Wolves
In 1995 gray wolves were re-introduced to Yellowstone National Park in America and the results for Nature have been spectacularly successful. It has allowed the successful return of many different species and has included for example the ability of young trees to establish themselves and start absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. It is a lovely story and well worth reading.
I have mentioned only a few projects but worldwide there are thousands ranging from regenerative agriculture projects (see Regenerative Agriculture in this blog) to replanting of trees, mangrove forests, seagrass, coral reefs, marine protection zones and so on.
One final thing I would mention for humanity is that we need to re-learn how to love our world and its wild places and treat them with the respect they deserve. Only then will we fully understand the need to restore Nature.
Please use this particular blog as a wake-up call. Spend some time in Nature and see what is happening to it.
Have a look at the fields and see the effect the pesticides have had on them. Be aware of the loss of our bees and insects and think what that is doing to our food production.
Walk down an avenue of trees, enjoy the cooler air and imagine what it is like in hotter, poorer countries with no trees and ask yourself “What can I do to change this?”
Gerard Manley Hopkins
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
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Books and Links
Regeneration, Ending the Climate Crisis in one Generation by Paul Hawken
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmer
For interest here is a link to the United Nations Biodiversity Conference that was held in Montreal in 2022: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/cop15-ends-landmark-biodiversity-agreement
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The above photographs are courtesy of Oleksandr Sushko, Domino Studio and Michael LaRosa on Unsplash.