For Christmas 2022, we didn’t have a Christmas tree. Christmas was dismal in those dark days of December. I have learned that northern winters need cheer to get though them. And a Christmas tree hits the spot. But it can be difficult to choose a tree that does not increase your carbon footprint.
Does one go for a real Christmas tree or an artificial tree. Which tree has the lowest carbon footprint? Which is the least wasteful? Is there an alternative?
I’ve been doing a little bit of research on this matter. I got the most helpful information from The Soil Association. I’ll share.
The Carbon Footprint of Artificial Trees
Artificial trees are mostly made in China. The manufacturers use plastic, polyvinal chloride (PVC), and metal. Then they are shipped across the world.
They use up a lot of resources and fuel. Therefore, a two-metre / six foot artificial tree has a carbon footprint of about 40kg, according to the Carbon Trust. This is ten times more than a real tree that gets burned after Christmas. So to justify the carbon footprint of an artificial tree, you need to re-use it for at least 10 years.
The Carbon Footprint of Real Trees
Conifers
Real trees are ordinarily locally produced (in the same country where they are consumed) so they are not transported across the world. Trees, especially from small businesses, are often grown organically, without pesticides, and can be purchased near your home. This means they are a natural resource with natural inputs. Then at a bigger scale, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified trees are managed responsibly with fewer pesticides.
Conifers take 10 to 12 years to grow six foot. While they grow, they capture carbon, filter the air and give wildlife a place to live. When the festive season is over, the all-important thing is to dispose of your tree so that it is shredded for making compost. If you do this, the carbon footprint of your tree will be negligible. You can get advice on responsible disposal of your Christmas tree from Gov.uk.
Bayleaf Trees
A bayleaf tree can be a festive centerpiece for the season. They thrive in a pot in the garden. And only need fleece protection when temperatures drop to -5° centigrade. Otherwise, they are hardy.
These days, there are some beautiful decorative bayleaf trees available here in the UK. And they have both aesthetic and culinary value all year around. So you will not need to throw your bayleaf tree away after Christmas. Thus it will go on absorbing carbon all year round and give you oxygen in exchange. As a result, it will reduce your overall carbon footprint.
I trust this information about Christmas trees is useful.
There are a number of reasons to grow food. These are mine:
It makes me feel good. While I am in the garden, all my attention is on what I am doing. It puts me fully in the present, which makes me happy. It is important to be happy.
It keeps me in touch with the foundations of life – the soil and nature, the sun, the rain and the seasons.
In a small way, I reduce my carbon footprint. Firstly, the plants and fruit trees in my garden convert carbon into oxygen. Secondly, by making compost with brown woody and leafy material, carbon is returned to the Earth. Thirdly, by putting food directly onto the table, I reduce my use of carbon emitting transport and farming methods, even if only a little.
As the custodian of my tiny piece of ground, it is fulfilling to nourish the soil and enable microorganisms, plants and other life to thrive. This is part of the notion of being a good ancestor. I am looking after something for the future and creating a gift for my children and grandchildren, through a way of living. I want to be part of a good future narrative.
How I came to grow food
Before I share the way I garden, I want to tell you how I came to grow food.
After World War II, and having lived through the Great Depression, my parents wanted a stable life. Once married, they put their hearts into creating a ‘dream’ farm on which to raise a family. And that meant producing almost all our food.
As children, for a snack, we would pick a carrot out of the ground, or an orange or a mango off a tree. Seasonally, we gathered and feasted on wild field mushrooms, and ate guinea fowl stew. And we slathered fresh homemade bread with our own butter, and drank warm unpasteurised milk at breakfast.
For me, the most important thing I inherited was a love for soil and growing food. This, and crucially a strong connection to the Earth and the forces of nature. That was my parent’s great gift to me.
A circular approach to gardening
When I first moved to England, I had no idea how to grow food in this climate. So I had to start at the beginning. Over the years, I have developed a circular gardening system. Like a circular economy, there is no waste. Almost all of what comes out of my garden goes back in. Some goes to the local garden recycling skip for municipal composting; mainly roots and seedy weedy plants. I use this circular principle to do less work. You could call it being lazy. But it is based on ‘no dig’ gardening.
Start with compost
I learnt about compost from my mother. Compost feeds the microorganisms in the soil. Microorganisms are the silent work force that makes nutrients in the soil available to plants. The most familiar one is the humble earthworm. Nourish these creatures and they will do the work of aerating and building fertile, well-structured soil in your garden.
I have five compost systems all going at once. Sounds like work! It’s not.
A kitchen waste converter bin. You can purchase these in garden shops. This is where all our kitchen waste and egg boxes go. This bin is perfect for breeding earthworms. I use the worms when I feed the soil (see below). I regularly turn the contents to keep the bin aerobic. If it gets anaerobic, and slimy, it emits methane. Not good.
2. Chop and drop. When I cut back some plants or throw out cut flowers from the house, I use my secateurs to chop up and drop the material straight into the garden.
3. Mini kitchen waste converter bins. In the middle of each raised vegie bed, I have a mini kitchen waste converter bin. It’s a bucket in the soil with the bottom cut off, large holes drilled into the sides for earthworms to pass through and a lid (pot plant base) on top. I put a handful of worms from my main bin at the bottom and set the bin away as a breeding ground by feeding the bin with egg boxes and kitchen waste. The earthworms and other organisms then get to work and carry nutrients into the raised bed.
4. A comfrey water butt next to comfrey plants (loved by bumble bees). Standing on some bricks, the water butt has large stones at the bottom and some gravel stones around those. Filled with water, I add and cut comfrey and nettles, throughout the summer. The first batch might take a few months to work its magic. But once its going, you draw liquid manure into watering cans from the tap, dilute it, and use it to feed the soil.
5. A wooden bin for garden waste and chicken manure (acquired from my neighbour’s chicken run). Here I put all the grass cuttings, leaves, shredded rose and fruit tree cuttings (I have a shredding machine), and torn up cardboard. I try to keep a balance between carbon rich brown matter and nitrogen rich green matter. I live near to some woodland, so now and again I grab a handful or two of soil from beneath the trees. This brings micorrhizal fungi into the mix, which is very good for developing soil structure and enabling nutrient uptake by plants.
The box is leaky so it lets in rain and it has a duvet I sewed out of some black garden plastic, filled with bubble wrap saved from parcel deliveries. This cover keeps the compost cosy in the winter. Once in a while I check it its warm and I turn the compost with a fork. This mixes up the elements and keeps the material aerated so that the process remains aerobic.
Feeding the soil in a weed controlling way
The weeds in my garden do get away sometimes, usually, when I am deeply involved in a design project! But I keep them at bay, for the most part, by feeding the soil.
Cut down to their roots any plants that are over. Leave the roots in the soil. This helps develop soil structure and provides nutrients to microorganisms. Chop up the old plants for composting. You can drop them if you like.
When the ground is clear, begin with a fork. Don’t use a spade, which cuts up earthworms and disturbs the soil structural work being done by your microorganism workforce. Stick the fork into the soil and gently rock it back and forth once or twice to aerate. Don’t over do it. And don’t turn the soil. It’s unnecessary.
3. Pull out weeds. Remove their flower heads with seeds and their defiant weed root systems (dandelions come to mind). Weed roots and seed heads can go to the municipal compost skip. Then chop and drop the stems and leaves back onto the forked soil.
4. When you have worked an area with the fork, use your fork to carefully lift out some earthworms from the kitchen waste converter bin. This will bring mucky stuff with the worms, full of good bacteria and other soil crawlies. Spread all of this over the soil.
5. Then pour a generous layer of ordinary compost over the scattered worms. Don’t dig it in. Let your micro workers do the work. You can see these micro-organisms in my Living Soil notebook.
6. Half fill a watering can with green comfrey manure, if you have it. It will be a bit smelly, but the pong will soon disappear. Dilute the liquid with water, and sprinkle over the compost.
7. Now put on a layer of cardboard. If you tear it up into smallish pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle, over the compost, it is easier to plant later. The cardboard will help keep down the weeds and the micro-organisms will work it into the soil over time. In cold places, it will help to keep the soil warm.
8. Over all the layers, put on a good covering of straw. I buy this in, using a product called ‘Strulch’ (straw mulch). It’s a bit pricy, but a bag goes a long way. You can also use decorative bark or surplus shredded material from the garden. When done, you can water the area to settle all the layers down.
Autumn is a great time to feed the soil in a cold temperate climate. All the layers help to keep the soil warm through the winter and it means that in the spring, the soil is ready for planting. The weeds don’t overtake the garden so you have less work in the warmer months. Any bulbs, like onion or garlic sets, will grow through, pushing aside the pieces of soggy cardboard. In warm climates, it might be a good idea to do this work before the dry season to help the soil hold onto moisture.
If you peep under the cardboard from time to time, you might see earthworms and other creepy crawlies busy at work – millipedes, spiders, woodlouse, beetles earwigs. Remember, other good garden friends aren’t visible (bacteria, protozoa and nematodes) but they are there. You can pick out any slugs for chickens, even though they are part of the micro biome. One of my neighbours has a pond with frogs, and another has chickens. So the slugs and snails provide delicious morsels for these chaps and for the song thrush and black birds.
I want to tell you about my old solid oak door through the thoughts that I had while restoring it for over a fortnight.
Our terrace house was built circa 1678 but I don’t know when the door was crafted. The house is made of stone, probably carted down from Hadrian’s Wall, four miles north. The oak door is one of the last handmade artisan doors left in the street. It has character and it is hung on the wrong side.
from our terrace neighbour’s lintel
Below are some of the things I thought about.
A seedling survived
The acorn that germinated and became my oak was spared a gall wasp that would have made it infertile and disfigured. Then, the young seedling made it through nibbling deer and disease. As a young tree, it managed to grow up (presumably protected by its mother*) into a tree large enough to make a door.
Oxygen
Recently I read that a single tree supplies oxygen to four people. 1:4. So my oak tree gave breath to four people at a time, over a span of maybe 15 or more generations, if it lived for 600 years.
Age and history
There are many annual rings on my door. Oaks can live up to 1000 years. So my door’s tree may have witnessed the feudal system, knights in shining armour (Langley Castle is just a mile up the road), maybe the English civil war, and more events thereafter, before it became a door.
Ink and the written word
From Roman times until the 19th century, black ink was made from tannin rich oak galls*. Just think of the rich written legacy that resulted. Holy scripts, Shakespeare, and the early printers relied on those galls.
oak galls [flickr.com: photo by Trevor King]
Wildlife
Woodland design from my card and notebook collections
Oaks can support more than 200 insect species, supplying vital food to insect-eating birds and animals.
The gall wasp
We can thank the humble gall wasp for the ink noted above. When a gall wasp lays an egg, the oak makes defensive cells around it, forming a gall deformity. Inside the the gall, the larva develops and pupates into a new gall wasp. In the Autumn people harvested galls to turn into ink. (I have added a link to this process at the end of this blog.)
Animals
I imagine my oak tree began its life well before modern times. This being so, it may have been home to red squirrels (now pushed out by American grey squirrels) and the once plentiful pine martens. Some wild boar might have rootled for morsels below. Perhaps a wolf passed by or a lynx hid there. And who knows how many nests were built to renew bird populations. My oak may have supplied flowers to hungry dormice in the spring.
Shade plants
Left: wood anemone; Right: wild garlic
The wood wide web
Living Soil
My oak would have belonged to a wood wide web. This is made up of a vast network of mycorrhizal fungi (represented by the white lines in the design above). Within this network complex relationships are built between trees, plants, micro-organisms and the soil below.
From left to right: chanterelles, honey mushrooms, fly agaric
The wood wide web, probably, popped up chanterelles, honey mushrooms and red fly agaric mushrooms in the autumn. The people nearby in all likelihood gathered the honey mushrooms and chanterelles and cooked them in butter for a tasty autumn treat.
Woodsmen (they probably were men)
A woodsman would have picked my oak and used an axe to cut it down. The oldest, biggest oaks were used for churches and cathedrals, so my oak was probably smaller and easier to fell. And then there are the skills to season the wood and make the door. It’s taken me two weeks to restore my front door, and I’ve felt that I haven’t the time to spare. (I really need to work on my new design collection.) So who ever made my door was patient and meticulously accurate with angles, numbers and safety.
The Earth
All the above would not have been possibly without the unique place the Earth occupies in the Universe. Being a tilted planet, we circulate the sun once a year at an angle that gives us seasons, solstices and equinoxes. Over four and half billion years of light, combined with water and gases, our ball of rock got cellular and then multi cellular life. With plants and trees, we got oxygen and energy rich plant food for hungry air breathers: birds, animals, you and me.
Environment mandala
As I sanded and cleaned, treated and oiled I generated all these thoughts. I do this quite often with objects. It can be a tap, or a dress or a cup of tea. It makes me feel rich and grounded, with a sense of belonging, wherever I find myself.
* A mother tree is a real thing. Mother trees send signals to their young through chemical reactions and via the wood wide web of mycorrhizal fungi.
This story starts in the southern African bush veld, and ends with useful information about using loofah sponges.
An aged sketch of savannah woodland bush veld near our house, which I did in my teens
When I was young in the early 1970s we had hundreds of loofah sponges in our house … by mistake. What the heck? Plastic sponges were the next best thing, at the time! Why hundreds?
Box of unbleached loofahs, just like the our loofahs years ago [Creative Commons Attribution: Mokkie; photoshopped by me]
Our Loofah Story
My mother had a market garden, and we took vegetables to town each week. The earnings paid for the petrol to travel the 60 miles and back; and for a few groceries. We mostly lived off the gifts of the farm, so we didn’t need much.
This was not ‘fun’ shopping. Wholesalers and farm supply outlets were our main ports of call. And they were mainly in industrial areas. In the tropical heat, these parts of town smelt of melting tar, diesel, bus fumes, dust and old tyres.
Our first stop, however, was the big vegetable market. In the early morning cool, the large warehouse was filled with the aromas of dewy vegetables, picked at dawn. For me that was the best part of the day. And the Farmer’s Co-op offered midday relief too. We would sit for a pot of tea and buttered anchovy toast, and then buy seconds cheese to take home.
So what about the loofahs?
Among the wide variety of seasonal veg we took to the market were cucurbits – things like cucumbers, squash and marrows (courgettes hadn’t happened yet). My mother saved seed, and bought new varieties from time to time. One year, we thought we had a bumper crop of a very extraordinary cucumber. But when we tasted one, it was horribly fibrous and inedible.
A beautiful, cucumber-like loofah [online image: Flickr, Farkomer, May 2009]
Undefeated, and from our home in the bush veld (no internet in those days), my mother worked out that we had grown loofahs from a seed packet labeled ‘as ‘cucumber’. She then figured out how to process our large crop of loofahs into sponges. The result: we had hundreds of loofah sponges from then on in. We sold some, gave loads away as gifts, and never bought a sponge again. A happy green outcome. No great loss.
To process: let the loofah dry out, pull off the skin and shake out the seeds. [image from BunderbergNow]
Blue Planet 2 and the Global Plastic Shock
After watching David Attenborough’s final episode of Blue Planet 2, in early 2018, I set about reducing the plastic in our home, here in Northumberland. I googled for loofah sponges and found only one item. I ordered a pack of six sponges. They were shipped from China and took ages to come. And when I opened the parcel, each sponge was individually packaged in plastic within a plastic packet! I’ve used loofahs in the kitchen and bathroom ever since, and they now come in brown recycled compostable card boxes.
Good Things are Happening
Loofah sponges and other natural biodegradable, compostable alternatives are now freely available online and in ‘green’ shops.
Bamboo toothbrushes are appearing in supermarkets as an alternative to plastic toothbrushes
Solid shampoos and conditioners are replacing plastic bottles of liquid agents, not only reducing plastic but also transport volume
Shower gel users are turning back to solid soap
Long lasting galvanized iron buckets and watering cans are reappearing in shops, instead of plastic ones
Wooden and wire storage containers are easy to source again, so we’re not forced to use plastic storage boxes anymore
Plastic straws and cutlery have been banned in many countries
Plastic packaging tape and plastic delivery bags are falling out of use
Plant based, compostable cellophane is now available is available for packaging stationery and artwork.
You can probably think of more. I’m sure there are caveats, and there is still tons of plastic in shops and in the oceans. But awareness is growing, and there is a great turning away from plastic products.
How to Use Loofah Sponges
If you decide to go the loofah route, here are some guidelines from an experienced user.
When your loofah sponge is new:
it will feel hard and scratchy
it will swell and soften beautifully when you wet it.
How your new loofah will swell and soften after a few minutes in water
Loofah sponges in the kitchen
Clean your sink and hob with a loofah, using bicarbonate of soda and a spray of vinegar.
Wash your cups and plates with a loofah sponge.
Loofah sponges in the bathroom
Clean your bath, sink and shower with a loofah, again using bicarb and vinegar.
Wash your body with a loofah or a loofah back scrubber (loofahs are now marketed online for exfoliating skin).
Keep your cleaning loofahs separate from body washing loofahs.
Personally I don’t use loofahs for my body. I did when I was young, of course.
Loofah Sponge Maintenance
Rinse and squeeze out the water from your loofah after use. Let it dry out between uses. (This is good practice for any cleaning cloths or sponges because moisture enables bacteria to grow.)
Every now and again, soak your loofah for 5 minutes in a bleach solution of 10 parts water to 1 part bleach, or
Boil your loofah in a pot for 10 minutes, or
Put it in the washing machine with a regular wash.
Saying Goodbye to your Loofah Sponge
A saggy loofah in my ‘back to nature’ kitchen tin, ready for the compost bin
After some time, your loofah sponge will get tired and worn, just like any other sponge. It will sag, look ragged or even manky. This is when it is time to say goodbye. Thank your loofah for its service and green living credentials. Then put it in your compost. If you don’t do composting, bury it in the ground somewhere. It will decompose, returning to the Earth from whence it came.
Please feel free to comment on this blog. I love hearing your views.
a dung beetle fashioned out of scrap metal by a talented Zimbabwean crafter
As a child of the savannah woodland, southern Africa, seeing a dung beetle rolling a well-formed ball of dung was an exciting experience, but not uncommon. On a farm, with a flock of blackhead Persian sheep, cattle, and a variety of wild animals, there was plenty of dung. Now, these encounters form a delightful corner in my mind. So much so, I was tempted to call my creative business Dung Beetle Design!
If you look closely at my Wilding environment print, for example, you will find lots of dung beetles. Go there. Find them just behind each animal where dung falls. Click on the magnifying glass at the top right. And count them if you like. They are there, providing vital eco services and acting as valuable eco indicators.
Dung beetles 101
Dung beetles occur on every continent, except Antartica. Where there is animal dung, there are dung beetles. And if the dung is no longer there, the dung beetles disappear.
Dung beetles are coprids, from the Greek word ‘kopria’ which means manure. They rely on residual nutrients in dung, including essential amino acids and fatty acids. They secure their future by laying eggs into nutrient rich dung nests.
Not all dung beetles roll balls! In fact, there are three broad types:
rollers (telecoprids): collect dung and roll it to an underground burrow
tunnellers (paracoprids): build underground chambers beneath dung and carry it down
dwellers (endocoprids): live within the dung itself.
Dung is a fleeting resource (animals move), so the beetles have to be quick, and fight for their portions. And, some dung beetles are dreadful thieves, – ‘kleptocoprids’!
Dung beetle eco services
If it weren’t for dung beetles we would probably be buried in animal poo and tormented by parasites and flies. They perform valuable services. They:
clean up animal excrement
reduce the breeding of animal parasites
reduce the breeding of flies
disperse seeds from fruit-eating animals, and provide nutrients for their healthy germination
cycle organic matter into the soil
aerate the soil, which increases porosity and water percolation
create good conditions for soil microorganisms to thrive – earthworms, centipedes, nematodes, soil mites, soil bacteria, earwigs, slugs and springtails. (See Living Soil A5 Notebook in my shop )
All told, dung beetles play a critically important role in the wellbeing of wild places. They help enhance soils and domestic animal health because they reduce the need for fertilizer and chemical controls of flies and animal parasites. No wonder the Egyptians worshipped the scarab! Ancient farmers knew their value.
Dung beetle eco indicators
Today, environment scientists study dung beetle populations to monitor animal population diversity especially in forests and grasslands. As we know, human activity and modern farming practices have had a huge impact on nature and there are fewer and fewer truly wild places left.
To survive, dung beetles depend on mammal populations. Most dung beetles are species specific, meaning they use the dung of a particular type of animal. This means that if an animal species is lost, the dung beetles, specific to that species, go too. In places, where wild animals and traditional small-scale farming have vanished, seeing a dung beetle is now rare. So, a decrease in dung beetle species can tell us that there is a loss of animal diversity.
Threats to dung beetles
loss of animal diversity
use of animal anti-parasitic pharmaceuticals (endectocides)
use of pesticides
use of animal antibiotics (dung beetles don’t do well on excreted anti-biotics)
altered diets of farm animals – grain instead of grass, upsetting dung beetle dietary preferences
altered breeds of domestic animals e.g., introducing European cattle to Africa, upsetting the dung beetles that prefer African cows
monoculture and agribusiness.
My hopes
My main hope is that you have enjoyed finding out about dung beetles. They have a special place in my heart. But more than that, I hope you can see how important these humble and fascinating beetles are to life on Earth. If you haven’t thought about them much before, I hope this piece triggers questions about how we farm, care for soil, and consume the Earth’s gifts. It’s not always easy to see, from our modern houses in built up places, just how our way of life impacts on nature. And my aim is to raise my own awareness and share it with others through my art, design and writing.
A Reader’s comment
Lovely Ann! I do love a dung beetle myself. Its quite astonishing to think of these silent services rendered to the earth and that they keep us going. God bless the dung beetles of the earth.
Bridget Krone, author of Small Mercies, South Africa
Like most people, I seldom keep a New Year’s Resolution. Last year, I stopped making New Year Resolutions. Instead, I planned my year, and got a much better result. I succeeded in getting about 70% of my intentions done. How cool is that!
I thought I’d share my process:
Harness your Mind
Ask yourself Four Questions
Create an Overview Plan of your Year
Harness your Mind
Get all the thoughts that are cruising around your brain onto a single page. To do this, you can make a spider diagram, or a list, or just scatter words over the page. Work in a way that suits you. As you can see I am a spider diagram person.
Then sort all these thoughts into High (H) and Low (L) with H and L labels. Both are important, but the H things will require time, energy and focus. This means they will need to be plotted on a year planner (see below: Create an Overview Plan of your Year).
On another page, make a T diagram (see example in photo below) and list the H things in one column and the L things in the other column.
By now, you can see your thoughts in a more organised way. You can see which things are going to need a lot of time and energy. You have something tangible to work with. It’s at this point that you begin working out time frames for those things that will need your focus and in depth attention. You will plot this information on your Overview Year Planner.
To dig deeper, you might like to do the next activity. Or not. You choose.
Ask yourself Four Questions
Here, you can use some of the information from the previous exercise. But the questions here, also draw out the emotional stuff. Here are the four questions.
Keep your answers. At the end of the year you can use the lists to evaluate your achievements. Here are my January 2022 answers to the questions. I ticked off the things I accomplished in January 2023. It felt very satisfying.
When it came to the end of 2022, I still hadn’t stopped my addiction to reading newspapers, especially The Guardian. But I had gained clarity of purpose, reduced overwhelm and anxiety, played, made healthy lunches and stopped leaking money. And the fact that I achieved quite a few things that I’d set out to accomplish (not all, being a human after all) felt so, so good.
Having drawn out all the above information, I selected some of the big things, the things that needed time, energy and focus and set them out on an Overview Plan of the Year.
Create an Overview Plan of your Year
By using an overview year planner, you can start putting a time frame around some of the bigger H things you want to do. So for example, if you want to make a pond for wild life in your garden, you can figure out when might be the best time to do that.
Plotting on a overview year planner allows you to put a big project aside until later. You can concentrate on present projects or tasks (e.g. UK Tax Returns, due 31 January), knowing that large projects are safely marked and planned for. They are on a piece of paper, all in one place for easy reference. This reduces overwhelm caused by thinking about everything at once.
Overall, I have found that by doing the exercises outlined above, I get a clear view of the year. I feel more in control. The different parts of my life are catered for and my plans beckon my energy and focus. And having it all on paper, makes me feel more secure, as I have something to refer to during the year. It makes it easier to:
remember and stay the course
not hop about
see your achievements at the end of the year (pat yourself on the back!) and
recognise the things you were unrealistic about for better planning next time.
Good Luck!
Let me know what you think. You can email me at [email protected] or write a comment.
Packaging notebooks in bio-based cellos while listening to an audio book and spying on birds with a monocular
Wild Eco Design is a values-based creative endeavour so packaging is fundamental.
My aim for Wild Eco Design is to creatively use my skills to make things better for Planet A. I read a lot (books, online, newspapers etc.) about the natural environment and how humanity impacts upon plant and animal life. And I observe nature outdoors, grow food organically, and go for walks. The more I read, the more I see, and the more I change. I then turn this knowledge and awareness into design and writing. Through my artwork and practice, I fall more and more in love with the Earth, feel its pain and determine to turn the world around, even if only by a small amount.
So here’s the scoop with Wild Eco Design packaging.
The materials used in Wild Eco Design are central to its purpose.
I continually search for ways to participate in and learn about the zero waste ‘circular’ economy.
I spend a lot of time researching suppliers that make products and packaging out of recycled materials that are recyclable, compostable or reusable.
No plastic is used – paper packaging tape, string, recycled paper, recycled paper stickers, bio-based cellos (transparent protective sleeves for paper products).
The materials for creating and packaging are never a done deal. It is a continuous process.
Helpfully, I have joined a forum on the ‘circular economy’ for creatives, formed recently by Katie Treggiden, which has made me feel less alone.
I am aware of green washing and ‘fads’, yet I believe in making a start, even an imperfect one. If more people join up their thinking and practice, we can create a network of change.
Using a habit tracker, is an easy method to see how well you are practicing a new habit or sticking to a routine. It is a log of progress.
Why use a habit tracker?
It is a simple, visual way that makes you act. You can see what you need to do, so you do it.
It motivates you to move forward. Each win makes you want to carry on. On a bad day, you can see how well you have actually been doing, so you start again.
It’s satisfying. It feels good to tick boxes.
My experience
Routine
I am a scattered person. I find it difficult to make one day the same as another. Keeping a routine has been a life-long struggle. So, I’ve set up a ‘routine’ habit tracker that is resolving this problem.
Here I am using a whole tracker for one month
If you can’t read the habits (I like using pencils), these are some of the items I have put in my routine:
strength exercises
asthma preventer 1
fill water bottle (for desk)
brisk walk outdoors (lunch time)
asthma preventer 2
read book in bed (no scrolling)
Weight loss
Pleasingly, I have lost weight by following a wonderful weight loss podcast by Katrina Ubell Md. Her target audience is ‘busy physicians’, and I’m not a physician. But her guidelines work for all bodies, and she is lovely. She focuses on behaviour, thoughts and feelings, rather than calories and recipes. So by keeping to the basic things that she says (no sugar, no flour, no snacks between meals, and lots of her encouragement) the weight falls off.
Here I am using one tracker for several months
Finally
I hope you have found this post useful. Please share your thoughts in the comments below. I love hearing from those who read my blogs. Helpful? Too long? Easy to read? Hard to read? Boring? Interesting?
In my newsletters I share what I am learning about nature and our human impact. Occasionally, I suggest ideas for trying to live more sustainably (imperfectly as we go, because it is hard). I will alert you to inspiring artists, farmers, and food growers, doing amazing things that offer a hopeful approach to the challenges we face.
You can learn more by following the links and by downloading the reading list I have put up in the Free Resources part of this website.
3. Re-wilding
As I said in 1. The Great Un-wild, my first experience of Britain, was grave disappointment. Once the excitement of seeing real castles and going to the theatre in London had worn off, I began to feel uncomfortable about the natural environment. I have set about learning why I felt this way, 2. Un-wilding.
3. Re-wilding, is about the protection, restoration and re-wilding that is happening in Britain.
Good Science and communication
Our eyes are beginning to open. Scientists, writers, film makers and more are writing and making documentaries about threatened species, species extinctions, land degradation and climate change so that ordinary people can understand what has happened. More people are becoming aware.
I can now distinguish between a wood that is being managed to support wildlife and one that is not. I tell the difference between a field full of interesting grasses and flowers and one where biodiversity has been lost. I can see the drains and ditches in moorland, dug to extend sheep farming. My eye is trained to spot burning of heather by the grouse shooting fraternit. I now know that this damages the peat bogs on which it grows. I know that blanket peat bogs are invaluable as carbon sinks and for water retention. I understand better why. It is not just because of heavier rainfall and not enough sandbags on the night of each flood. It is because of practices that have harmed the water retention capability in the surrounding upland and moorland.
All these new lenses are thanks to the amazing books I have read, documentaries and YouTube videos I have watched, and my own lived experience in the North Pennines. And, having grown up on a farm, I also understand the tension between achieving yields and changing practices to protect the environment.
Changing Forest and Woodland Management
You might have noticed that in parks, like Richmond Park in London, or any other woodland park, dead trees and branches are being left on the ground. This is not because of staff cut backs with austerity. It is because there is growing recognition of their value in supporting soil organisms, beetles and other bugs and the wood wide web – the micorrhizal fungal network that forms mutually beneficial relationships between trees and with the soil.
Understanding of Peat Bogs as Carbon Sinks
Peat land, North Pennines [photo: Aron Mazel]
A carbon sink is an area of vegetation, like a forest, that absorbs the carbon dioxide that we produce when we burn fossil fuels. Scientists have shown that Britain’s peat bogs are one of our most efficient carbon sinks and they are advocating for their restoration and protection. Scientists also say that because peat bogs can hold a lot of water, restoring them can slow down rapid water runoff and flooding.
In 2021 the government passed legislation to stop the burning of heather on deep peat bogs (about 40% of Britains peat bogs ) for grouse shooting. Some feel that this is not enough, but it is a start. And more people are becoming aware of the damage being done to peat lands by burning heather, ditch digging and drainage and by sheep overgrazing.
Though overdue, the UK government has passed a bill to ban the sale of compost with peat in it to gardeners by 2024.
Meadow Restoration
Meadow restoration projects as well as support for ordinary people to grow their own garden meadows and sow patches of wild flowers are increasing. Some councils are sowing wild flower seed on verges, which not only helps bees and butterflies, it also reduces the cost of verge maintenance.
The Re-introduction of some Keystone Species
A keystone species is one that has a large effect on rebalancing the environment. They restore and revitalize ecosystems. The re-introduction of wolves into Yellowstone Park in America, for example, had a positive cascading effect on the parks’ entire ecosystem.
Keystone engineers
The re-introduction of beavers in a few places in Britain is helping to control flooding and restore biodiversity. Beavers coppice trees to build dams that re-establish wetlands and create the right conditions for many other species like reeds and rushes, waterfowl, dragonflies, birds, otters and fish. Their dams and the wetlands they create, then slow down and filter flood water, making it cleaner for users downstream.
Three bison females and one male will be introduced to the dense ancient West Blean wood in Kent in 2022 as an experiment in woodland management. The bison will clear trees naturally by chewing their bark. This will create a supply of dead wood, benefitting insects and micorrhizal fungi. The work of these animals will also let in light. Because bison roll around on cleared ground, they break the soil for the reception of seeds. Deciduous trees, scrubland (e.g. blackthorn, hawthorn, dog rose) and open glades of wild flowers will re-establish themselves in what has become a dark conifer-dominated forest. With the restoration of a variety of trees and scrub, and with wild flowers growing again, insects, birds and small animals will return to the forest.
Keystone predators
Some keystone species are predators, not engineers. For a long time now, Britain has not had any apex predators like wolves, bears and lynx to control the deer population. As beautiful as they are, deer are multiplying too fast. They have a choice of delicious crops to nibble and in woods they eat saplings and new growth from coppiced trees, so that mature mother trees are growing old without building an understory to take over when they die.
Scientific conversations with stakeholders, like farmers and foresters, about the re introduction of wolves or lynx to control the deer population are increasing. It is quite possible that lynx will be re-introduced under controlled conditions in the not too distant future.
Letting Go and Reinventing the Land
Some farmers have let go. They have stopped ploughing, stopped applying chemicals, reintroduced wild animals, and turned some or all of their land into woodland meadows or nature reserves. An example of this is on Knepp farm in Sussex. By creating facilities for visitors and selling wild game meat, they are able to make a better living than when they farmed using expensive machinery and chemical products.
Note
I have shared with you the things that I have been learning. You will be able to see that my design of Wilding has been informed by these things. I am committed to sharing what I learn. The inverse of that is that I want to learn what I don’t know. So if you want to share your own knowledge or correct something, please feel free to comment or contact me.
You can learn more by following the links and by downloading the reading list I have put up in the Community part of this website.
2. Un-wilding
“any species that takes a hit passes on the pain to all that like to eat it.”
Mike Burners Lee, There is No Planet B
When I first visited Britain, I felt as if there was something wrong (1. The Great Un-wild). This was because I grew up in quite a wild part of southern Africa. I didn’t understand why I sensed this gaping hole. In the last year I’ve begun to grasp why. This is what I have learned:
Chemicals
Since World War II, the use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides at an industrial level have increased agricultural yields exponentially. But this use of synthetic chemicals has compromised the wild flora, insects, birds, small animals and soil organisms at a level never known to nature, and a wide range of of plants and animals have taken a hit.
Clearing Land
With the power of big machinery, woodland, hedgerows, wetland, and scrubland have been cleared, drained, ploughed, and fertilized to increase outputs. This human capability has pushed wild habitats into isolated pockets or destroyed them.
Plant species have narrowed, and so have the animals, birds and insects that depend on them. Purple Emperor butterflies, for example, nearly disappeared because of the clearance of sallow, a species of willow that they require when they are caterpillars. Nightingale numbers have plummeted because scrubland, particularly blackthorn, was only spared in the remaining hedgerows, which are brutally machine flailed every year.
Loss of Meadows
With the clearing of land, use of chemicals and other modern farming practices, Britain has lost 97% of its species rich meadows in the last 100 years. Meadows were full of diverse grass and flower species that supported insects, like bees and butterflies, birds and small animals and maintain good soil structure.
Woodland Loss and Wrong Management
Apart from the loss of 40% of broadleaf woodlands (i.e. not conifers) in the last century, the way woods actually work co-operatively was not understood. Micorrhizal fungi, which live in the ground in tree root systems thriving on rotting organic matter, are key to creating a healthy collaborative wood wide web through which resources are exchanged. But this was not seen as a resource.
Until not long ago dead trees and branches were systematically removed to reduce the ‘threat’ of fungal diseases and commercially less valuable tree species were removed.
This form of management weakened the wood wide web and the habitat for ground organisms, insects, and birds; in effect the conditions for biodiversity and healthy trees. Insects, birds and small animals had less to eat and numbers fell.
The practice of coppicing (felling trees to create a stool that sends up shoots to cut for firewood and small timber projects) began to diminish 200 years ago when coal became the main fuel source. With less coppicing, less light has reached woodland floors and many plants and insects have been unable to thrive, which has had a negative consequence for all the birds and animals that like to eat them such as caterpillars, woodcock and hedgehogs.
Monoculture
Because of large machinery, it has become possible to cultivate large areas with the same crop. This large-scale farming goes hand in hand with the use of chemicals, with soil degradation and the loss of biodiversity. Commercial forests have been planted in this way too, resulting in dense, dark, lifeless green deserts.
Pasture Improvement
Through pasture ‘improvement’ for increasing sheep and cattle outputs, plants with high grazing value, supported by fertilizers, have choked out meadow diversity along with the mycorrhizal soil fungi, vital to soil and plant health.
Burning Grouse Moors
Shooting grouse on grouse moors in upland Britain is a business. To plump up the birds, the heather gets burned to send out new shoots for them to eat. But burning the heather on grouse moors degrades peat land, releases global warming gases, increases flood risks and reduces biodiversity.
Commercial Peat Digging
Peat, which takes thousands of years to build, is a vital carbon sink. It absorbs the carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels we burn. Yet in Britain people continue to harvest peat compost at an industrial scale, to sell to gardeners and whiskey makers.
If you go to YouTube and search for peat cutting, you will see very graphically how peat cutting works.
Summary of Habitat Losses
40% of broadleaf woodland 200,000 miles of hedgerows 95% of lowland bogs / wetland 97% flower rich meadows
Note
In this blog I have shared with you the things that I have been learning. You will be able to see that my design of Wilding has been informed by these things. I am not an expert at all; but I am committed to sharing what I learn. The inverse of that is that I want to learn what I don’t know. So if you want to share your own knowledge or correct something, please feel free to comment or contact me.
