Time to Grab Our Opportunities

“You have the biggest opportunity, in all of human history, to live an incredibly meaningful life. And the actions that you take, because of the accident of the time of your birth, are of an order of magnitude in importance compared to most people who have lived before, because you are going to affect the future of life on earth in 50, 500 and 500,000 years by what you do in the next couple of decades. So, no one is asking for an easy life, really, deep down, we’re asking for a meaningful life, and living now is an incredible gift.”

Tom Rivett-Carnac on answering the question: “Are we going to be okay?”

(Outrage and Optimism podcast, episode 211)

Sometimes someone says just the words you need to hear, and today, I needed the quote above. As I write, the Sustainable Travel Zone proposals for Cambridge, which I supported, are in grave peril. Despite substantial charging reductions in the latest version of the plan, a popular uprising challenged any level of congestion charge for the city, arguing that:

• it was an unfair tax on drivers that disadvantaged those on low incomes,

• it would cause economic and social hardship to families and carers,

• it would further challenge recruitment and retention at Addenbrookes,

• it could not possibly deliver on its promises for a better bus service,

• it was simply unnecessary. Congestion? What congestion?

Decent arguments can be and have been made both for and against all the points above. That’s fine, and I’m not going to rehash them here. And it’s fair and right that the Greater Cambridge Partnership (the GCP), which came up with the proposals, should be challenged (for one thing, why are the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority Business Board and both Universities partners, but not any citizens’, environmental, homeowners’, tenants’ or students’ groups?).  

But what really depressed me was this: Why didn’t the GCP, and the local authorities tasked with approving or denying the proposal, rise above the arguments to say, “We have to do this because … Climate Change”.  Instead, greenhouse gas emissions have been pretty much absent from the discussion. Just look at the language used– while the proposal was for a “sustainable” travel zone, the charge was a “congestion” charge, and included electric and low emissions vehicles. There were good reasons for this, but the messaging around it was stupefyingly unclear. It’s as if, having declared climate emergencies at the national and local level, our authorities have dusted off their hands and said, and now let’s never speak of it again.

I’m aware that there are many experts out there who advise the “don’t say climate” approach to those working on the transition. They say that using the word pollution is better, and focusing on the effects of pollution on health. Everyone can relate to these ideas, they say, unlike the more controversial and complicated ideas around climate change. Many, they argue, still see climate change as a problem of other people in other places, or of the distant future, or as a political football.[1]

I think the experts have a point, but I think it might be an outdated one. True, citing climate change as a reason for charges does give rise to the usual arguments, the ones our current government and much of the media are fond of making. Like the one that goes “The UK’s contribution to emissions is low compared to the US and China”.[2] Or “Even if everyone in Cambridge stopped driving, it wouldn’t stop climate change”. [3]

But what I think the pundits are missing is that public views have changed. The polls show over and over that most people ARE concerned about climate change and DO want fast action to avoid disaster. Add that to this year’s almost constant litany of natural disasters – the latest two, the floods in Libya and Hurricane Idalia, are estimated to have cost more than 2000 lives and between $12 billion and $20 billion in damage, respectively – and it is only the seriously misinformed or self-serving who are still in denial that the crisis is here, now, on us and we need to do something.

But most don’t know what to do. They make the arguments about the UK’s relatively low emissions because no one is telling them otherwise, or what their role might be in fighting climate change, or how the UK could be providing an example in the wider world.

So maybe it is time we talked about it.  In fact, maybe people are just waiting for their leaders to open the conversation.  What would it look like if it was our leaders – leaders at every level from schoolboards to charity boards, small businesses to corporations, local authorities to Westminster - who were saying, “We have the biggest opportunity in all of human history, and we have to make these decisions now to protect the future of life on earth?” What if we all started saying that? What if we said it when we made choices about what to buy, how to travel, what to eat, what to support and what to oppose…and who to vote for?

I’m hoping that, if the STZ proposals get thrown out, our leadership will rise to the opportunity. Not necessarily to push through a plan a majority doesn’t want. But to make the discussion about transport a discussion about the multiple crises hitting humanity and the planet, and about our responsibility – all of us – to rise to the challenge. Now,

*************************************************

[1] London Mayor Sadiq Khan has been following this playbook - defending his expansion of the London Ultra Low Emissions Zone by highlighting the thousands of people now breathing cleaner air because of it.

[2] True on the face of it, but ignores so many factors, like air travel, the fact that we have exported almost all manufacturing of the goods we use, mostly to China, and historical emissions.

[3] Also true. But it would help slow it down a bit.

Michelle Golder

September 12th 2023

LET IT GROW!

This spring and summer, residents from Harlton and Haslingfield have taken part in the LET IT
GROW! project, which aims to increase biodiversity in our villages by creating a patchwork of wild
spaces where wildlife can thrive.

The “Let it Growers” allowed part of their garden to grow wild, stopping or reducing mowing over
the spring and summer months. We watched and waited, and then exchanged news and photos via
our WhatsApp group and email.

The results were fascinating. Wildflowers of all shapes, sizes and colours started to appear in our
gardens. People identified the plants using wildflower apps and books and let us know what they
found. Some were familiar, others were not, and many were beautiful. They added up to an
incredible 108 species, from buttercups to bee orchids. Some of the plant names, like cranesbill or
hawksbeard, conjured up a past world where people lived closer to nature; others, like self-heal and
feverfew, were a reminder that plants were often used for healing. The full list of species can be
seen below.

Participants also noticed that their gardens had more visits from bees, butterflies, hoverflies and
other insects. This was a very important part of the project. Since the 1970s the UK has lost nearly
97% of its flower-rich meadows, crucial habitats and sources of food for pollinators like bees, and
South Cambridgeshire is particularly poor in biodiversity. A wild patch with a variety of pollen- and
nectar-rich flowers offers much more to pollinators than a closely-trimmed lawn.

Many things need to happen on a much bigger scale to combat the biodiversity crisis and many of
these are not within our power. But letting a patch of your garden grow is a small and satisfying step
which many of us are able to take, and with over 20 million gardens in the UK, this kind of small-
scale action can have a significant effect on biodiversity, if enough people take part.

Let It Grow! will be running again next spring and we hope that more people will take part so that
the wild patchwork in our villages gets bigger every year. Why not consider joining in? If you’d like to
find out more, or share your photos and ideas, please contact us at HnHeco@gmail.com.

by Anne Clark, Harlton

SPECIES FOUND IN PARTICIPANT’S GARDENS for LET IT GROW 2023

Bindweed

Birdseye Speedwell

Bitter dock

Black Knapweed

Brown Knapweed

Buttercup (Bulbous)

Buttercup (Meadow)

Campanula

Campion (white)

Caper Spurge

Carman mugwort

Chamomile

Coltsfoot

Common Groundsel

Common Ivy

Common Mullein

Common Nipplewort

Common Spotted Orchid

Common Thistle

Cornflower

Corn Speedwell

Corncockle

Common Storksbill

Cow Parsley

Cowslip

Coxfoot grass

Creeping cinquefoil

Creeping Jenny

Cranesbill (Cut-leaved ) (geranium

dissectum)

Cranesbill (small flowered)

Daisy

Dandelion

Dock

Dog violet

Feverfew

Field Pansy

Field Poppy

Foxglove

Garlic Mustard

Germander Speedwell

Goosegrass

Green Alkanet

Ground Elder

Ivy (ground)

Hawksbeard

Hedge Mustard

Hedge Woundwort

Herb Robert

Himalayan Blackberry

Honesty

Ivy Leaved Toadflax

Kidney Vetch

Knotted Hedge Parsley

Lady’s bedstraw

Lamium

Lesser Hop Clover / Lesser trefoil

Lesser Knapweed

Lords and Ladies

Love-in-a-mist

Musk Mallow

Mallow (Common)

Meadow grass

Michaelmas Daisy

Poppy (Field)

Poppy (Opium)

Poppy (Oriental)

Oxeye daisy

Phacelia

Primrose

Purple Dead Nettle

Purple Toadflax

Ragwort

Red bryony

Red campion

Red clover

Red fescue

Ribwort Plantain

Rosebay Willowherb

Rosy Garlic

Scabious

Scotch Thistle

Sea Mayweed

Self heal

Small Burnet

Small geranium (geranium pusillum)

Sorrell

Speedwell

Spiny Sowthistle

Spring vetch

Star of Bethlehem

Sticky Chickweed

Stinging Nettle

Violets

Valerian

Veronica Austriaca/ Broadleafed speedwell

White Clover

White Dead Nettle

Wild Oregano

Wood Avens

Yellow chamomile

Yarrow

Yellow Rattle

Anthony Browne’s Climate Change Optimism: Is it Justified? (May 2023)

My MP, Anthony Browne, recently posted a blog on Conservative Home with the title “Climate change. The more involved I have got, the more optimistic I have become...”

I’m very glad he decided to write directly about the crisis, and I agree with many of his points. For example, I agree that there are many reasons for optimism. Of course, how you feel about the climate and ecological crisis very much depends on the lens through which you are viewing it. If you are a mother in rural Somalia, where the worst drought in 40 years is leaving millions without food, you might well be feeling less than optimistic. Similarly, if you are a scientist studying the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is losing ice at a rate of 270 billion tons per year, or a native of Kiribati, a Pacific Island nation destined to be the first in the modern world to be swallowed by increasing storm surges, you could be excused for being a tiny bit un-cheery.

On the other hand, if you are an entrepreneur working on a transformative and potentially lucrative new technology, like the world’s most powerful wind turbine, which Mr Browne mentions in his post, you will be much more aware of the possibilities. As Mr Browne says, we do have the solutions to hand. Organisations like the Drawdown project have identified more than one hundred of the most effective strategies and technologies – including many which are nature based - which will, if implemented rapidly, lead to “Drawdown” of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere - and it is working globally to encourage their rollout. And though global emissions have continued to rise year on year despite the promises of the Paris Agreement, the progress made by large emitters like the UK and the EU is making a difference - there is reason to believe we are approaching the inflection point where emissions will begin to fall.

I also agree with Mr Browne that “pessimistic fatalism” and “counsel[s] of despair” are harmful to our children, and where they go mainstream they are terrorising many people into apathy. It’s also true that if you go on to any environmental forum online you will find those who prefer scaremongering to positive action and push conspiracies about how all the possible solutions will only be worse than the problem, because humans are basically sh**te.

However, I hope Mr Browne is also aware that once you get out of the toxic online environment, and engage with actual climate activists, you will find some of the most dynamic, solutions oriented, reasonable and well-informed people on the planet. The radicals, zealots and keyboard warriors do not, in my experience of ten years as an independent activist, represent the movement as a whole, which encompasses local eco groups, churches, professional societies and people from every age and social demographic. So it was very disappointing to read Mr Browne’s dismissal of Extinction Rebellion’s recent peaceful and joyful multi-organisation demonstration in London (see photos below) as the self-righteous posturing of a Doomsday cult. It is so misinformed that it leaves me unable to take Mr Browne’s views seriously. And that is a sad state of affairs.

So let’s put a few things into perspective.

Mr Browne’s cheery optimism comes despite the fact that he has consistently voted against new legislation aimed at tackling the UK’s emissions.

There’s evidence that taking steps to reduce emissions makes people happier, not more depressed. A low-carbon lifestyle, for example, is “more likely to involve routines—like balanced eating or hybrid working—that are known to maximize our individual happiness levels”. Research is also supporting the idea that “taking steps to protect the environment makes us feel good by fulfilling basic psychological needs, such as the sense that we are making a useful contribution to the world or acting on our own values and concerns.”

There’s a fine line between “pessimistic fatalism” and optimistic fatalism, which is a weakness Mr Browne may be prone to. In a letter to me about the EU Retained Laws Bill, Mr Browne made the odd assertion that leaving the EU would “enable us to legislate to discriminate in favour of bird and plant species that would otherwise be vulnerable to non-native species better suited to the changing climate.” In other words, our native birds are going to be out-competed by non-native species more suited to our altered climate, and his jolly solution is to legislate for…what exactly? Fighting natural adaptation to protect our native species? Instead of fighting climate change?

While there is every reason to be hopeful that we will eventually solve the problem of climate change, and do so while restoring our planet’s natural systems, we are a very long way from being out of the woods. In order to get out, we need everyone to play their part, and most importantly, we need the system change that will allow us to pivot from an extractive, linear (take stuff out of the ground, transport it across the globe, use it for a short time, dump it in landfill), inequitable (those who do the least actual work get the most benefit) and rapaciously destructive system, to a circular, restorative, distributive one. And this is not just an activist’s opinions. The Government commissioned Dasgupta Review on The Economics of Biodiversity and former Bank of England chief Mark Carney both came to similar conclusions last year, conclusions which were, sadly, pretty much ignored.

Our current trajectory, if not deflected, is, sorry Mr Browne, genuinely disastrous. We are currently on track to reach in the neighbourhood of 2.7 degrees of global warming. We’re now at just under 1.5. Every tenth of a degree has an effect, so, if you can face it, let your imagination go to what an additional 1.2 degrees is going to mean for extreme weather events, crop failures, mass migration, killer heat waves and sea level rise. Not to mention our native birds, bees and trees.

So, yes, we absolutely can still change our trajectory with immediate, strong action. But if Mr Browne and his party colleagues continue to reject the need for system change, which has to come from the top, while ignoring or ridiculing those who care the most, no amount of techno-boosterism will get the job done. We will not solve the global environmental problem. And the children he is so worried about traumatizing will be truly stuffed.

The Big One - And We Were There ( April 2023)

Tens of thousands of people from all around the UK came together in London over four days from April 21st to take part in "The Big One" and make our voices heard about the future we want - and at least ten of our members were there! With marches, workshops, public assemblies, music and dance and activities for children, the vibe was friendly and positive - but also determined. The demands of the demonstration include ending the huge fossil fuel subsidies our taxes are still paying for - £20bn more than renewables received since 2015 - (see this article for information), and instituting citizens' assemblies whose decisions will be binding on the government to decide the way forward for the climate transition.

Initiated and hosted by Extinction Rebellion, which has embraced a new strategy of non-disruptive action, the event involved over 200 co-operating organisations, including trade unions, community groups, businesses, NGO's, conservation organisations and more (see the full list here: https://extinctionrebellion.uk/the-big-one/).

The event received overwhelmingly positive press, with the Metropolitan Police issuing the following statement in praise of Extinction Rebellion's foresight in helping the London Marathon avoid conflict.

Earlier in the year, our group had held a general meeting in which a member of Extinction Rebellion told us about the event and XR's new policy. As a result of this, at least ten of our members attended the event over the four days, with some members attending several days. Below is a short blog of her experiences there by Haslingfield resident Katharine Woodall, and some of the photos taken by our members.

"I attended on Friday, the first day of the 4 day XR protest. I didn’t know quite what to expect but began the day in a rainy Parliament Square listening to XR co-founder Clare Farrell talk about the need for citizens assemblies on climate.

Friday was a day of protest at government departments, so we joined members of the Cambridge XR group and some of our eco group outside the Home Office.

Everywhere we went in Westminster during the day there was a very positive energy and sense of community with people coming together from across the country. There were so many colourful flags and beautiful homemade banners.

The highlights for me were hearing Caroline Lucas talk about this government’s depressing lack of urgency and ambition on climate issues. She was followed by Mike Berners-Lee, author of There is no Planet B, talking about the newly established MP Watch, which monitors and supports MPs’ understanding of climate science.

We headed home with the sounds of the samba bands still ringing and the hope that some people in government were listening".

What is My Job? Facing the New UN Report (March 2023)

The UN has just released yet another report on where we are at in fighting climate change – and the news isn’t great. In 2015, in Paris, most of the countries of the world agreed to a target of a maximum of 1.5 degrees of global warming. This was based on years of research, and the pleas of a number of island and low-lying countries which argued that anything above 1.5 degrees would be a death sentence for them.

Eight years later, we are at about 1.1 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels, and greenhouse gas emissions have gone up and up and up.

But hope is far from lost.

For one thing, progress is being made. New technologies, the number of people making an effort to modify their own emissions, and systemic thinking across every aspect of our civilization, from transport to farming, from buildings to the role nature plays in absorbing carbon, should eventually make a difference. With a massive effort, the UN argues, we could still stay below 1.5 degrees – if we stop pumping fossil fuels out of the ground and invest in carbon capture, anyway.

And if we don’t manage that target, well, every tenth of a degree of warming still matters. As Mark Lynas lays out in his book Six Degrees, every increment affects how much ice will melt, and thus how far sea levels will rise, and it also affects the total energy of the earth’s weather systems – more heat equals more energy, equals bigger storms, equals bigger and more frequent extreme events like heat waves and hurricanes.

So there would be an enormous difference between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees, for example. Just think about the impacts we’ve seen at just 1.1 degree of warming – record breaking fires, floods and drought across the entire world.

Even if we do blow past the 1.5-degree goal, then, we have to continue to hope and work toward not letting it go higher – and eventually even bringing it back down again. Though obviously that will probably be tragically too late for places like Kiribati, and likely for many of our current biospheres and the creatures which live there.

A Storm of Emotions

When people first start paying attention to what’s going on they often feel enormous anger that the world didn’t act fifty years ago, when scientists began sounding the warnings about carbon dioxide and its effects on global temperature. If we’d started acting then, we’d be laughing, and many lives would have been saved. But we didn’t.

Just as often, people feel terrible grief, over the natural world so under siege, and the innocent people suffering.

I’ve certainly felt, and still feel, both of those emotions, sometimes almost unbearably.

I’m not sure, though, that either emotion is worth indulging. Anger at people of the past, who had less reason to trust the science of the time than we do, seems pointless. Like many of us, they believed and hoped that solutions would be found which wouldn’t inconvenience them. Democratic leaders had other concerns that people cared about more – like education, poverty, and conflict.

And grief…well, that’s tougher for me. But one thing that helps me is to try to grasp Earth’s long history of life. I recently found out that an ancestor of dragonflies was around a million years before the dinosaurs. Five mass global extinctions later, there are still dragonflies enchanting the summer. The few tens of thousands of years in which Earth has hosted human beings almost seem insignificant against the vast span of millennia in which plants, fish, insects and reptiles have dominated. Over and over again, life has found a way. Not the life we are used to. Not the creatures we love now. But life.

A Transition Generation

So those thoughts keep me sane, but given I have them, why do I work so hard on my local eco group? I’m only a little, ordinary person and I don’t see myself as a world changer or eco-warrior. But I do believe that everyone alive now is part of a crucial and important transition generation. We will all see huge and rapid changes in the way we live – some caused by climate change, some caused by the attempts to prevent it. Some of us will choose to embrace it – to be part of the solution in any ways we can. Others are more resistant to change – but change will come for them as well, one way or another.

In the shorter term, i.e. the next few decades, it seems very likely that many of the changes we will see will be painful. We may lose much more of our native wildlife. Our choice of diet may become limited: plants like coffee and chocolate are at high risk from climate change, and there may be crop failures of staple foods like wheat and rice. And some of what we see as our freedoms and privileges may be curtailed.

For many, that seems like the hardest loss to take. Or maybe it’s just the most immediate one?

Here in Cambridge, and across the UK, for example, there has been outrage over proposed congestion charges, or sustainable travel zones, which some have mixed up with the idea of 15-minute towns to claim that “they” want to force everyone to stay in their own neighbourhoods. And in fact schemes in cities like Canterbury are proposing to charge car drivers every time they cross a sector boundary, that is, move from one neighbourhood to another. The idea is to make car driving so expensive that people are forced to use public (or active) transport, rather like France’s recent 3 year ban on short haul flights.

People don’t like being forced, and we can argue the merits of such a scheme. But let’s at least keep our facts straight - the idea of 15-minute towns is not always or even commonly connected to the idea of charging zones. The 15-minute towns idea involves planning communities to make it easy for people find everything they need within 15 minutes of their home. They can walk, or cycle, or take a bus, and it will be quick and easy to visit the doctor, pharmacy, school, or shops.

People who have experienced this kind of modern planning approach have found it improves their lives enormously. And of course, in cases where this is combined with road charging, they can still leave their neighbourhoods and go farther in a car…it just isn’t free anymore. Just as fossil fuel companies have not had to pay for the damage their product has caused, just as all forms of production have viewed the services which nature provides (water, air, plants, minerals, pollinators) as external to their business, and therefore outside of any need for consideration, we as individuals have taken our behaviour for granted. We pay (through our taxes) for our solid waste to be disposed of, but we have felt we have the right to emit greenhouse gases for free.

So What’s My Job? Or Yours?

Here’s what I see my job, as an ordinary citizen, to be. I need to keep informed of the changes going on around me. I need to think hard about what kind of future I’d like to see for the generations to come and for the natural world. I do need to question and be involved in the changes brought by society in its attempts to fix things (or otherwise!), but always in the context of that desired future – which for me is one in which we do keep warming to 1.5 degrees or less and we foster and protect nature. I need to do as much as I can to reduce emissions and consumption I have control or influence over. And I need to prepare for the environmental changes that are now inevitable, and protect the natural world where I can.

It's quite a list. And there’s one final thought. I can’t do any of this alone. I rely on smarter people to carry out research and provide the information I need. I rely on local authorities and organisations to also keep informed, answer my questions, and use their powers to support a positive transition. I rely on my community to do all the things communities do that will get us through this – from sharing goods, services and skills; to volunteering at sports clubs and school fetes and food banks and litter picks; to supporting each other when times get tough.

It's my job to be part of that. Just like air isn’t actually free, neither is community. In creating the future, we all have a part to play.

Gifts from Nature at the Christmas Market - December 2022

Every year Haslingfield's Methodist Church holds a popular charity Christmas Market which enables people to shop locally while supporting a wide range of charitable causes. This year we were delighted to be invited to take part. We decided to raise money for the Little Owls preschool as well as our environmental funds - but what to sell? It was already the start of autumn when we agreed to a pitch - a bit late to take up a new crafting skill! But as I walked around our beautiful local countryside, I saw so many things that inspired me. The wild hops which draped across other plants just like a Christmas festoon, and smelled so delicious. The changing leaves, each one a different colour, shape and pattern. The red berries and glossy nuts that were everywhere this year (a "mast" year for nut trees). And the cones and seed casings of all sorts, with all their shapes and texures. I didn't know what I'd do with this stuff, but I started collecting it. And the more I looked, the more I found. Perfect, empty snail shells, in every colour from lime green to rich brown. Honesty seed cases, like mother of pearl. Feathers. Crabapples. Kardoon seeds.

I got hold of a book on Eco Friendly Christmas Crafts. That was inspiring. But I also remembered some crafts I'd learned from our local Forest School teacher, Solveig Symons. I asked her if she would show some of us grown-ups some ideas, and she happily did so. We made Christmas candles out of elder twigs, vines and rosehips, and Christmas Stars from music paper, sticks and string. As time went on people started letting their creativity flourish, and we got more elaborate decorations, as well as jars of potpourri. We ate cake and drank tea and chatted while we worked. It was fun, and it cost almost nothing, produced nothing that can't be composted or re-used, and we raised £110 to share between Little Owls and our group.

With things tough for lots of people this winter, it's nice to know that beauty and fun with friends can still sometimes be had for free - gifts from nature!

Haslingfield Going Wild - Summer 2022

In the gardens, on the verges, and on the boundaries of our farmlands, more and more people are encouraging wildflowers and the minibeasts that feed on them. Why wildflowers? You can certainly benefit a wide variety of insects through ordinary garden plants, and there are many guides online to the best one to choose for wildlife, such as this one from the RHS. But not all garden plants benefit nature - hybrid double blooms, for example, often block insects from getting to the tasty nectar and pollen.

Our native wildflowers, on the other hand, provide many benefits for nature, while looking amazing! What’s more, many of our native wildflowers are scarce or endangered, due to the loss of grassland habitats. And it is important to go native - many minibeasts, like butterflies, solitary bees, hoverflies and other pollinators, are specialised feeders, either as caterpillars or adults. They need the flowers and plants they evolved with in order to thrive.

The easy way to encourage wildflowers is simply to mow less - once or twice a year if you can get away with it - and remove the cuttings for compost. This slowly removes nutrients from the soil, allowing the wildflowers to compete with coarse grasses that prefer richer soils. Mow paths or create interestingly shaped patches of unmown meadow to make it look intentional and pretty. For quicker results, seeds or plugs can be planted. The Eco Group can offer help if people know of a public area they'd like to see improved.

Click through the gallery above to see some examples of our recovering local biodiversity.

Notes on the examples shown

1) High Street Verge - A small group of local residents planted wildlfower plugs on the verge and have been leaving the street-side half unmown. Observed flowers include mallow, knapweed, hawkbit, dandelion, plantain, wild carrot (also known as Queen Anne's Lace), white campion, and forget me not. The longer grass also provides habitat and the grass seed is food for birds and small mammals.

2) Pyramidal Orchid and Peacock Butterfly - Both of these were observed on a walk around the fields between Harston and Haslingfield - first time I've seen a Pyramidal Orchid there. The Peacock Butterfly caterpillar is one of several which primarily feed on nettle.

3) Lilac Close - a resident family, assisted by members of the Eco Group, has planted wildlfowers from seed as well as sunflowers, sweetpeas, foxgloves, sedum and creeping thyme against the fences of this small public green near the bus shelter.

4) College Crescent - residents cleared a large rectangle and planted wildlfower seed. On July 2nd, I observed several oriental poppies in full bloom (when they are a favourite of pollinators like bumblebees who stuff the pockets on their hind legs with the silvery/fawn pollen) and many more flowers on the way. July 11 update - lots of red poppies now blooming! If you are involved with this initiative do get in touch - the eco group would be happy to help!

5) Wellhouse Meadow and Orchard - the eco group has been working with the parish council to mow less and encourage more wild flowers. At this time of year you can see knapweed, meadow cranesbill, meadow bedstraw, a few oxeye daisies and red and white clover. It's a tricky problem, however, as the soil is very fertile so the coarse grass easily swamps the flowers, especially in summer. Nettle and bindweed are also threatening to spread throughout, and as we are unwilling to resort to chemical sprays, we will have to mow some areas more frequently if these plants get too out of control. Both are good for pollinators/insect though, with whole ecocystems which depend upon nettle! And so far everyone loves the new "rides" or paths, through the long grass. Especially beautiful at sunrise and sunset!

Do you have something to share about increasing biodiversity in Haslingfield or Harlton? Please get in touch! Write to HnHeco@gmail.com or post on our Wild Haslingfield and Harlton Facebook Page.