January 2020 - the Natural History Museum (NHM) states, “This week we declared a planetary emergency, in recognition of humanity's failure to combat our destructive impact on the planet's survival systems. The future of humanity depends on the natural world, but hope isn't lost. If we all work together, we can help our planet recover”. NHM advice - “Talk to those with the power to make change. That includes businesses, your local council, MP or school.”
February 2021 - Sir Partha Dasgupta - Review, The Economics of Biodiversity, ‘Our economies, livelihoods and well-being all depend on our most precious asset: Nature’.
August 2021 - Antonio Guterres, Secretary- General of the United Nations said, ‘The future of humanity depends on collective effort. Let us work together to sustain all life on Earth so people and nature may benefit’.
July 2022 - Sir James Bevan, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency said ,“The biodiversity crisis joins the climate crisis as an existential threat to our survival, but … the solution is not to retreat but to work together to build a nature-positive response”.
March 2023, presenting his BBC series, Wild Isles, Sir David Attenborough said, ’Nature underpins everything that makes our lives possible … if we are to save what we have left, we must act now, whether you are an individual, a community, a business leader, a politician, we need hands on deck.’
Local children show support for their planet, November 2021
Year after year the messages roll in and the lesson is unmistakeable - our wildlife is in deep trouble. The extraordinary expression of millions of years of evolution is threatened by the human activity of a few generations. Urgent action is needed, everywhere.
The Royal Borough has 55 Sites of Interest for Nature Conservation with numerous other ‘green’ open spaces. Yet astonishingly, there’s no inhouse ecological expertise to help manage for maximum wildlife. Few if any conservation management plans appear to exist. Simply appointing an ecology officer can hardly be the answer. No one person however committed could cope with the task. A team is essential. And a most important duty – organising and leading a volunteer workforce of local people on environmental projects throughout the year.
It is to be regretted that Greenwich council fails to recognise the importance of nature. Never mind imminent environmental catastrophe, in a favourite sentence, “Given the work required in this field it is not currently appropriate for the Council to employ a specialist ecologist, either in terms of the use of its scarce resources or providing a suitable workload to maintain the expertise of such an individual at the high level our current approach provides”.
Not too clear but it does seem to say that astonishingly, there’s not enough work for one ecologist let alone a team. And no support for a council-led volunteer work force either - “However, if required the Council will consider using a specialist consultancy to support delivery of ecological initiatives and projects”.
It is not as though the council does not appreciate the value of participating residents. Commenting on its Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) it observed, “The Biodiversity Action Plan will only be successful if lots of people get involved in it.” Yes, but only successful too, if there is also knowledgeable involvement and coordination from the council itself. The fact that the BAP was last reviewed in March 2010 is indicative. In neighbouring Lewisham that does have a conservation unit, its BAP has constantly been updated. The plan for 2021-2026 includes delivering at least 60 nature conservation volunteer sessions and 500 educational events for children each year as well as advising local residence on enhancing private gardens for nature. Together with residents, the unit forms the council’s buoyant Biodiversity Partnership.
Again, in 2018 after the publication of the commissioned Green Infrastructure Study, the council sought to recruit “a panel of experts with an interest in nature conservation and biodiversity, to give advice on how to secure the future of these important green spaces.” For driving forward an urgent biodiversity recovery mission, such a loose structure cannot be expected to work. A dedicated inhouse team - yes, supported by local naturalists and environmentalists - is fundamental for borough wide coordination and action. If it had existed, no need to have paid expensive consultants for the section on natural green spaces – a survey that proved so broad-brush to be of little practical value. Example, Sutcliffe Park – 8 minutes given to a 16.7-hectare (41- acre) site.
Failure of the council to take the natural environment seriously may account for its 15% score for ‘Biodiversity’ on the Climate Emergency UK Council Scorecard. That’s some 12% lower than the UK average of 27%. Significantly, neighbouring Lewisham with an up-and-running BAP and a Nature Conservation Unit scored 54%.
Hedgerows – saving money while boosting nature
It cannot be doubted, resources are scarce. But couldn’t redistribution of available finances help create a conservation unit? Like many authorities, as a major ‘greening’ stratagem, Greenwich council favours ‘ trees’. That means initially planting standard trees – trees with ‘a single straight trunk free of lower branches for a minimum of the first 1.8 metres (approximately 6 feet) ’. In November 2022 Greenwich council announced 5000 more to be planted before 2026. The policy was restated in November 2023, with 500 expected to be planted during the winter.
No question, trees in cities are welcome. But a problem, standard trees are expensive. According to Greenwich council, to buy and plant each one costs £450. So, £450 x 5000, that’s a cool £2.25 million. For roots to develop, at least 5 years watering might be needed. Any death will be an expensive death – £450 lost, another £450 for replacement. Sadly, there are a lot of dead and dying trees around.
Could some prominence be given to an alternative approach, for instance the Committee for Climate Change (CCC) recommendation for hedgerows - 125,000 miles of them across rural and urban UK? Cost of plants? According to an expert in the field, the Council for Preservation of Rural England, it's currently £1.50 a whip. With each metre needing five whips, that’s £7.50 a metre planted.
Calculators make the maths easy. Buying whips for one kilometre of hedgerow costs £7500. For £450 – the price of one standard tree, 60 metres of hedgerow could be brought into being. For a substantial twenty miles (32km ), the cost becomes 32 x £7500 = £240,000, a little under 11% of the 5000 trees budget. Unlike large trees, anyone can plant whips and in minutes, though projects do need careful preparation. With supervised volunteer labour, planting expense would be minimal. Seems sensible, cost-cutting could be done here. No shortage of unsightly railings and wire fences that need screening.
The CCC requested hedgerows primarily for their carbon storage capacity. But biodiversity also gains. Urban trees necessarily isolated, can hardly match the contribution of mixed hedgerow mimicking miles of rich woodland-edge habitat. A variety of plants crammed together sets in motion a multitude of food chains. The linear structure means unbroken ‘green’ corridors. For birds, so many species dependent on well-hidden nesting and roosting sites, the increase locally could be exponential. We’ve lost millions of them since 1970. Surely time for Greenwich to help a recovery. Give nature a chance and it can quickly recover. Let’s give it a chance.
Woodland edge habitat – a long-planted, mature hedgerow in Eltham’s Queenscroft Park, returns to life, March 2024.
Glyphosate – an administrative convenience but what else?
Little money for restoring nature but no trouble finding the cash for destroying it. Figures for 2021-2022 show Parks, Estates and Open Spaces paid out £33,132 for a glyphosate-based pesticide with another £15,000 for application. In the same period a further £30,865 was spent by Housing and Safer Communities for buying and applying the chemical for use on its housing estates. The good news - in 2023, Parks, Estates and Open Spaces has agreed to stop using the chemical except for injection into ‘difficult’ invasive plants such as Japanese knotweed. That’s a significant saving. But bad news - killing all street ‘weeds’ with glyphosate-based pesticide is to continue. A recent council 5-year contract valued at £659,300 employs a contractor to spray them three times a year. Work started in March 2024. Some 1550 linear kilometres (963 miles) are affected. It is to be hoped operatives take special care with young street trees as thin bark often still containing chlorophyll, is known to be vulnerable.
Local wildlife loses in two ways – almost instant destruction of essential food plants and proven damage to insects and many other life forms. Glyphosate, as a synthetic chemical designed to disrupt plant metabolism, could always be expected to have unforeseen consequences. So it is proving – for humans, too. Despite manufacturer’s assurances of glyphosate’s safety, independent research is increasingly demonstrating concern for our health. There is evidence to link the synthetic chemical to cancer, fertility, Parkinson’s disease and other neurological problems. If the council’s prime concern is for the health of its residents, surely the Precautionary Principle should be followed - that any product or process suspected of damage should not be used. The restriction should only be relaxed if further scientific findings demonstrate that no harm will result.
The council claims alternative street ‘weed’ control is too expensive. But why in the first place is it necessary to blitz every thoroughfare. Of the 1550 km of roads, has it ever been assessed how many needs to be chemically treated or treated at all? Roadside vegetation might offend some people’s sensibilities but the restricted space for growth means it rarely impedes human activity. Most are annuals anyway and die back in due course. Photos from outraged residents invariably show harmless wayside plants impeding nobody. Live and let live would save an awful lot of money. If there are problem ‘hotspots’ they can be identified and treated manually. A conservation unit with a small army of volunteers could be around to help. Nature doesn’t stop at the park gates.
Too long in built-up areas have roadside plants been identified with ‘unsightliness’ and ‘neglect’. A paradigm shift is needed – to secure a future, we must learn to live with nature, adopt a different perception. Less mowing in parks is now accepted as good for pollinating insects. In the same way plants in our streets need to be seen not as ‘weeds’ but life-affirming expressions of nature surviving in testing conditions. Unpoisoned in recent lockdown periods, they were found interesting and educational. They helped our well-being then, why not on a permanent basis?
Greenwich says it will continue to engage with other London councils facing the same ‘weed’ problem. Having committed the borough’s streets to 5 more years toxic chemicals, it seemingly was unimpressed with progressive councils that have either banned glyphosate entirely or at least are working towards reduction. Recognising glyphosate’s hazards, Hounslow has reinvested money saved from pesticide spraying by employing more people. Redbridge’s ‘Adopt a Tree Pit and Pollinator Pathways’ encourages residents to care for tree pits, even entire streets. Surely there was something more for the council to learn than ‘business as usual’.
Image from Eltham, spring 2023. Which one do you prefer?
And then the intangibles…
These are the nebulous benefits provided by nature it’s so hard to put an exact price on:
Proven value for human mental, physical and spiritual health. And it’s free.
Its importance for children’s intellectual, social and imaginative development.
What are termed ecosystem services – the air we breathe, the water we drink, the health of our soils, the pollinators we depend upon for our food. No price can be attached – humanity’s very existence depends upon them.
The mitigating effect of nature on climate excesses brought on by human activity – cooling summer temperatures, helping drain flood waters after rainstorms.
The value of purposeful environmental engagement. Volunteer work sessions invariably become a venue for positive social interaction and cohesion – particularly beneficial for people unemployed or living in isolation. New skills and knowledge become available, and work undertaken offers cooperation with such initiatives as Social Prescribing – part of the NHS’s Long-Term Plan to help patients through non-medical sources of support.
Nature – not just an amenity
In October 2023, as a panellist for Create Streets, Leader of the Council, Anthony Okereke spoke of the problems he had identified in the challenge of ‘Greening Greenwich,’ with some difficulties following from a system of council barriers. A conservation unit working with volunteers in parks, in streets, on housing estates, would answer his concerns. A further potential requirement is due. Under the government’s Environmental Bill, its Local Nature Recovery Strategy will require local authorities to have competence in interpreting and improving a variety of environmental issues, necessarily working across borough boundaries. This is a situation that cries out for in-house council ecologists working with local people.
To date the culture centre, Woolwich Works, has cost the council £45 million pound - £14 million more than the original publicised budget. Culture is important but in comparison, why so little resource for the system that underpins our very existence? In 2021/2022, the council invested £1 million in eleven selected parks from its total of 55 as part of its Greener Greenwich theme. For wildlife, a pond was restored in one, and trees planted and/or wildflower seeds sown in five others. Any attempts at helping the natural world needs applauding but isolated projects in a few selected parks is hardly adequate to address the serious biodiversity crisis that threatens the country. Ceaseless borough-wide work is required, with on-going surveyance and maintenance built into overall management plans. The council must recognise nature is not add-on amenity, it’s a vital necessity.
‘Yet we go about our lives – day in day out on and on as the world slips away’. Cartoon character environmentalist, First Dog on the Moon, April 2024.
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