Cold Wind Blowing

It’s my favourite time of year. We took a bumper honey crop at the beginning of August and, despite the wasps, the bees look in good shape. We’ve finished scything the meadow, which was lovely this year, and seeding a couple of new areas. The kitchen staff (surely some mistake – Ed.) are now wrestling with current and impending gluts of courgettes, apples, plums, pumpkins (!), and, more excitingly, usable numbers of quinces, figs, medlars and pears. We’re cleaning the apple press and might even have enough Perry Pears to think about our first vintage. Huge furry new bumblebee queens have started to buzz the sedum and the bats and swallows are zipping about in celebration of a fecund year in the garage. The new pond we made for our course in April has been extraordinary – the latest excitement there has been the arrival of Anax Imperator.

Basking in the late summer sun I should feel content, and looking forward to what I hope will be a busy month as folk start buying seed and ordering bare-root trees. Perhaps I’ve spent too long in front of my computer recently, but instead I feel rather morose. The economic and environmental news over the last few weeks has, let’s face it, been pretty grim, and there’s worse to come. On the other hand, my resolve is also strengthened. Charities have to find new ways to fund themselves. Small businesses and consultants have to find new ways to market, and the internet should be the perfect medium for them. It should also work well to promote localism generally. This is all very much what Habitat Aid is about.

Most people have been incredibly supportive, but there’s a certain residue of suspicion about what we’re doing, which is understandable. My background was in the City (not a good start), and I have no expertise in many of the areas I’m looking at now, I do know people who have. The idea of a business which isn’t driven by financial profit is still a new idea for a lot of folk; I’m often asked questions like “is your blog commercial?”, or at the other end of the spectrum “who is funding you?” I still feel like we are a tiny boat (coracle?) in a pretty vast and stormy sea, but we are making headway I think. Since we started trading in May last year we have had nearly 100,000 page views, which to me sounds like a lot from a standing start.

Meadows Website

We’re launching a microsite about meadows at www.micromeadow.co.uk. To quote the blurb:

The site is intended to encourage folk to establish smaller scale meadows and to provide access to good quality plants and seeds, as well as to reliable information and advice.

Got it? Have a look and let us know what you think.

Lavender

We’re delighted to announce we are working with Downderry Nursery to sell a range of lavenders from the spring. Downderry are regular Gold Medal winners and owner Simon Charlesworth is a committed conservationist. I met him originally at an open day organized by the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects at Sussex University, with whom he is working to trial the best bee friendly varieties.

Adverts

We have started to carry adverts on our main site and blog. Not the usual nonsense, but we are being guided by the excellent Digital Spring. Like us, they occupy an interesting spot in the demi-monde between charities and commerce. They have put together a portfolio of ethically vetted conservation related advertisers – binoculars, birding holidays, etc. – whose ads appear on our sites. We make money, they make money – and donate some to a related charity.

Somerset Pride

We’ve signed up to become an associate corporate member of our local Wildlife Trust. It’s a great scheme, and another example of a partnership between charities and corporates where everyone wins.

Fruit Tree Management Courses

This winter we are hosting two one day courses on managing fruit trees, tutored by respected specialist nurseryman Kevin Croucher, owner of Thornhayes Nursery.

About Us 

Habitat Aid aims to persuade and enable folk to at least partly recreate or help replace key habitats like meadows, wetlands, orchards and woodland. The company also helps a small number of charities. We are partly an online retailer selling mostly trees, plants and seeds sourced from really good quality specialized suppliers who often have a limited or no e-commerce operation themselves. Half our profits from sales go to selected partner charities, which are linked to specific products; this doesn’t just help charities financially, but also helps get their key messages across. We also act as a kind of honest broker. We are building a network of consultants in areas like “wildlife garden” and estate design, meadow creation, and wetland and pond projects. We recommend and introduce these folk to end clients and landscape professionals, to give advice or to design and project manage. We then supply the plants for these schemes. Lastly, we are developing products directly with our partner charities. We are working with the ‘Adopt a Beehive’ scheme and BBKA Enterprises to supply native seed mixes for bees, for example.

Habitat Aid Ltd. is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

The Government is talking to big national retailers about delivering the Green Deal, yet our poll on YouGen found that 84% of people would trust locally-based, specialist suppliers more than national retailers such as M&S, Tesco (15%).

The idea for the poll came from Greg Barker saying that “the other exciting thing about the green deal is that it is not just reliant on the big six energy companies, which have mixed reputations, but brings in some of our most trusted high street retailers and brands, such as Marks and Spencer and Tesco, which have strong degrees of consumer trust,”  during the energy efficiency debate at the end of June.

I was really concerned when I heard that. Retrofitting existing housing to make it more energy efficient isn’t a pile it high, sell it cheap business. Every house is different, as is the way people live in them. These things have to be taken into consideration and consumers need expert advice on the best solution for their circumstances.

Past grant schemes for insulation have tended to be one dimensional, with little regard for choice. It’s mineral wool or nothing under most of them. I hope that the Green Deal, which has a much more ambitious reach in terms of numbers covered, will also offer householders choice as to products and measures – as long as they meet the goals of reducing carbon emissions and reducing the total energy bill. This will need the involvement of local and specialist companies, as well as the big national ones.

Not only will this offer choice, but it also will help boost local businesses to provide the green jobs that Nick Clegg was talking about last week, and give consumers some peace of mind. The reputation of smaller, local companies depends on word of them delivering good service, and word soon gets out if they don’t. The nationals are much more likely to sub-contract the work losing the level of accountability for customers.

First published on YouGen. For independent advice on renewable energy visit the YouGen site.

YouGen is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

Launched in January 2010 NEW FRONTIERS is a national to global initiative created to stimulate truly sustainable design solutions fit for the social and environmental challenges of the 21st Century. Designed to capture, catalyse and create ideas and innovation, from architecture to urban design to materials engineering to product design, NEW FRONTIERS is working with leading universities, professional institutions, NGOs, government agencies and pioneering global brands to embed a strong understanding of sustainability; form new collaborations; and promote the best innovation for this new and fast moving sector.

Focused on interdisciplinary collaboration, knowledge sharing, capacity building and public discourse,  NEW FRONTIERS programme comprises seminars, scholarships, mentoring, a participative digital platform, a living lab and other planned elements, culminating in a prestigious biennial national prize.

The initiative begins with a series of seminars created in collaboration with NEW FRONTIERS’ partner organisations and panel members, many of which are playing an integral role in the development of the series. Featuring a world-class speaker line-up and rolling out across venues in Greater Manchester including the Centre for the Urban Built Environment, the seminars will explore the very latest developments in sustainable innovation in design, engineering, science and technology.

Themes the seminar series will explore include Biomimicry, Living Architecture, Industrial Symbiosis, Design Ecology, Closed Loop Systems, Chemical Leasing, Sustainable Building Technologies, Smart Cities, Urban Farms, Air Pollution, Resource Harvesting, Urban Acoustics, Open Source Design, Fab Labs, Upcycling and Micro-production. Confirmed speakers who will be giving presentations and keynotes during the seminar series include amongst others NEW FRONTIERS panel members Senior TED Fellow Dr. Rachel Armstrong, Professor Neil Spiller of the Bartlett School of Architecture and the UK’s foremost biomimicry expert Professor Julian Vincent.

On 23rd September 2010 NEW FRONTIERS is hosting the second seminar in its series. Titled ‘Building Blocks of the Future’ the event will bring together diverse elements of the built environment supply chain, from material chemists to architects and designers to explore new and evolving chemistry solutions and materials for the future of sustainable buildings. The speakers are Dr. Richard Miller (Technology Strategy Board), Dr. Troy Manning (NSG Group, Pilkingstons) and Gill Kelleher (BASF). The free seminar will be followed by a drinks reception and buffet sponsored by industry-led chemical cluster support organisation for the £10.2 billion NW chemical sector, Chemicals Northwest.

Individuals that wish to participate with NEW FRONTIERS seminars, but cannot make the events in person can send questions and comments remotely via the NEW FRONTIERS groups on Linked and via the Twitter using the hashtag #NEW_FRONTIERS

Further information on this event can be found at NEWFRONTIERS.uk.com

Societás is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

As part of our supporter day on Wednesday 20 October we will be handing in a letter to David Cameron reminding him of his pledge that this government will be the greenest ever; both in terms of action at home and internationally. We are calling for the Prime Minister to get the UN climate change talks back on track and deliver a deal that works for the world’s poor. Add your voice to our campaign:

Sign our letter to David Cameron 

Plans for our supporter day are really gathering momentum. As you’ve already heard, the Reverend Jesse Jackson will be addressing the crowd along with Christian Aid’s director, Loretta Minghella, and the head of Christian Aid Scotland, Kathy Galloway. But we’ll also be hearing directly about the day-to-day reality of the fight against poverty and injustice from campaigners from India and Zambia.

Join us in London on 20.10.2010: register now

Scientists in Japan have created a portable machine that can convert everyday plastic into oil, which can then be used as gasoline, diesel and kerosene.

This could be a great invention and one that could certainly help Third World Countries become a little cleaner – seems almost too good to be true.

Check this video out to find out more, it’s amazing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGGabrorRS8

Gogreenerbags.co.uk is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

If you have some spare time this month, check out your local Wildlife Trust to see what events are taking place.

Here in Dorset we have a wonderful choice of activities from guided walks across wildflower downlands to outdoor practical work at Kimmeridge Bay or Seasearch diving weekends:

http://www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/events.html

Really Wild Flowers is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

There is disturbing news this week of the threat of nature reserves being sold off to the private sector and DEFRA’s budgets being cut severely.  ”Some of the UK’s most vulnerable and rare species are threatened if funding for restoration and monitoring is drastically cut”, warn conservation experts.  Reported in today’s Guardian newspaper, Natural England, the government’s principal nature conservation agency, has put forward 400 job cuts for next year and up to another 400 after that, potentially one third of its workforce.

These are going to be difficult times for both people and wildlife.  Species under threat include the dormouse, lapwing, otter and bumble bees, to name but a few.

Help the balance of nature by planting more species useful to wildlife – www.reallywildflowers.co.uk

Really Wild Flowers is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

MoreEco is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

MoreEco supports Volvo’s campaign to make people more aware of the dangers that car emissions pose to our health.

Did you know that as many as 50,000 people a year are dying prematurely due to toxic air emissions, linked to fossil fuel combustion? That’s more than 20 times the number that die in road accidents in the UK each year! [source: Environmental Audit Select Committee]

The most dangerous of these emissions NOx, Hydrocarbons and Particulates. But together, we’ll call them “Nasties”. Watch this animation to see the Nasties in action.

Click here to watch the Emissions Equality Video.

Click here to read Volvo’s three point plan how they intend to support this important campaign.

MoreEco is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

This is the fourth occasional newsletter for Habitat Aid’s friends and partners to let you know how we’re getting on. You can get this post by automatic subscription with links and pics please fill in the form on our website or visit http://habitataidnews.wordpress.com. You can also find us on Facebook.

This cold dry weather is a nightmare, but I suppose at least it’s given me time to sit down and write a newsletter. I’ve been a busy boy over the last month, so much to catch up on.

We ran our first course in April, which seems to have been a great success. Tutored by Hugh Roberts of  Environments for People we all learnt how to build a wildlife pond, now sitting in front of me. Thanks to Hugh and to our wetland plant supplier Gower Wildflowers. The pond’s already populated by a selection of interesting looking invertebrae, and the swallows are collecting mud from it as I write. All very rewarding. Next off are our meadow days, run by  Sue Everett, on the 11th and 12th June.

I flogged up to Sheffield last week to go to an intriguing workshop on Green Roofs and Living Walls, which is an area we’re keen to get more involved with. We already have a relationship with a consultant, and supply generic native seed and plug mixes for green roofs, but hope to do a lot more in future to encourage folk to plant native plants rather than just use the sedum mats they have done in the past. Green Roofs in particular seem to me to be a fantastic and practical way to encourage biodiversity in urban areas – among other advantages.

I also hope we can do more work with seeds, where we are starting to supply end business customers directly. After a successful trial we are supplying the British Beekeepers’ Association (BBKA Enterprises Ltd.) with two native seed mixes particularly helpful for bees, which I have high hopes for. We’re also supplying Flowerworld with the seed for a 50,000 sachet promotion at Morrisons to promote the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

Our other bee related news is that we’re expanding our range of plants and exotic trees for bees as a result of some suggestions from Andy Willis at the BBKA Spring Convention and Norman Carreck at the Laboratory for Apiculture and Social Insects at the University of Sussex. They’ll be supplied by R.V.Roger and available from this autumn.
 
We are seeing the first fruits of our work with designers, sourcing native plants for some very exciting schemes. We’re both promoting those currently working with habitat creation in mind, and encouraging others to think about it more.

As to life here, Kingsley the new ram has been a success and the mad Runner Ducks are laying again, albeit mostly not in their duck house. My bees are happy too, and I’ve set up a couple of bait hives for them. Mike the gardener’s grand veg plot looks great and our various mini-meadows look promising too – if only it would rain!  

Habitat Aid Ltd. is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more