Two Eco-friendly projects in Malawi

As many readers of this blog will know, I spent two years teaching in Malawi (many years ago now!). I still have a particular interest in what's happening in that country so I was very pleased to find out about these two projects which are enabling people in various parts of the country find a more sustainable source of energy than wood (wood harvesting is leading to huge amounts of deforestation in Malawi). 

The first project has been founded by Grace Manguti, a rice farmer in the north of the country who wants to use waste rice husks as a source of energy. She is setting up a small business to make briquettes from the rice husks in a project that will be managed by women and will offer training and job opportunities for other women in the area. You can read more about this project (and donate towards the costs of completing the preparatory work) here. The work is supported by JTS a Scottish based fair trade organisation and Kilombero Rice, the Malawian brand of rice (which is generally the only brand of rice I buy). 

The second project involves a biogas digestor installed at Mulanje prison, which enables the prison to convert the inmates waste into gas to use for cooking and organic fertiliser for use in the prison farm. You can read more about this project on the BBC Futures website, here. 

Both these projects mean that people are able to find alternative sources of energy and help to conserve the small amount of woodland that remains in Malawi.

Let Your Lawn Grow Wild

 

Dandelions often spring up in un-mown lawns and can attract colourful visitors like this orange tip butterfly!  

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There seems to be a split between gardeners in the UK, with some delighting more and more in the wildlife that their garden can attract and others who want to rip everything out and cover it all in astro-turf. It's very sad to see the trend for artificial gardens, hopefully wildlife gardening will ultimately take over entirely. Even a plain lawn is better than astro-turf, but leaving the grass and other plants to grow wild is much more valuable for nature and interesting too, as you find out what grows in your lawn and watch the insects coming in to pollinate the flowers when they bloom!

One of the campaigns happening throughout May is Plantlife's 'No Mow May' which is really easy to take part in, if you have a lawn. You just need to leave your grass as it is and let it grow naturally! Easy! Though in some places this may cause issues with neighbours who are obsessed with tidiness. 

Towards the end of May you can then take part in Plantlife's Every Flower Counts survey, which asks you to count the wildflowers in your lawn. The results from lawns across the UK will give an idea of how many bees and other pollinators are supported by our lawns. 

You can find out more about these two campaigns by watching this Plantlife webinar (1 hour long) and sign up for Every Flower Counts here.

We don't have a lawn of our own, as our shared garden at the back of our building is mostly full of trees, brambles and a vegetable patch - the lawns around the edge are the private properties of people who live in ground floor flats. If you have a lawn, what's growing there and what insects visitors do you have?

Client Earth by James Thornton and Martin Goodman

 

 This is the story of Client Earth, the charity that brought environmental lawyers into the mainstream in the UK and Europe and beyond. 

The USA has a long tradition of activist environmental lawyers, but for many reasons (as explained in this book) this hasn't really been the case in the UK or the rest of Europe. 

This book outlines how Client Earth was started by James Thornton, from his early vision

'Earth Day was too too feel good for him, too emotional a response to an urgent need. The earth was in urgent need of practical action, not a group hug.'

The book is full of examples of how using the law as a tool has secured environmental successes across the world from cleaning up Chesapeake Bay to enforcing the European Union Air Quality Directive, from training judges and lawyers in China in environmental law to helping local community groups in Ghana to use legal approaches to protect forests.

Throughout the book, Thornton (who works for Client Earth) and Goodman (the main author) underline and emphasize that good laws are not enough to protect the earth. The laws need to be effectively enforced if they have any hope of being taken seriously and of having any effect. 

The Earth needs lawyers working to  protect wildlife, prevent pollution and to catch and punish those who damage the environment - only this way can we hope to defeat the corporate interests that would destroy the earth.

Client Earth focuses both on wildlife and biodiversity and on environmental issues such as climate change and pollution, bringing the two aspects of the current crisis together in a way that is too often overlooked. 

Client Earth by James Thornton and Martin Goodman published (2017) by Scribe Publications. 

Craiglockart Hill and pond with duckings!

 It's been another sunny day and though it started off quite chilly it warmed up, lovely weather, but we do need some rain for the plants and wildlife to flourish! Crafty Green Boyfriend and I enjoyed a walk round Easter Craiglockart Hill. Everything is so green at the moment 

Many of the paths have now been given names including the Poets Path, which commemorates the fact that the war poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon stayed in Craiglockart Hospital for a while.

It's quite a steep climb up the the top of the hill 

but once there you're surrounded by gorse looking at its best 

and there are great views across Edinburgh 

We found this intriguing thing

which (I think) is dogs vomit slime mould (though someone tells me it's also known as scrambled egg slime mould, which is a nicer name so I may use that in future). 

I like these creations that someone has made 

Fallen trees and branches are great for biodiversity, as they offer homes for insects and other invertebrates and carving them into things like this may mean they're more likely to be allowed to stay around rather than being 'tidied away'.

We ended up at Craiglockart Pond 

where we were delighted to see this mother mallard with her ducklings - we saw at least ten, though Crafty Green Boyfriend was only able to get nine of them on film 

I hope they survive and thrive, there are quite a few herring gulls and lesser black backed gulls around, which would love to eat a small duckling as a snack. 

Walking to the bus stop, we stopped to admire the cherry blossoms, including this tree near Craiglockart Parish Church 

Solitary Bees, Maple flowers and a lovely garden

I had an outdoor meeting yesterday at Magdalen Community Garden, a lovely little garden hidden away behind housing. It's a new garden, only five years old, but is already thriving, with fruit trees, lots of poly-tunnels / raised beds for growing vegetables and plenty of seating

It also has a lovely shed 

You can find out more about the Magdelene Community Garden on the Edible Estates website here. It's well worth watching the video on that page (made before lockdown).

We were planning the workshops I'll be involved in as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (you can read more in my blogpost of a few days ago here). One of the workshops will take place in the garden itself, which offers plenty of space for socially distanced creative writing activities! 

On a nearby street, I noticed lots of chocolate mining bees (Andrena scotica) flying around a west facing wall and in and out of holes in the wall. There is obviously a thriving colony of these lovely bees here and they were happy to be photographed as they basked in the sun

Also on a nearby street, I found this lovely Norway maple tree in full bloom, with flowers hanging low enough for me to easily take this photo 

You can see more Edinburgh trees in bloom in yesterday's post.

Trees in Bloom

 It's not just the cherry trees that are in bloom, though those are beautiful and will be even more beautiful in a week or so 

But other trees are also in bloom, though most are easier to overlook than the showy cherry. Here's a close up of an ash tree

and here's an elm tree 

The flowers on the larch trees are now well on their way to becoming cones. You can see my post showing the whole development of the larch flower into a cone here. 

What are your favourite trees at this time of year?

Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival

The Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (SMHAF) is one of Scotland's most diverse cultural events, including everything from music, film and theatre, to storytelling, sketching and origami.

In 2021, the festival takes place from 3-23 May - online and in outdoor locations across Scotland - exploring the theme of 'Normality?' a particularly pertinent topic in the midst of the COVID_19 pandemic, which has upturned normality for most people. The festival dates incorporate Mental Health Awareness Week (10-16 May) which this year has the theme of 'Nature' and is encouraging people to experience nature, share nature and talk about nature. During lockdown, many people have discovered just how vital access to nature is for mental well-being.

Many of the events in the SMHAF this year explore how nature can inspire creativity and also support good mental health. Workshops range from film screenings to origami workshops, from mandala making to nature walks. You can browse all the festival events here. Some events are restricted to participants within a certain geographical area, others are open to anyone living in Scotland.  

I'm delighted to be involved in this year's festival, facilitating three creative writing workshops celebrating local green-spaces in three different outdoor locations in the north east of Edinburgh. Participation is limited to local residents, but you can find out more about these workshops and the art workshops that will run alongside them here.