World Environmental Day 5^th June 2021.

As a child I remember being transfixed reading Lord of the Rings and in particular the end of the story when the trees or the “Ents,” as they are called in the book, save the planet. The Ents not only talked but they walked as well. This is a fantasy story but I wonder now how fantastic it is in fact?

The Professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia Suzanne Simard has been studying trees all her life. She maintains that trees do in fact communicate with each other using the fungi in the earth around them that are connected to each other in a vast, ancient and intricate ecosystem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVK9TCXZz6I

If you haven’t watched ‘Fantastic Fungi,’ a documentary on fungi available on Netflix, I would highly recommend you do. Fungi are able to cure many diseases that conventional doctors have no cure for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PbUN-7lr6U If you are a gardener like me you will be busy buying compost unless you make it yourself at home. After watching Gardeners World last Friday I discovered that peat bogs absorb more CO2 than all the world’s forests combined. Despite this fact we continue to harvest peat for garden compost because it’s cheap. As the peat is harvested it releases the CO2 back into the atmosphere so you are actively destroying the planet every time you buy peat products. I had

never paid close attention to my compost bags before but from now on I will be buying peat-free compost. https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/peatlands-and-climate-change

With biodiversity on a knife edge on World Environmental Day it would be wonderful if we could all appreciate and understand the complexity and brilliance of the natural world.

Reimagine. Recreate. Restore.

This is our moment.

We cannot turn back time. But we can grow trees, green our cities, rewild our gardens, change our diets and clean up rivers and coasts. We are the generation that can make peace with nature.

Let’s get active, not anxious. Let’s be bold, not timid.

Join #GenerationRestoration https://www.decadeonrestoration.org/