Surrey Homes | SH65 | March 2020 | Good Living supplement inside

Garden
to have disappeared and their demise
coincided with the local farmer’s ‘slash
and burn’ policy of that year. I wonder
what happened there. However, with a
bit of luck, they may pop up somewhere
else and flourish. Let’s hope so.
But maybe things are looking up with
attitudes changing towards conserving
the biodiversity we have and the need
there is to preserve it; to realise the
importance of biodiversity’s contribution
to all aspects of our wellbeing. It seems
contrary that despite this, human
actions worldwide are still very much
contributing to all the factors that lead
to biodiversity being under siege.
However, there is no obvious sign
that the current loss of biodiversity
and changes in the environment is
actively slowing down, but I think
that if we all stopped to think and
did what we could, even in a small
way, the direction of travel could be
deflected. We need to spread the word.
We all know that both natural and
human induced factors (referred to as
‘drivers’) contribute to both species
decline and climate change – although
of course we have some, unfortunately
in positions of power internationally,
who seem to have their heads in the
sand as they see making
money as the default
position come what may.
The culprits, or main
‘drivers’ are endless;
from habitat loss, to over
exploitation of natural
landscapes, destruction
of forests, pollution and careless use
of our soil and water resources.
I recently read a report of a speech
that the then Environmental Minister,
Theresa Villiers, gave last autumn from
the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in
Barnes. One or two remarks stood out,
“Protect our
pollinators by
not digging
out or spraying
dandelions”
one being ‘that we are utterly reliant
on nature, from the most fortunate
of us to the most vulnerable, not least
because wildlife pollinates the crops that
account for over a third of global food
supply’. She stressed the belief that we
have solutions for loss of diversity and
climate change, despite the fact that the
scale of the challenge is
huge and that our global
response leaves quite a
lot to be desired. I know
that the international
push to plant more trees
– trees in their millions
– seems to be gaining
momentum. And we can do that too
even if we have the tiniest of patches.
My son, who lives in a particularly
polluted part of London, showed me an
old photograph of where he lives taken
at the beginning of the 20th century.
Most noticeable of course was the
109 surrey-homes.co.uk