I recently visited the market village of Axminster on the South West English coast, where the River Cottage Canteen is situated. River Cottage Canteen is the British celebrity chef Hugh Fearnly Wittingstall’s (HFW) cafe and local store. Why am I writing about a celebrity chef? Well HFW is a celebrity chef with a difference, along with Jamie Oliver he was hugely influential in the UK free-range chicken / egg revolution, through their programs, respectively Hugh’s Chicken Run and Jamie’s Fowl Dinners. In an independent poll by the RSPCA, it was found that since this movement 73% of adults in the UK claimed that they now only purchase birds that have higher welfare conditions.

HFW started a program titled River Cottage which is about him moving to the countryside and growing organic vegetables, harvesting from the hedgerows and the seaside, and producing organic meat. Since then he has created something of a brand, a brand of green living and sustainability, and he has grown in popularity as a result. I am impressed by his ability to shift the public psyche and popularise sustainable living, however my interest in Hugh has not been born of this, my primary interest in Hugh has developed from his interest in and support of the Landshare movement and Guerrilla Gardening movement in the UK.

I have written about Guerrilla Gardening on Brisbane to Bogota before, and HFW has shown interest in his program and on his website about this movement. He has reported on a wonderful urban group in Sheffield called the Abundance Crew. Although not Guerrilla Gardeners in the traditional sense, they are certainly utilising the urban space to harvest produce for the entire community. The Abundance crew have gained permission from landowners to pick the fruit from trees that usually go un-picked and are often left to rot. The crew pick the fruit (including apples, pears and peaches) and distribute these to poorer members of the community. Check them out hereon the Grow Sheffield site

Also Hugh has spoken about two Guerrilla Gardeners Pam and Mary in Todmorden, who started Guerrilla Gardening in Todmorden, because of a lack of Allotment sites. Pam and Mary started planted wherever they could in Todmorden, so they could inspire others to do the same in their town. They then launched the Incredible Edible Todmorden campaign and their plight was so successful that in March 2008 Calerdale Council got on board and now Todmorden has an extra 500 fruit trees and every school in Todmorden is now involved with growing food with the Incredible Edible crew. It would be amazing of more cities could take a leaf out of the Todmorden hat. I reckon you should check em out here and get inspired to grow some food on your streets.

What is Landshare?

With 100,000 people on the allotment list in the UK, HFW created the Landshare website which aims to connect people (or communities) who are looking for land to grow food to people with land to share. Landshare is to be launched in Spring 2009, although they already have 25,000people registered on the website.

In the UK interest in growing food has increased recently, this is partly due to the financial crisis and also due to a revival of the civic voice and community involvement, not to mention peoples increased interest in ethical and sustainable living. This increased interest in community agriculture has inspired the the UK National Trust has get on board and they are now working with Landshare to provide some National Trust land to keen growers, in fact in February they pledged to provide 1000 new plots over the next 3 years.

This is an inspiring contribution and will provide a lot of communities, families and individuals with a connection to the land that they may not have previously experienced. As individuals create their own food not only does the food security of that country increase so too does the social capital, as people connect with each other to share knowledge and stories (this is essential to creating sustainability). I think too often people hear the word ‘sustainability’ and they think only about the environment, however sustainability is the interconnectedness of the social, environmental and economic. Without all three of these working in unison sustainability with remain an overused, under-explained word, meaningless to too many.

I guess in conclusion I really appreciate HFW’s presence in the British public sphere; I think that anyone who can use their status to inspire conscious eating, sustainability and civic engagement is at least worthy of comment. I hope the UK citizens continue to strive to find connection to the land and each other, what else is there really?

]]> http://www.brisbanetobogota.com/2010/02/17/hughs-edible-britain-%e2%80%93-landshare-and-guerrilla-gardening-in-britain/feed/ 0 http://www.brisbanetobogota.com/2010/01/21/bkk-the-honest-city-bangkok-car-free-day/ http://www.brisbanetobogota.com/2010/01/21/bkk-the-honest-city-bangkok-car-free-day/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:25:21 +0000 admin http://www.brisbanetobogota.com/?p=397

Bangkok Traffic

I recently reported that I was in Thailand for a couple for weeks a couple of weeks ago, and I noticed a sign for Bangkok (BKK) car free day, however the rest of the text was in Thai so I was unable to ascertain when it was. This sign intrigued me because BKK is one of those cities that doesn’t hide that its a city, traffic is a huge problem there. Imagining Bangkok without cars for a minute let alone a day is a refreshing thought, I wished for it often as I wandered on her network of roads and streets and allies. Food and fumes merge in the streets of BKK, At night the gutters become cafes and through the day the treacherous sidewalks become swamps in monsoonal rains. People live and eat in the streets, they walk, sleep, beg, buy, converse in between the cars out under the smog filled sky.

I have since found out that Car-Free day was facilitated by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) and actually happens every year on the 20th of September and this year there is mixed reports about it success, some say it had no effect what so ever, as even BMA staff still hopped in their cars to get to work. Cyclist Sopon Benjakosonpreecha who cycles 60 kms to and from work everyday, reported to the Daily Xpress / Asia New Network that it had made little impact as people were still in there cars and few people participated in car-free day.

Bangkok is the country’s biggest pollute, in 2008 alone there were 2.5 million new cars in, and Bangkok residents make an average 12 million trips by car in the capital each day, which contributes to the average speed of 10km per hour in peak hour. However the Bangkok Mass Transit System (BTS) is an efficient way to get around Bangkok, and I was often perplexed that people even bother driving in a city that has a walking speed faster than the driving speed.

It would be an amazing feat if Bangkok Car Free day took off, and although after 3 years it doesn’t seem apparent that change is on the horizon, there is hope and history says that ‘from little things big things grow.’

Guerrilla Gardening Wheels

I mentioned Guerrilla Gardening in the PARKing post and it occurred to me that some of you may not have heard of this global phenomenon, so I thought I’d write a blog about one of my favourite forms of peaceful dissent.

Guerrilla Gardening is a type of direct action where individuals or ‘troops’ identify a certain neglected piece of land and reform it into crops or gardens with all sorts of plants including flowers, vegetables and herbs. This is usually done in cities or urban spaces but this does not necessarily have to be the case.

Guerrilla Gardening is a completely voluntary activity however it is more a form of activism than voluntarism; although there is a definite element of civic voluntarism to it.  Guerrilla Gardening is a way to engage people in the urban space, a way of challenging land ownership and encouraging land rights and land reform.

Guerrilla Gardeners perform various ‘digs’, from planting singular trees in parks, or creating nature strips, beautifying council land or starting impromptu city farms. Some ‘digs’ start small and get bigger, some manifest into community gardens, whereas other ‘digs’ remain small, with a lone flower brightening a footpath.

To me Guerrilla Gardening is the most inspiring form of activism, where people take a space that is neglected and give it new life. It can provide food for urban dwellers and opportunities for community engagement, all the while greening the streets.

One of the most prominent Guerrilla Gardeners’ Richard Renyolds has set up www.guerrillagardening.org which is a website with a blog, tips and a community forum. It’s a great resource to find out more about Guerilla Gardening, with examples and stories of Guerrilla Gardening and call outs from other Guerrilla Gardeners looking for willing participants to go out on a dig.

A quick ‘how to Guerrilla Garden’

As a Guerrilla Gardener you should first find a piece of public land that is looking like it needs some love (in the form of plants), preferably one near your home (so you can water and tend to the plants), then purchase the plants (or even better germinate them yourself), then choose a night and go out on a ‘dig’ (night is best to avoid the prying eyes of the law and council workers.) If you would like more details on how you can Guerrilla Garden your neighbourhood I suggest you check out the Tips Richard Renyolds website www.guerrillagardening.org.

I think I might go out and do some Guerrilla Gardening before I head off.

Today is Blog Action Day and as we near the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December and International Day on Climate Action on the 24th of October, initiated by www.350.org, it becomes more apparent that people of the world want action on climate change. As the United Nations Climate Change Conference nears, governements have an opportunity to listen to the citizens of the world, and we have an opportunity to stand up and let the governments of the world hear us.

As this blog mostly refers to cities and how to make them more sustainable, I thought I would use this opportunity to write about climate change and cities.

Cities only cover 2% of the lands surface (*1) they “consume three-quarters of its resources and produce three-quarters of its waste” (*2). The impact of cities are greater than the area that they cover for example, according to O’Meara the city of London needs “roughly 58 times its land area just to simply supply its residents with food and timber” (*1). Cities are becoming increasingly overpopulated and under-resourced, according to the United Nations 2008 became the first year in history that over 50% of the worlds populations lived in cities, this trend is predicted to increase, in fact between 2007 and 2050 urban populations will increase from 3.3 billion to 6.4 billion(*3). To accommodate these increased populations cities will need to be resilient, robust and sustainable.

Cities are heavily resource reliant and they contribute dramatically to climate change. The affects of climate change are already felt in many cities, as summers have become hotter and droughts become longer, water shortages and water restrictions become more typical, as they have in a number of Australian cities.)

In some parts of the world slums account for more than 70 percent of urban populations they are already seeing the cost of climate change as flooding and natural disasters.

According to the UN “this year alone, 117 million people around the world have suffered from some 300 natural disasters, including devastating droughts in China and Africa, and massive flooding in Asia and Africa, costing nearly $15 billion in damages” (*4).

Cities also have a unique opportunity to initiate change and advance technological innovations, by implementing alternative energy, sustainable transport initiatives, food production alternatives and improved infrastructure, such as solar orientation and by adhering to other sustainable urban design principles. Governments, planners and policy makers have an opportunity to change the way we build our cities, by reducing urban sprawl, increasing city connections with efficient public transport and by designing more transit oriented developments (TODs). Governments have a responsibility to encourage urban density by building up rather than out, by protecting our green zones and ensuring that our cities are healthy, vibrant, safe and liveable places.

We, as citizens can also contribute to making our cities more sustainable, here are a few ideas;

• Reduce your resource intake (i.e reduce your ruminant meat intake, meat consumption is heavily resource dependant and the livestock industry produces 18% of worlds GHG emissions, from gases such as Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4) and Nitrous Oxide (N20) which all contribute to climate change (*5). (Food for thought: The ruminant meat industry accounts for more climate change than all forms of transport.)
• Improve your consumption patterns (buy only what you need and reconsider what you don’t need. Despite its impact on the environment having anything you want has become an expectation in rich nations, necessities are no longer considered to be simply food, shelter and water but rather holidays, televisions and large houses (*6). As Guardian writer George Monboit illustrates in his article about population;

Those who emphasise the dangers of population growth maintain

that times have changed: they are not concerned only with population

growth in the poor world, but primarily with growth in the rich world,

where people consume much more (*7).

• Reduce your waste by curtailing what you buy in packaging; buy local grown produce and dispose of your waste in responsible ways, such as compost heaps or worm farms for food scraps, the latter are ideal if you are in a flat or apartment with a deck, (if you don’t have garden or deck space to do this, city farms will often accept compost from members of the community).
• Consider moving closer to public transport and catching public transport, riding your bike, car pooling or walking to work / uni / school.
• Reduce your food miles, by buying from local farmers markets or consider joining a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) co-operative.
• Write a letter to your MP, asking what they intend to do in your city to reduce its carbon footprint and create a more sustainable city.

These are only a few tips that you could consider doing to reduce your carbon footprint, and although I don’t want to turn this blog into another ‘green-tips’ blog, as the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen looms ever closer, I think we could all reconsider our responsibility in reducing our impact on the planet. We are sharing this planet with over 6 billion other people and some of them are already feeling the effects of climate change. Its time we all act. Climate change is not  in the future, it is already here and this is our time in history to stand up in solidarity, make personal changes and demand our governments listen!

References:

(*1) Pearce, Fred. 2006. Bright Lights Green City. 2026: A Vision for the Nation’s Future. The Australian. Reprinted in Introduction to Sustainable Development (STP108) Unit Reader 2008. Murdoch: Murdoch University.

(*1) O’Meara, M. 1999. Introduction: Reinventing Cities for People and the Planet. Worldwatch Institute. Reprinted in Introduction to Sustainable Development (STP108) Unit Reader 2008. Murdoch: Murdoch University.

(*3) Leiwen, Jiang., Malea Hoepf Young and Karen Hardee. 2008. Population, Urbanization, and the Environment. Worldwatch Institute. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5852 (accessed October 13, 2009)

(*4) UN Habitat. n.d. http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?cid=5155&catid=550&typeid=24&subMenuId=0

(*5) Stehfest, Elke., Lex Bouwman, Detlef P. van Vuuren, Micheal G. J. den Elzen, Bas  Eickhout and Pavel Kabat. 2009. Climate Benefits of Changing Diet.  Springer Link  95: 83-102. ProQuest. http://il.proquest.com (accessed August 27, 2009)

(*6) Hamilton, Clive. 2005. Affluneza. NSW: Allen and Unwin.

(*7) Monbiot, George. 2009. Population Bombs. www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/01/29/ population-bombs/ (accessed August 27, 2009)

Since then PARK(ing) Day has grown into a global one day event with over 200 parks being created in 50 different cities in 2008.

Brisbane is one of the biggest PARKing cities in the world and this year there were more than 50 PARKs across Brisbane, a number of these were part of a Collaborative Design unit at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), where design students teamed up with a coach to create PARKs across Brisbane.

Like Guerilla Gardening PARKing day is a form of activism, a way to reclaim the streets in peaceful and fun ways.

I went to see what these students, community groups and individuals got up to, in a bid create urban spaces that promote community and enhance the civic space.

The 8 PARKs that  I saw had used various mediums to create their spaces such as recycled timber, household items and grass and creating both beautiful and functional spaces.

I felt one of the unfortunate sides to this years PARK(ing) Day was that their we many for-profit organisations or businesses setting up PARKs, and I couldn’t help but feel that this was a publicity stunt for many of them. I don’t believe that businesses require additional space to ‘advertise’, and for me one of the liberating parts of PARKing Day  is the freedom from consumerism. PARK(ing) Day has the ability to bring quiet to vulgar streets, engender dissent in urban conformity, to construct urban spaces into relaxing sanctuaries and create a space where we can be free from corporate promotion and welcome genuine acts of sharing (of conversation, space and the streets).

I also felt that I would have liked to have seen more of the PARKers leave their parking space long enough to let citizens engage in the space, at times some of these spaces were full of the creators, leaving little room for others, some appeared intimidating and as a result I often observed them rather than engaged in them.

Through the looking glass

Sleek Scrap (QUT)

Crumpler Bags

Crumpler Bags

2 High Festival

Lavender to brighten the street

Book Swap (QUT)

Book Swap (QUT)

Deicke Richards

Deicke Richards