Artical in "Above" on Paul Lister and Alladale by samantha oconnor

NA S TIO PEC NA IAL L G SU EO PP GR LEM AP EN HIC T MA TO GA Z

GreEN greennatgeo.co.uk | autumn 2010

Inspiring people to care about the planet

Earthly Goods What is nature worth?

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall makes the most of less meat i Alys Fowler‘s chemical free gardening i Dick and James Strawbridge show it’s easy to be green i Richard Mabey’s natural wonders i martin wainwright on britain’s ‘amazon’ Conservation holidays, eco-friendly fabrics and growing nuts

INE

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not only what you make, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also how you make it. Bridgestone, the largest tyre company in the world, assesses the impact of its activities on the environment over the total life cycle of its products. This means that as well as producing tyres that help to reduce fuel consumption and CO 2 emissions, Bridgestone is constantly working on reducing the environmental impact of all its activities.

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A major raw material in tyres is natural rubber. Bridgestone produces natural rubber on managed estates throughout the world, and invests in research to improve the quality of the rubber. Of Bridgestone’s 50 tyre factories around the world, 47 have been awarded the ISO 14001 environmental quality certification and the remaining three are undergoing

the process of qualiﬁcation. In its European plants, Bridgestone has a record of achieving annual targets of reducing water, energy and waste. At several of its plants worldwide, the company has introduced high-efficiency cogeneration facilities for heat and electricity production, and power plants using end-of-life tyres.

Tyres that can help cars to use less fuel are now a major part of Bridgestone’s new product development strategy. This range of tyres is marketed under the name ECOPIA and contributes to protecting the environment by reducing CO2 emissions. Bridgestone is also a world leader in retreading, a process that enables truck tyres to be used again after their first life.

The company is also active outside its main focus area and produces an essential component in the manufacture of solar panels for harnessing the sun’s energy. Solar panels are also used at some plants as a source of electric power.

In several countries around the world, Bridgestone and its employees are engaged in clean-up programmes and replanting initiatives, and educating local communities on the importance of environmental protection.

This wide range of environmentally friendly activities ref lects the Bridgestone Environmental Mission Statement that is shared by the 137,000 employees worldwide, who are focused on making a better world for all of us.

contents Autumn 2010

Healthy heather returns to Yorkshire’s moors

cover image: Colin Anderson. Simon Wheeler (Page 65); COLIN CAMPBELL (page 72); Bruce Beehler/CI (page 14)

24 ENVIRONMENT

INTELLIGENCE

14 What’s Nature Worth? Biodiversity is an enormous asset. Tony Juniper explores efforts to curb squandering irreplaceable natural wealth

32 Clothing: Is That Corn You’re Wearing?

24 For Peat’s Sake

45 Business: Green Paths

A major peatland restoration project in Yorkshire has national significance. Martin Wainwright reports

Craig Bennett investigates whether looking after the Earth’s resources is on corporate agendas

Every garment tells a story of ecological impact. Daisy Dumas finds out which fabrics are the greenest

52 Gardening: Natural Order Dispense with chemicals and let nature take its course, suggests organic gardening guru Alys Fowler

58 Food: Less is More Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall makes a little meat go a deliciously long way

65 Food: Plot to Plate Mark Diacono’s guide to growing nuts in the garden

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 3

[ contents ]

GreEN

69 Drinks: Out of the Box

77 The Green Goddess

Susy Atkins considers eco alternatives to wine bottles

Josephine Fairley finds untainted skincare and soothing after-suns

72 My Little Green Book Father and son team, Dick and James Strawbridge, share their contacts and tips for sustainable living

Editor Tony Juniper Consultant Editor Deirdre Vine editorial@greennatgeo.co.uk Commissioning Editor Cherry Maslen Art director/production Marc Silver Sub-editor Sian Campbell EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Shelley Jones Contributing editors Josephine Fairley, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Alys Fowler, Richard Hammond

78 Books Photographic feasts and food for thought

80 Travel: Quality Time Richard Hammond on the best conservation holidays near and far

88 Travel: I know a place

Publishing directors Jarvis Smith jarvis.smith@kinglionmedia.com Justin King justin.king@kinglionmedia.com Financial director Jo Habgood sales executives Joe Butler, John Champion, Jessica Knight, James Langan, Daniel Summers, Steve Watts Advertising feature designer Daniel Lerner

Eminent nature writer Richard Mabey reveals his favourite spots

A silverback gorilla soaks while munching on water plants in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photographed by Ian Nichols (from Simply Beautiful Photographs)

National Geographic magazine senior vice president, international publisher Declan Moore International Marketing Director Rebecca Hill Sales Director, British Isles David Middis King Lion Media Ltd, Bourne House, 475 Godstone Road, Whyteleafe, Surrey CR3 0BL. Tel: 01883 621014 Fax: 01883 621010; www.kinglionmedia.com, www.greennatgeo.co.uk

SUBSCRIPTIONS 0845 045 0355

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GREEN IS PUBLISHED QUARTERLY. THE NEXT ISSUE WILL BE december 2010 Cover Paper contains a minimum of 30% Post Consumer Recycled and is FSC Certified

Offer to someone else to read, or recycle

and also 6 Editorial 9 PEOPLE & PLANET: NEWS & VIEWS, GREEN NIGHT AT THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC STORE 91 Competitions 92 INDEX: CONTACTS & SOURCES 95 WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;RE BACK: the return of the white-tailed eagle, Britainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest bird of prey

National Geographic Green Magazine supplement does not accept unsolicited contributions. Editorial opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of King Lion Media nor National Geographic and the companies do not accept responsibility for advertising content. The Publishers cannot accept any responsibility for errors or omissions. All prices are correct at time of going to press and are subject to change. The contents of this magazine are fully protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without written permission. If you have any queries relating to the magazine email: info@kinglionmedia.com

4 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

Ian Nichols/National Geographic/Simply Beautiful Photographs

Printed by RR Donnelley-Strasburg

KITCHEN Photo: Pelle Bergstrรถm/Skarp Agent

pure glacier

[ editorial ] In this issue Mark Diacono is dedicated to eating, growing, writing and talking about food. He runs Otter Farm, ‘the UK’s only climate change farm’, leads the Garden Team at River Cottage and in every issue of Green explains how to grow the main ingredients of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s featured recipes. His latest book, A Taste of the Unexpected, has just been published.

he world increasingly understands the causes and implications of climate change, but the parallel global challenge of protecting the diversity of life on Earth seems barely on the radar screen. A mass extinction of animals and plants is taking place, and for many species and habitats time is fast running out. We depend on nature in meeting all our needs, and yet we appear to carry on as if its services are inexhaustible. This issue of Green marks the United Nation’s International Year of Biodiversity and looks at the challenges and solutions that might stem the tide. It also marks October’s historic meeting in Nagoya, Japan, when governments will review progress in their implementation of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity that is designed to halt the destruction. There is now great awareness of low carbon living and emissions reductions, but can the world develop a similar concern and action for the very fabric of life? This issue of Green shows why we should care, and what can be done.

Simon Wheeler had a debut exhibition at London’s Photographers’ Gallery when he was only 19 and has barely had time to put his lens cap on since, having contributed to most leading national magazines. He took the photographs for all the award-winning River Cottage books and also collaborates with Green’s gardening writer, Alys Fowler, with whom he has been working on a new book about foraging. Dick Strawbridge, the moustachioed eco-engineer, presenter and environmentalist, lives on a smallholding in Cornwall where he also runs courses on all aspects of sustainable living. His son james, who studied environmental history at York University, divides his time between media and consulting projects and managing the land. James also works for the educational charity Wastebusters.

National Geographic Green is interested in hearing your views, but we regret we are unable to respond personally to environmental questions. Write to: The Editor, National Geographic Green, King Lion Media Ltd, Bourne House, 475 Godstone Rd, Whyteleafe CR3 0BL or email the address above.

6 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

MICHAEL BIRT (tony juniper)

Tony Juniper

theeditor@greennatgeo.co.uk

Daisy Dumas combines her selfconfessed ‘parsimonious approach’ to shopping with a keen interest in fashion, by investigating the eco-cred of natural and man-made fibres. Until recently she worked on the London Evening Standard news desk and enjoyed cycling around the city or tending her urban garden, pursuits she has renounced for the time being to pursue environmental journalism in Australia.

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People & Planet Juniper’s five stars Accolades from Green’s editor go to…

★ Sir Graham Wynne has stepped down after 23 years – 12 as chief executive – with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Graham has been a hugely effective campaigner for green transformations, for example in bringing climate change and bird conservation together.

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd; Andy Hay/rspbimages.com; Jørn Madsen; Colin Houston; Rudchenko Liliia; Alan Weller, Soil Association 2006

★ Carl Jones has achieved some outstanding successes when it comes to birds. During the late 1980s the gorgeous Echo

parakeet of Mauritius had declined to only ten birds. Most were males. Now the

population is about 500 with another 70 chicks expected to be fledged in the wild. This shows what can be done, even for species that are apparently doomed.

★ Richard, Rachelle and daughter Verona Strauss, star recyclers, set a great example. In one year they sent just one dustbin full of waste to landfill. Everything else was reused, composted or recycled. The family also collected thousands of crisp packets which were sent to the Philippines to be woven into pencil cases and handbags. For more on their story, see myzerowaste.com

★ PG Tips and Lipton’s tea sold in Western Europe will carry the Rainforest Alliance logo by the end of this year. The

certified social and environmental standards will give a whole new meaning to ‘green tea’. Estates can coexist with local biodiversity while providing a livelihood for plantation workers. The logo will enable consumers to signal support for more sustainable tea production.

★ PATRICK HOLDEN relinquishes his role as director of the Soil Association at the end of September after more than 20 years with the organisation championing organic farming. He intends to concentrate on promoting sustainable farming internationally. Taking organic food from tiny niche businesses to a mainstream mass market has been a major achievement.

A book that makes you go Wow ■ “I can’t remember the last time I read a book that was more fascinating, useful and enjoyable all at the same time,” said Bill Bryson of How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything (£8.99, Profile Books). Its author, Mike Berners-Lee, provides the facts we need to make carbon-savvy purchases and decisions. It also helps put things into perspective with entries for the big

things (bushfires, volcanic eruptions and the Iraq war) as well as the little things (newspapers, sending a letter and a pint of beer). FREE Profile Books have ten copies to give away to Green readers. For your chance to receive one, visit kinglionmedia.com. Offer closes 30 November 2010.

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[ people & planet ]

Open to Ideas At the super store

■ Sony, the consumer electronics giant which has given us e-readers and energy-saving TVs, aims to have a “zero environmental footprint” by 2050, eliminating carbon emissions and the use of non-renewable materials in its products and manufacturing. Now Sony has announced a laudable eco-initiative with WWF. Launching in September, Open Planet Ideas is an online social networking site that aims to harness the ingenuity and innovation out there to help tackle environmental challenges. The aim is for an online community, especially those interested in design, sustainability and engineering, to come up

with proposals in four broad environmental categories: water; fishing and agriculture; climate change; habitat and species. Sony will contribute technical expertise to develop the best ideas submitted for environmental gain. Projects may be collaborative, with online participants sharing inspiration and observations in photographs, videos and stories, building on each other’s ideas, then evaluating and voting on which concepts should be developed further. Those who collaborate on the winning ideas will have the opportunity to work with Sony engineers and WWF specialists. For more information go to openplanetideas.com

■ The enormous National Geographic flagship store on Regent Street is London’s most exotic shopping destination. But there’s far more activity than the ringing of the tills. A gallery displays work by NG photographers, the café mounts special events and the store hosts talks from some of National Geographic’s well-known explorers on the last Tuesday of each month at 6.30pm. For families, AnimalMan, aka Nick Spellman (animalman. co.uk) visits every second Sunday of the month. AnimalMan kicks off at 1pm with owls, lizards, tortoises and snakes. From 2.30pm Nick introduces arachnids, insects and other invertebrates and mammals. There’s a ‘Green Night’ on Thursday 23 September, with a talk from Green editor Tony Juniper and music from The Phoenix Rose and guests. nglondonstore.co.uk

BERND HOFF FOR WWW.ERCO.COM

12 GREEN BOTTLES ■ Has the editor of this magazine had a gin named after him? Certainly many who taste Juniper Green, the world’s first Organic London Dry Gin, do remark on the apparent flavour of age and wisdom, qualities shared by the esteemed Tony Juniper. But lest this go to his head, we should point out that the outstanding quality of the award-winning Juniper Green comes from its distiller’s three centuries of gin-making experience. FREE We have 12 700ml bottles of Juniper Green Organic Gin to give away to Green readers aged 18 or over. Visit kinglionmedia.com. Offer closes 30 November 2010.

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 11

[ people & planet ]

Sunday for a change ■ The pioneering Arcola theatre in Dalston, east London, aims to be carbon neutral through ‘Arcola Energy’, its efforts spanning everything from recycling bottles to international green theatre partnerships, to the hydrogen fuel cell powering the LED lighting in the café. For the past two years the Arcola has also been running Green Sundays. On the first Sunday of every other month, a series of free events explores environmental and ecological themes via talks, films, games, workshops and music. It’s all very relaxed – the whole family is welcome to drop in throughout the day. Topics for future Green Sundays include ‘Practical Action – Creative DIY for a Greener Future’ (3 October) and ‘New Economics, Politics & Ethical Consumption’ (5 December). Green Sundays are held at the Arcola Theatre, 27 Arcola St, London E8 2DJ. For more information visit arcolatheatre.com and arcolaenergy.com.

One Green Sunday event this year, Dining Down to Earth, reclaimed food that would otherwise have been wasted for a feast accompanied by music and performances

Media spotlight ■ The role new media can play in protecting endangered wildlife and habitats is highlighted in Media, Ecology and Conservation (£14.95, Green Books). Author John Blewitt focuses on activities surrounding the work of Wildscreen.

Don’t miss… ■ National Geographic Channel’s groundbreaking seven-hour miniseries Great Migrations. Three years in the making and set to premiere this autumn, the series captured hitherto unseen behaviour of migratory creatures (see natgeo upfront.com/channel/ specials/great-migrations). An illustrated companion by Karen Kostyal is published on 19 October (£19.99, National Geographic). A children’s edition (for eight to 12s) is also available, £9.99.

12 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

■ The Organic Food Festival, on 11 and 12 September at Bristol Harbourside. Now in its tenth year Europe’s biggest celebration of the sustainable lifestyle has hundreds of stalls selling delicious food and drink, organic clothes and beauty products. organicfood festival.co.uk ■ The Climate Files, Fred Pearce (£11.99, Guardian Books). Hacked emails from the University of East Anglia provoked

a media frenzy on the eve of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen last year. But as environment journalist Fred Pearce shows, just about everything you may have heard and read about ‘Climategate’ is wrong. As gripping as any thriller, his investigations reveal the feuds at the heart of climate science and raise disturbing questions about the way research is carried out.

Alice Peperell; Mark William Penny

■ Harmony, A New Way of Looking at Our World, HRH the Prince of Wales, Tony Juniper, Ian Skelly (£25, Harper Collins). This ecological blockbuster, one of the highest profile books this year, is about how man is now “dangerously disconnected” from nature. Published 28 October. A children’s picture book version will follow next year. There is a feature film too: theharmony movie.com

How deep is your love for Mother Earth? Who doesn’t want to save the Earth from global climate collapse? Steinbeis Recycled Paper products give Mother Earth more space to breath. By producing our high-quality ofﬁce and magazine products from recovered paper, we cut down CO2 emissions by up to 50 %*, reduce water consumption by up to 82 %* and energy consumption by up to 72 %*. We also help lower the amount of waste paper used as landﬁll, reducing greenhouse gas emissions even further. Every year we use 258,000 tons of recovered paper for our products, making a sustainable contribution to conserving resources while at the same time showing Mother Earth the respect that she deserves. As you see, healing the world can be so easy. By the way, you are holding Steinbeis Paper in your hands this very moment. Isn’t love a wonderful feeling? Start loving Mother Earth right now at: www.stp.de/lovetheearth

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Bees can’t pollinate, nor can trees store carbon, if they have all died. The erosion of natural capital is happening faster than climate change around the world yet has far less political purchase. Tony Juniper considers what needs to happen next

14 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

wHAT’S NATURE WORTH?

[ intelligenceenvironment ]

Conserving biodiversity is fundamental to addressing some of the world’s greatest challenges. Left and throughout feature: The Chalkhill blue butterfly, found in southern England, has declined in some areas during recent decades. Changes in butterfly numbers and shifts in their location can alert us very rapidly to what is happening to the climate and to the environmental quality of a habitat. Details of all the other images: page 92

t the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit world leaders signed a historic treaty to conserve the Earth’s vast range of life: our planet’s so-called biodiversity. Governments entered into the many broad commitments contained in this agreement not only because of our duties to future generations, but also because of hard economics: for while we often see the protection of nature as a moral cause, it is also increasingly clear that we must act because of direct human welfare. This is one reason why 2010 was designated by the United Nations as International Year of Biodiversity – to raise awareness about the fundamental dependence we all have on the living fabric of our planet. The growing realisation of how much we rely on nature poses a challenge. Since the middle of the last century societies have measured their progress very much in terms of how quickly

they use up nature, rather than how effectively they conserve it as an asset. As researchers have delved into what nature does for people, a new concept has been formed to sum up our dependence on the Earth’s living systems, encapsulated in the phrase ‘ecosystem services’. There are many examples of how ecosystems support economic development. I saw an exemplary one recently in the French town of Evian. The inhabitants of Evian, which nestles between Alpine foothills on the southern shore of Lake Geneva, are fortunate to live in an area unusually endowed with natural beauty. On the far side of the lake, some 14 kilometres distant, are the Jura Mountains, while just behind the town rises spectacular Alpine scenery. There is another natural gift: Evian’s famous water. It originates on a plateau some 900m above the lake, where a mosaic of pastures, hay meadows, wetlands and fields ➤

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 15

[ intelligenceenvironment ]

capture rain and melting snow. These different habitats cover a complex body of geological deposits laid down during successive glaciations, including when the valley, which is now Lake Geneva, was filled with ice that rose as high as the plateau itself. About 20 years after snow and rain falls on the plateau, it emerges from a line of springs in Evian below. En route it takes on the particular mineral content that gives the water its name. The water has given this small town of 8,000 people global fame. Of more practical benefit is how it sustains the Evian water company, which in turn supports 900 local jobs. In many cases the failure to recognise the economic value of nature is why it is so often destroyed. Here the fact that the water is provided by fragile nature has not gone unnoticed, and the communities work together to maintain the purity of the water through

â&#x20AC;&#x153; The water has given this small town of 8,000 people global fame. Of more practical benefit is how it sustains the Evian water company, which in turn supports 900 local jobs â&#x20AC;?

16 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

sustaining the ecosystems that produce it. For example, more than 100 patches of wetland scattered across the plateau cover about 10% of the water catchment, but account for up to 30% of the water that eventually appears in the springs below. The management of the wetlands, and their diverse wildlife, thus brings a clear economic benefit, and this is one reason why they are listed under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance. Sustainable farming practices, which involve the traditional use of the pastures and meadows with chemicals or artificial fertilisers kept to a minimum, are also encouraged to protect the water. It is the kind of integrated approach that many believe the world must embrace if we are to avoid the continuing degradation of nature, seen for instance in trends ranging from the loss of forests to the decline of fisheries

Derek Middleton/FLPA

Opposite and top right: In Evian, nature is seen as a productive economic asset. Evian water originates on a plateau where a mosaic of pastures, hay meadows, wetlands and fields capture rain and melting snow. Right: Sustainable farming practices, involving the traditional use of the pastures and meadows with minimal use of chemicals or artificial fertilisers, are encouraged to protect the water and from the extinction of species to the erosion of soils. It is, unfortunately, also a rather rare example. In Evian, nature is seen as a productive economic asset, but in most other contexts what nature provides is more often viewed as an inexhaustible source of resources, to be plundered in the name of economic growth. The biggest mind shift needed to sustain nature is perhaps not so much environmental but economic. Why this might be the case was underlined by a seminal study published in 1998 by a team of scientists led by the American ecological economist Robert Costanza. They set out to calculate in conventional economic terms the value of nature to humankind. Their approach was to estimate the costs of replacing services provided by nature, if we possibly could, such as the work carried out by pollinating insects, the coastal protection afforded by mangroves

and coral reefs, the replenished fertility of soils that underpins agriculture and the purification of water. They concluded (in 1998 values) that nature was providing annual services worth about 33 trillion dollars, while global GDP at that time was about 18 trillion dollars. In other words, the part of the economy we take for granted (nature) and which we are degrading year on year, they estimated was worth about twice as much as the part we measure (GDP growth). More recent studies, including the 2005 publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) and this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) have reached broadly similar conclusions in setting out the case as to why we must urgently find the means to value nature more wisely than we do at present. There is also an array of more specific research. One recent study, for

instance, estimated that the predation of insect pests by birds in apple plantations in the Netherlands increased fruit yields by two-thirds. That is a huge economic advantage, but no-one has put a monetary value for the warblers, tits and thrushes that do this work, even though their role is vital. Nor has anyone put a price on vultures. Yet work in India suggests that the recent catastrophic collapse of the populations of these birds in the country has had economic costs. This is because the vultures, having been killed by eating dead animals on which anti-inflammatory drugs were used, no longer clear up rotting animal carcasses. This means more food is available for feral dogs, their population has increased and, in turn, they have spread rabies, which has cost many lives and Indian society potentially billions of dollars. â&#x17E;¤

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 17

[ intelligenceenvironment ]

Newer members of the biodiversity club: the wattled smoky honeyeater and giant white rhododendron, discovered in 2005 by members of Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment Program (RAP), in the remote interior of the Foja Mountains, New Guinea

Dr Robert Bloomfield, the UK coordinator for the International Year of Biodiversity, sees the lack of a clear science-based story as one of the major barriers to effective progress: “We need more media coverage of what is going on, so that people can appreciate the changes needed. A lot of what is being said now is lost in translation.” Bloomfield hopes that one positive step forward is the new Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) which will do the same kind of job as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in raising awareness and galvanising political action. Bloomfield sees this as “moving the popular perception of conservation away from a charitable activity to save animals and plants, and toward the realisation that this is about the wellbeing of humans”. He believes that the loss of biodiversity must be seen more as an economic challenge: “The focus on species loss and threatened places has taken us so far. We need to realise that is ➤

18 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

Biodiverse facts ◗ 1 7,291 species out of 47,677 so far assessed are threatened with extinction. ◗ Of the world’s 5,490 mammals, 79 are extinct or extinct in the wild, with 188 critically endangered, 449 endangered and 505 vulnerable. ◗ 1,895 of the planet’s 6,285 amphibians are in danger of extinction. ◗ More than 70,000 plant species are used in traditional and modern medicine. ◗ Coral reefs provide food, storm protection, jobs, recreation and other income sources for more than 500 million people worldwide, yet 70% of coral reefs are threatened or destroyed. ◗ Diversity of genes within species, eg as represented by livestock breeds or strains of plants, is important for agriculture and food security. Increased diversity reduces risk from diseases and increases our potential to adapt to changing climate.

Derek Middleton/FLPA; Bruce Beehler/CI

That nature is worth a great deal to us in purely financial terms is no longer in debate. The question is how are we going to hang on to what it does? Many hope that answers will be found this autumn. The world’s governments come together in Nagoya, Japan, in October under the auspices of the 1992 convention to address this very issue: how to stem the rapid loss of biodiversity and natural systems so as to maintain economic development. International climate change summits have generated vast media coverage, but the same cannot yet be said for biodiversity. This is partly because our fundamental reliance on natural systems is a complicated idea to get across. This challenge is compounded by our relative lack of knowledge. There might be 15 million different species living on Earth, and yet we have managed so far to name about 1.8 million. The fact that ‘new’ species are being found all the time underlines how gaining a comprehensive understanding of life on Earth is still work in progress.

Radio Taxis Carbon neutral taxis that don’t cost the earth

To paraphrase Samuel Pepys: “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life…” Whether you go by car, famous red bus, or even Tube, it’s only in a Radio Taxis cab that you can be sure of a zero carbon footprint. As the first Carbon Neutral taxi company in the world, they offer a completely carbon neutral service. Committed to conserve the environment, Radio Taxis took the bold step of investing to ensure their 2,500 strong, iconic London taxi fleet is carbon neutral. And it doesn’t cost you the earth. Radio Taxis offset their carbon emissions with carbon credits, enabling the development of clean and renewable energy projects worldwide, working with The CarbonNeutral Company®, a world-leading provider of carbon reduction solutions, to ensure a credible and guaranteed programme of carbon emission reduction. Radio Taxis are proud of their CarbonNeutral® certification because it is underpinned by The CarbonNeutral Protocol – the global standard for carbon neutral certification which is independently reviewed by an advisory group of scientists and industry experts and used by companies in 32 countries. All Radio Taxis Group’s taxi tailpipe emissions and their HQ electricity usage was measured in a full audit to establish their carbon footprint. Steps were then implemented to lower emissions, for example sponsoring more fuel-efficient vehicles and operating a stringent sustainable green policy, and although it’s not possible currently to stop all their carbon emissions, RTG want to take responsibility for them.

So they offset all the remainder with carbon credits: these were specifically used for a methane capture project and a run-of-river hydro power project in China, as well as a wind farm in India and a waste gas power project in Germany. All the projects are validated by an independent third party to guarantee a genuine reduction in carbon emissions. Clients also benefit, by using RTG you have already offset some of your own company’s carbon footprint in the process. ***

Next time in London book a cab with Radio Taxis and go green

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Radio Taxis Group Limited the first Carbon Neutral taxi company in the world providing carbon neutral services. For further information contact our Sales Team on 020 7281 5522 or email: account.management@radiotaxis.co.uk *** NB This is an accredited process under the Carbon Neutral protocol

[ intelligenceenvironment ]

Derek Middleton/FLPA; NHPA/Andy Rouse; Do Van Dijck/Minden Pictures/FLPA; Malcolm Shuyl/FLPA; Roger Tidman/FLPA; Anna Rassadnikova

Right and below: Going, going… the elusive pine marten and noisy natterjack toad, two of the UK’s Biodiversity Action Plan’s (BAP) priority species; the rare oyster plant. Gone: the greater mouse-eared bat extinct in Britain since 1990 ultimately a social and economic question, based on the fact that all human societies ultimately interact with and rely on nature.” While governments have begun to talk in these terms, progress toward solutions is more elusive. Back in 2002 signatory countries of the Convention on Biological Diversity committed “to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss”. Targets have not been met by any of the signatory nations at a national level, though there are some local successes. Stuart Butchart of BirdLife International led a team of scientists who published a review of different biodiversity indicators earlier this year. They reached the conclusion that, “Despite a few encouraging achievements, efforts to address the loss of biodiversity need to be substantially strengthened”. Butchart believes the reason is partly down to how we undervalue nature in an economic sense. “Perhaps if more people appreciated that nature is worth between ten and 100

Minding our eco-footprint

times more than the costs of saving it, there might be more public demand for decisive action,” he says. Halting species and ecosystem loss is in many respects a challenge without precedent. As human numbers rise from nearly seven billion now toward a midcentury projected peak of around nine billion, our demands are set to increase rather than diminish. Yet it is a far from hopeless challenge, as numerous positive initiatives around the world demonstrate. “There are many reasons to be hopeful,” says Butchart. “Governments, companies and non-governmental groups are all doing good work, but we need a lot more, and quickly.” While the 2010 Biodiversity Convention meeting in Nagoya may not deliver all the solutions, it might be a milestone toward the more ambitious 2020 target to halt biodiversity loss. If governments can collectively signal that biodiversity and ecosystems are an economic asset vital to human wellbeing, that goal will all the more likely be achieved. For more about TEEB see Business, page 45 Contacts: page 92

Reducing our carbon footprint is something many of us are familiar with. What about the parallel challenge of protecting nature? Here are a few of my tips. n If you have a garden, make it wildlife friendly. There is plenty of good advice out there, on ponds and how to attract birds, for instance. (And see Alys Fowler’s piece in this issue.) n Shop differently: look for products bearing the logo of, for example, the Forest Stewardship Council or the Rainforest Alliance. Both give some assurance that products were produced in a sustainable manner. n Join groups protecting nature, such as your local Wildlife Trust. Most important of all, be inspired by nature, go out to places where wildlife still thrives, enjoy being in the natural world, and take the power it provides to change how you feel. While you are there, learn about biodiversity by identifying birds, plants and other wildlife. n L et your political representatives know that you want biodiversity protected, nationally and globally.

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 21

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For Peat’s Sake

Global warming and biodiversity are at stake in a major peatland restoration project reports Martin Wainwright PhotographS

STEVE BOOTLE

aul Thorp’s half-mile ellipse of moorland in West Yorkshire is one of the most familiar farms in Britain: it lies between the carriageways of the M62. Every day thousands of cars and lorries hurtle past Stott Hall Farm on either side, so close that in jams, stationary drivers stare in through the kitchen windows. What is not yet so well-known is that it has another distinction: as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). More than that, its seven hectares (17 acres) of sheep intakes, rough grass and a small copse are only a fraction of an enormous swathe of Pennine moorland whose condition is to be transformed in the next ten years. The process, a triumph of imaginative cooperation, is already well under way. What has the problem been? “Think of the muck which has fallen here since the Industrial Revolution,” says Andrew Walker, catchment development leader at Yorkshire Water, yomping through cotton grass and peat hags from the motorway’s junction 22, for Saddleworth and Ripponden, on the crest of the Pennines uphill from Stott Hall. “Oldham’s down this valley, Rochdale down that one, Halifax over that ridge and Huddersfield behind this one.” Leeds, Bradford and Manchester are bigger smudges in the distance and the effect of the pollution, over nearly two centuries, is evident in stunted ground cover and sour-looking moss on outcrops of peat which should never have been exposed. One form of harm follows another. Deprived of their protective coat of heather and grass, the hags have eroded for years, from rainstorm run-off and winds so strong that the top stretch of the M62 has specially-reinforced signs and lampposts. ➤

24 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

From top: Dark patches indicate bare damaged peat on Rishworth Moor, West Yorkshire. Farm in the fast lane: aerial view of Stott Hall Farm, bisected by the highest stretch of motorway in Britain. Paul Thorp, the farmer who lives in the middle of the M62

[ regional focus ]

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 25

[ regional focus ]

This is no mere cosmetic blot on a landscape where many pass but few linger. In the last 30 years, the significance of peat moors and bogs as carbonabsorbers has become globally recognised. In March, Natural England began a survey of the damage being done to the spongy resource, through overgrazing and drainage as well as historic pollution. Existing estimates suggest that peat bogs, while covering only 3% of the Earth’s surface, absorb nearly a third of soil carbon, as well as storing 10% of the planet’s fresh water and providing a home for fascinating plant and animal life. Yorkshire has an exceptional share of Britain’s peat, and although the county’s folk are notoriously boastful, the chair of the new Yorkshire Peat Partnership, Rob Stoneman, has not been challenged over his claim: “Yorkshire peatlands are the rain forests of Northern Europe.” Like the forests, the county’s peat has been the scene of epic conservation battles, notably on the 10,000 acre bogs of Thorne Waste near Doncaster, where a crusty, self-taught naturalist called William Bunting fought

between 1950 and his death in 1995 against the destruction of his surroundings for garden compost. Learning Latin, Mediaeval English and Norman French to read ancient deeds and force the re-opening of long-lost paths, he also ran a gang called Bunting’s Beavers who dammed drainage channels. Eighteen dams were blown up by peat extractors, but the Beavers rebuilt them and eventually they stayed. Thorne’s bruising path to victory, with the last extraction rights bought out by the government in 2002, now has a successor on the moors round Stott Hall Farm. But attitudes have utterly changed. No-one is blowing anything up or creeping about at night blocking the ‘grips’, the moors’ equivalent of Thorne’s drains. Instead Yorkshire Water, farmers, Natural England and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds are working enthusiastically together. They needed to. In 2003, a year after the final rescue for Thorne, the government agency English Nature (now Natural England) completed its initial assessment of the condition of all SSSIs in England. This was done in

26 National Geographic Green | autumn 2010

“ Y orkshire peatlands are the rain forests of Northern Europe ”

Below left: Farming practices have changed to help save the peat. Rachel Hallos with one of her pedigree Saler cows on Soyland Moor. Below right: Thanks to the cattle, heather is now on the increase

steve bootle; Andy Hay (twite), Jodie Randall (lapwing) rspb-images.com

response to tough new public service targets set in 2000, which included a demand to get 95% of all SSSIs into recovering or favourable condition. Yorkshire Water has around 11,500 hectares (28,417 acres) of SSSIs on its upland reservoir catchments which cover 25,000 hectares (61,776 acres) in all. The company had a shock when English Nature completed its survey; only 9% of the SSSIs were in the target conditions, compared with a national average of 58.3%. It was likely that instead of absorbing carbon, ruined peat was leaking it into the atmosphere. The government’s target of 95% by 2010 was taken by Yorkshire Water as an important issue of compliance that could affect the company’s reputation, which helped secure investment to tackle the problems. The target year has now arrived and, with four months still in hand before it ends, Yorkshire Water’s team on the uplands are smiling. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ table of progress by

major landowners shows the company has managed 98.8%, only 4% actually ‘favourable’ but all the rest ‘recovering’. The process started at farms such as Beeston Hall, a mellow 17th century Yorkshire manor with crooked window frames and ornamented gable ends, down the valley from Paul Thorp. With swallows dive-bombing a predatory magpie near their nest in the barn, Rachel Hallos prepares to inspect her herd of pedigree Saler cattle. The presence on nearby Soyland Moor of this rich brown, curly-haired French hill breed is an indicator of how farming practices have changed to help save the peat. Cattle used to be rare on drinking water catchments for obvious reasons (“We make sure all our feeder streams are fenced off from them,” says Yorkshire Water’s Andrew Walker), but they have a role on neglected patches of the peat moors. “Look at Octavia munching her way through all that molinia (purple moor grass),” says Rachel, as the oldest of the herd forges ➤

Top left: A scrape created on Rachel Hallos’s land to help wading birds on the moors. Top right: Adult male twite; the South Pennines is the only place in England where it breeds, because of the combination of moorland for the nest and hay meadows for food. Above: Lapwing. Both birds are on the RSPB’s ‘red list’ and so given the highest conservation priority

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 27

[ regional focus ]

along. The cattle all have names to enter – and win – pedigree classes at the Royal Highland and Great Yorkshire shows. Octavia is a bulldozer compared to the nibbling of sheep. Her 750lbs also help to crush the invasive grass. “Thanks to the cattle, the heather’s now on the increase and other seeds, dormant for probably 20 years or more, are coming through. That will be good for the wildlife,” says Rachel. She guns her 4x4 up a grass slope further along the Ryburn valley to show another, remote bit of Hallos handiwork: using their tractor as a digger, she, husband Steve and their teenage son Sam have cut out a scrape – a wide, shallow pond and a ditch with gentle banks – to encourage bird life. The SSSI status of the moors is due in part to species such as peregrine falcons, often seen over Booth Wood Reservoir below the M62, golden plover, lapwing, curlew and the rare twite. Janet Fairclough, Yorkshire moorland project officer for the RSPB and a regular visitor to Thorp and the Halloses, says ruefully: “OK, the twite’s basically small and brown like so many British birds, though it’s also got a lovely flush

of pink. But it’s very special. The South Pennines is the only place in England where it breeds, because of the combination of moorland for the nest and hay meadows for food.” The Halloses’ scrape is encouraging the bird, as is the late cutting of their hay meadows which in summer are ablaze with wild flowers, giving the lie to those who suggest that such archetypally English scenes are a thing of the past. Yorkshire Water is delighted with such enthusiasm, in the face of demands which other tenant farmers do not face. “Our tenancies on catchments have to be more restrictive because of the overriding importance of our water,” says Lisa Harrowsmith, senior rural surveyor for Yorkshire Water. “We need to take extra care over pesticides, herbicides, sheep dip and fuel stores. We don’t want to score an own goal on water quality.” Her colleague holds up a bottle filled with what looks like one of the excellent local beers, but is actually reservoir water stained by eroding peat. The company is not allowed to sell discoloured water, and treatment of it is expensive. ➤

28 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

“ A bottle filled with what looks like one of the excellent local beers… is actually reservoir water stained by eroding peat ”

Above: Andrew Walker, Yorkshire Water’s catchment development leader, holds up a bottle of peat-stained water

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[ regional focus ]

Farmers understand the thinking behind the tenancies, helped by the shift of subsidy payments from drainage and stock-promotion towards conserving and ‘re-wetting’ the Pennines’ peat mattress, to restore its effectiveness as a carbon absorber. On his motorway island, Paul Thorp says: “Ten years ago, with the headage payments on sheep, you’d be chasing every animal you could get. Now, environmental payments are a bigger part of my income than sheep farming.” He’s been happy to work with Yorkshire Water on withdrawing sheep from Stott Hall’s higher pastures, to give the eroded grass on the peat hags more of a chance. Like Rachel and Stephen Hallos, he has a bespoke agreement with the company, which includes Yorkshire Water funding miles of new fencing to keep sheep off healing patches of moor. Police notices also warn away trailbikers, a modern phenomenon but one with relevant historic roots. A final element in the complicated rescue of the peat is that the apparent wilder-

ness around Stott Hall is classified as an urban common. So many public rights of way thread across it, after decades when workers rose before dawn to try for jobs at mill-gates as far apart as Saddleworth and Ripponden in the same morning, that the law requires regular, unlocked gates. The saving of the moors is hard work on a long timescale, but as Walker and his colleagues track down the last 1.2% – patches of untenanted land, or sections of SSSI shared with other landowners – it is working. “There are European directives and statutory water protection zones now,” he says, “but they may lack the subtlety of an open, trusting and integrated partnership. We believe in getting people to want to help manage our land.” That requires trust and, like the peat, trust takes time to build. Martin Wainwright is northern editor of the Guardian. A paperback edition of his book True North has recently been published (£8.99, Guardian Books) Contact details: page 92

“ T he saving of the moors is hard work on a long timescale, but it is working ”

Top left: Rishworth Moor. New fencing has been erected to keep sheep off SSSI land. Top right: Damaging trailbike tracks can be seen on the moorland

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 31

‘Natural’ materials may sound greener – but are they? Daisy Dumas finds out which fabrics are kindest to the planet

verything we wear, be it from a charity shop or the runways of Milan, starts with a humble fibre. That fibre – from plants, petrochemicals or animals – is extracted, spun and woven into fabric. It’s dyed and finished before being cut, stitched and sold. Transport often links each phase and water and chemicals prop up the whole process. Locked in every garment are fibres that tell a story of ecological impact. In 17th century Europe, being at the height of fashion signalled status and either wealth or heavy debt. Now, it can mean a short trip to the High Street and spare change from a ten-

pound note – and an unhealthy detachment from the systems behind our garments. “Everyone gets the idea that flying apples from New Zealand is bonkers, but they don’t grasp the same idea with Indian cotton. If something is cheap, either natural resources or someone making it is probably being exploited,” says John-Paul Flintoff, author of Sew Your Own. Like Dr Kate Fletcher, he is chipping away at the coalface of popular conscience. Fletcher, reader in sustainable fashion at the London College of Fashion, believes that the real key to sustainability is variety: “The market is dominated by cotton and polyester. We need real ➤

32 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

Pachacuti uses sustainably harvested toquilla palm for its Ecuadorian panama hats (above left, opposite left and centre). Top right: American star Anne Hathaway wears a milk-fibre Mr Larkin dress. Inset: Designer Saara Lepokorpi uses Ingeo, a corn-based biodegradable fabric. Centre left: Maison Gattinoni’s Ingeo kaftan. Bottom left: Komodo organic cotton top. Bottom right: Cotton farms account for 10% of all herbicide and 20-25% of insecticide use, despite covering only a few percent of the world’s cultivable soils

Katherine Welles; Stefano Alegnini; Mario Sorrenti; Photo courtesy of Danish Fashion Institute

[ intelligenceliving ]

substitutes that broaden choice for consumers and promote diversity so that we’re not putting all our eggs in one basket.” And to do this, we must begin by dismissing pitching ‘natural’ against ‘man-made’ when asking which is better for the planet. “There’s no cut and dried answer. It is so complex that to draw a simple conclusion would be to miss most of the important issues,” says Fletcher. “You have to ask yourself what it is that you’re trying to achieve. Less energy? Less water? It’s a false choice to compare natural to man-made.” Some impacts are obvious – fur, for example – but most fibres are so inherently tied to the system in which they comprise only a part that the environmental impacts are hidden. Answers are surprisingly counter-intuitive; as Fletcher puts it: “We have to stop perpetuating the myth that natural equals eco.”

Natural /////////////////////////////// Cotton comprises about one third of the world’s fibre production. It’s renewable, biodegradable and easy to harvest and spin. But the UN estimates that

it takes 760 litres of water to produce an average cotton t-shirt, plus litres of pesticides (including Aldicarb, a powerful nerve agent), fertilisers, defoliants and dye. Its monoculture has wiped biodiversity off the map in swathes of the USA, China and India and – among other dubious responsibilities – is accountable for the devastating loss of the Aral Sea in Central Asia. Organic cotton, on the other hand, shows real signs of promise. Prince Charles supports wool as a more sustainable natural fibre, but even here there are complications and sometimes downsides. Researchers have calculated that it takes 685,000 litres of water to feed the sheep and scour the fleece to make just one suit. On top of this, there are methane emissions, soil erosion and pesticides to consider. Organic wool, currently expensive and rare, has impressive benefits, as does recycled wool, particularly as a substitute to polyester, technical and heavyweight fabrics. Bamboo is far from innocent. It scores well as a crop, sequestering carbon, preventing soil erosion and growing at breakneck speed (even without pesticides and fertilisers its yield is ten times that of cotton), but – and ➤

34 National Geographic Green | autumn 2010

Left: Reading the labels: one of the most common eco-labels found in Europe is the Oeko-Tex Standard 100 mark, which looks particularly at health standards. MADE-BY is an independent consumer label for fashion companies which are transparent about the social, economic and ecological conditions throughout their whole supply chain. If a garment carries the Fairtrade mark, processors and manufacturers have produced evidence that labour rights have been respected

Wear it well ♦B uy stuff that is easy to wash and dry ♦ Buy stuff that is built to last ♦ Wear it and use it until it falls apart, or pass it on ♦ Buy second-hand ♦ Repair things rather than throw out ♦ Donate or recycle clothing rather than putting it in the bin ♦ Favour synthetic fibres over natural ones Tips for keeping the total impact of your clothing to a minimum from How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything, by Mike Berners-Lee (£8.99, Profile Books)

[ intelligenceliving ]

there’s always a but – it requires vast amounts of caustic soda, carbon disulfide (which can cause chronic nervous system damage) and bleach to create soft, usable viscose yarn. Organic bamboo is broken down with enzymes and is prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to produce, but as a fabric is very durable. Linen from flax scores plus points, but hemp, fast-growing and fibre-rich, is blighted by legal issues and pollution from ‘retting’ (a fibre-separation process) cellulose from the plant. Silk, while not a major concern, is expensive to produce and farmed silk is hardly environmentally neutral – 2,600 silkworms die to make just 400g of raw silk.

Synthetic man-made ///////////////////////////////

Natural man-made /////////////////////////////// As technology develops, boundaries between man-made and natural fibres are rapidly blurring. Science is leaps ahead of what we constitute as ‘wearable’. Coconut, rice straw, chicken feathers, seaweed (SeaCell, from Germany, even claims to nourish and moisturise the skin), soya, peat, peanuts, milk and nettle – even paper – are all being investigated as renewable fibres but most require considerable research and development before becoming mainstream. “Recycled synthetics are much more promising than virgin materials,” says Fletcher, who is also excited by Lyocell, a fabric better known by its brand name Tencel, made from eucalyptus. It is carbon neutral and is made in a closed-circuit system, with 99.5% of the solvent used in the cellulose extraction recycled. The consumer, however, must absorb its high costs. A corn-based biodegradable fabric called Ingeo (as experimented with by Versace) and natural fibre-based Cupro (derived from the waste products in the cotton industry) are not panaceas. Utterly compromised by the lack of infrastructure available to provide ideal conditions for its decomposition, Ingeo’s addition to landfill causes the potential emission of more methane than a polyester shirt lying inert next to it. ➤

36 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

Eco vogue at Tesco Established ethical fashion label ‘From Somewhere’ launched its first collaborative ‘upcycling’ range with Tesco earlier this year. (Styles shown here are from the first collection.) The diffusion line, called ‘From Somewhere to F&F,’ uses recycled, obsolete or waste textile stock, which would otherwise be burned or buried in landfill sites. Its designer Orsola de Castro (right) told us, “We’ve always been about infiltrating – if you’re isolated, you don’t take it further. The bad guys are looking to me for solutions – it’s a victory for the sustainability movement. “It is a way of managing waste in a creative way, rather than pretending the problem doesn’t exist.” Buy online from tesco.com/ clothing, in sizes 8-18. Prices from £16.

nico dattani

Polyester, comprising 40% of all fibres produced, is the world’s largest fibre group. It depends upon oil and is energy-hungry. It takes heavy metal cobalt, manganese salts, sodium bromide and more nasties to extract, yet its water consumption during production is negligible and it has huge recycling potential. Recycling polyester consumes around 75% less energy and emits 71% less carbon than making virgin material – not much use, however, if recycling facilities are scarce. “It’s not that recycling polyester is too expensive, it’s that virgin polyester is too cheap,” says Fletcher. “It’s cheaper to buy oil than to recycle bottles. The true costs of oil aren’t factored in.” Her words are well-timed – as Green goes to press, Deep Horizon belches crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Nylon and acrylic both take vast amounts of energy to produce while acrylic has the added

disadvantage of massive water consumption and nylon emits potent GHG, nitrous oxide. It takes 157mj (megajoules) to produce 1kg of acrylic – compared to 150mj for nylon, 109mj for polyester and 50mj for cotton. For those in doubt, polyviscose is just plain bad news says Fletcher.

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[ intelligenceliving ]

So, I ask Fletcher, are there any fibres the eco-aware should outright avoid? “Virgin materials, viscose, acrylic and there’s no way PVC should be used.” Beyond these concerns, the greenness of fibres gets more complex still. Ethical fashion company Pachacuti, which works with alpaca for its knitwear and the toquilla palm for its panama hats, was the world’s first company to label all of its products ‘Certified Fair Trade and Sustainable’. The founder, Carry Somers, says that 90% of the CO2 impact of clothing is post sale, in the ‘use phase’. Designing with alpaca wool, which naturally repels odours and stains, minimises use phases. In his newly-published, How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything, Mike BernersLee found the carbon footprint of his jeans to be 6kg CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) compared to 3kg for his nylon trousers.

Simply put, nylon will last longer and wash and dry quicker. Fletcher envisages a time when all impacts across all garments’ life cycles are considered from the design table – when ecologically intelligent design dwarfs fast, passive fashion. Orsola de Castro, founder of London Fashion Week’s ethical branch, Estethica, and the ‘From Somewhere’ label told me “The fashion industry has been complacent: change is mandatory.” While she has seen eco fashion and diverse use of fibres gain momentum – “it’s amazing to watch the ugly duckling turn into the beautiful swan” – they remain the costlier option. US designer Casey Larkin, whose milk-fibre Mr Larkin dress label has received red-carpet plaudits, told me, “I have to dedicate added time into knowing sources, mills, processes, finishings – and make sure they meet my code of standards.” But mills are expanding their product

great Autumn eco buys

ranges and de Castro believes that now “there is more support and knowledge” than ever. Where compassionate designers tread, a new breed of ethical standards steps in parallel tracks. Look out for Oeko-Tex, Made-By and Fairtrade labels – proof of a fibre’s provenance. And a foolproof tactic for next time you shop? According to Somers, “consumers should think about how long the garment they’re buying will last and how much wear they’ll get out of it. Ultimately, it may be better to spend £100 rather than £10.” We could do worse than taking a leaf out of Fletcher’s book. “Choose something that you feel a real connection to and have an emotional link with. Fashion isn’t just about purchasing, looking and styling – it may help consumers’ understanding and connects with who we are as people.” Your outfit is more than the sum of its fibres. Contact and source details: page 92

3 4

1. Good jacket: Yorkshire wool by Izzy Lane, from £75, izzylane.com. 2. Good dress: such as one from People Tree, from £65, peopletree.co.uk. 3. Good jeans: Monkee Genes, made from fully organic bamboo fabric, approved by the Soil Association, £50, asos.com or see monkeegenes.co.uk. 4. Good separates: Zadig Oversize organic cotton knit jumper, £55, Locus hemp weave trousers, £60, Komodo, a member of MADE-BY, komodo.co.uk. 5. Good shirt: in cotton poplin, ¤67, from Fairtradecertified Article 23, article-23.com. Stockists and mail order: see websites

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 39

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How a fuel supplier set a new standard for sugar cane workers Three years ago, renewable fuels supplier Greenergy decided to tackle the lack of an international standard for sustainable bioethanol by devising its own. Now, more than 5,000 miles from the firmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s head office in Britain, workers in the field in Brazil are reaping the benefits

n many regions of Brazil, sugar mills are the only significant employer and underpin the local economy. They provide the bioethanol that powers most of Brazilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cars and makes up an everincreasing percentage of whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in your own petrol tank. Bioethanol is a multi-billion dollar, global concern attracting vast investment. Yet, back in the fields, some long-standing practices still remain. At a mill where sugar cane is still harvested by hand, workers

set fire to the cane to remove the leaves so it can be hacked more easily with a machete. The process produces hazardous smoke as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Now, though, times are changing. Thanks to a self-starting initiative at the head office of British biofuel supplier Greenergy and to the positive response of its Brazilian suppliers, a mill has agreed to accelerate its plans to phase out burning, moving instead to mechanised harvesting in line with legislative requirements.

National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

A Special Report prepared by Greenergy

In the fast-growing bioethanol industry, Greenergy is working hard to phase out some environmentally unfriendly practices such as burning sugar cane (above left), and is committed to ensuring workers’ rights are protected (above right)

Elsewhere, other initiatives are underway. Another mill has agreed to switch from a non-selective herbicide to less harmful, specific-purpose products. A further mill has invested in personal protective equipment held in the chemical storerooms. For Greenergy, the catalyst for change was the British government’s Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO), a law that requires UK suppliers of road fuel to include a mandated percentage of renewable fuel in every ➜

A Special Report prepared by Greenergy

“ we’re not in sustainability to pay lip-service to the concept: we’re backing up the ideal with real action to bring real benefits ” tank. Greenergy, a burgeoning fuels supplier founded on sustainability principles, decided that the government had fallen short by not including criteria for determining whether sugarcane biofuel – the source of most of Greenergy’s bioethanol – was truly sustainable as well as simply renewable. So Greenergy, working with organisations such as ProForest, WWF Brazil and UTZ Certified, developed a set of criteria of its own. The result was a 30page document of sustainability criteria based on the RTFO requirements, covering everything from carbon conservation to land rights and community relations. Greenergy spent 2007 field-testing its new standard onsite in Brazil, before publishing it as an open document and rolling it out to its supplier mills. After much dialogue, action plans for improvement were hammered out and third-party audits were booked. Greenergy took a carrot-and-stick approach from the outset, covering the costs of the auditing and support processes while stressing a firm stance towards non-compliers. The standards are exacting. Field workers must have their

contracts verified independently to ensure compliance with national law on workers’ rights. High conservation value areas must be identified and incorporated into all future development plans and operations. Evidence must be gathered

Greenergy insists on compliance with workers’ rights legislation

to show that newly-planted land can ‘pay back’ the carbon debt of converting it within ten years. Child workers under 16, unless they’re official apprentices or family members on family farms, are banned. The uptake has been impressively rapid. Some mills have had far-reaching sustainability programmes in place for some time, but at others the approach is less formalised. “We embrace those mills that are further ahead in the process and support others

National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

A Special Report prepared by Greenergy

Sugarcane suppliers must also protect biodiversity by setting aside land to form nature reserves with native trees

in putting together the necessary change,” says Greenergy’s chief executive, Andrew Owens. “But if significant non-conformances are found that the mill is unwilling to address, we take our business elsewhere. We’re not in sustainability to pay lip-service to the concept: we’re backing up the ideal with real action so that people experience real benefits.” In Brazil, where mill workers are cooling off in new sun shelters, where others are checking fire extinguishers on all transport

and machinery, and where Permanent Preservation Areas are being established to reforest local areas with native trees, those real benefits are making themselves more apparent every day. ■ Greenergy www.greenergy.com 198 High Holborn London WC1V 7BD

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[ intelligencebusiness ] Images from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which runs thousands of field projects around the world to manage natural environments better

IUCN/Intu Boedhihartono

GREEN PATHS Business can’t function if ecosystems and the services they deliver – like water, biodiversity, food and climate – are degraded or out of balance. Craig Bennett finds out if looking after these assets is on corporate agendas

ne thing I have learned while working with businesses on environmental issues is that it is critical to translate everything into the language of business risk and opportunity. In the case of climate change, this is straightforward: one of the main risks to companies is higher fuel bills, for example, and one of the most important opportunities is to reduce costs through investments in energy efficiency. With biodiversity issues, the connections have often seemed far less direct. But as our understanding of how biodiversity and ecosystems support our economy increases,

so the business community is starting to recognise that there is a growing need for integrating environmentally sound choices into supply-chain management. Sections of the retail industry have long been at the forefront of this. This is partly because they are susceptible to consumer and activist pressure, but also because their supply chains help them join the dots back to the natural environment. The global home improvement retailer Kingfisher, which includes B&Q on its balance sheet, is widely recognised as a leading proponent through its commitments to source timber responsibly, phase out unsustainable peat ➤

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 45

products, and other initiatives. Says its CEO, Ian Cheshire, “In the early 1990s, our focus was on how we could ensure security of supply of key materials such as timber. But we quickly learned it was not good enough to think just about how the forestry was sustained. What about the biodiversity, the local communities, and so on? If we look at timber and palm oil issues very narrowly, plantations look okay. But the moment we look at them more broadly, they are clearly not.” This line of thinking has led to initiatives to design more sustainable supply chains for specific product types, such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) for timber, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, and the Marine Stewardship Council for fish, to name but a few, and it is likely that many more will emerge over the coming years. The Plan A scheme by Marks & Spencer contains 20 pledges designed to improve the sustainability of the raw materials used in its products and operations, ranging from cotton, timber, palm oil and fish, to reducing usage of water and pesticides, many of which will need to be delivered through the development of such cross-sector initiatives. Many retailers would be the first to admit that there is still a lot more to do and there is growing frustration at the failure of governments to introduce the regulatory frameworks required to go further, whether in regard to individual product types or the business of valuing biodiversity

more generally. Earlier this year, for example, four retailers (Carrefour, IKEA, Kingfisher and Marks & Spencer) joined forces to call on the European Union to ban the import of illegally sourced tropical timber. Their call recognised that labelling schemes such as the FSC can only go so far, and the business-critical nature of their advocacy was clear. Mikael Ohlsson, CEO and president of the IKEA Group, expressed this at the launch of the new initiative: “Wood is one of the most important raw materials for IKEA. It is an excellent choice from an environmental point of view, provided it comes from responsibly managed forests. We have worked for almost ten years to curb illegal logging, increasing the share of wood coming from responsibly managed forests. It is now important that decisionmakers take their responsibility, and act to introduce strong and efficient legislation.” A major new UN study, two years in the making, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), led by the leading economist and senior banker Pavan Sukhdev, estimates the economic value of what nature provides for free – and which has rarely been taken into account in business decision-making. Its opening salvo sums up the ➤

Top: Ian Cheshire, chief executive of the Kingfisher retail group Centre: Mikael Ohlsson, president and CEO of the IKEA Group

46 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

“ Business needs to begin to draw the dots between natural resources, their supply chain, consumer demand and the future value of their business. Like the impact of the recession, there is simply no sector that will be immune to biodiversity and ecosystem loss. The level of financial, reputational and business risk it poses is of a scale that would not be ignored in any other area of business and the economy. ”

Malcolm Preston, partner, sustainability and climate change, PricewaterhouseCoopers

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[ intelligencebusiness ]

Below: Economist and banker Pavan Sukhdev, who has been leading The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity study

case: “The steady loss of forests, soils, wetlands and coral reefs is closely tied to this economic invisibility. So too are the losses of species and of productive assets like fisheries, driven partly by ignoring values beyond immediate and private. We are running down our natural capital stock without understanding the value of what we are losing.” Sukhdev’s team has systematically calculated the economic significance of conserving hundreds of different ecosystem types around the world and many will find the results surprising. Take, for example, Muthurajawela Marsh, a coastal wetland in a densely populated area of Sri Lanka. The TEEB study calculates that the ‘provisioning services’ (such as agriculture, fishing and fuel-wood) raise a local income of around US$150 (£102) per hectare per year, but this is dwarfed by the ecosystem’s value in preventing flooding over a much wider area, which is worth around US$1,900 (£1,288) per hectare per year, while its role in treating industrial and domestic wastewater is worth around US$650 (£441). In another study, the value of the ecosystem services provided by coral reefs is estimated at around US$189,000 (£128,149) per hectare per year for storm protection, around US$1m (£0.67m) for tourism, around US$57,000 (£38,648) for genetic materials and bioprospecting, and up to US$3,800 (£2,576) for fisheries. But it is the TEEB study’s figures for the global value of ecosystems

that is set to transform the conservation policy debate. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change shook business and political leaders when it estimated that the cost of tackling climate change would be in the region of 1-2% of annual global wealth, but that the longer term benefits would be five to 20 times that figure. The indications are that Sukhdev’s team will conclude that the costs of protecting the planet’s ecosystems will be higher, but so will the benefits; between ten and 100 times the cost of protection. “This constant debate about should we have development or should we have environment is rubbish,” says Sukhdev. “In fact, you either have both or you have neither.” Yet developing a policy or business agenda to address adequately the conclusions of TEEB will not be easy. “I grew up close to rain forest in my early teens. It left an indelible mark on my consciousness,” says Kingfisher’s Cheshire. “But most consumers find this issue a lot more remote than climate change. They are not sure how it affects them. Climate change has local manifestations, but with biodiversity, the impact is often on the other side of the world. People don’t really see a causal link of their actions and consumer choices. We need governments to help the public and consumers understand the link. And we need governments to create the mechanisms that are needed to realise the real value of biodiversity.” Craig Bennett is deputy director at the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership Contact and source details: page 92

48 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

“ Environmental destruction is not in most cases as a result of headlinegrabbing man-made disasters, but the steady erosion of biodiversity as a cost of economic development. But these costs to the productive capacity of the economy are not valued and not felt by any one company, so it’s easy to see why the threat is less visible to business leaders. ”

Jon Williams, partner, sustainability and climate change, PricewaterhouseCoopers

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a stylish weekend away in Norfolk at opulent and award-winning Strattons, from Mr & Mrs Smith The hotel’s eco credentials are also worth shouting about: bath products are in refillable pump dispensers; lowenergy bulbs constitute 70 per cent of the lighting; rooms have Carbon Trust thermostats; toilets use 20 per cent less water and the garden is a haven for local wildlife. The prize includes two nights’ bed and breakfast (based on a couple sharing a room) and dinner for two on one night of the stay.

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who are the

green heroEs? S Help us to recognise those working hardest for a greener future

ustainability issues involve each and every one of us. There is no single solution, nor can any one company, government or organisation tackle these challenges on their own. But great things are happening, and in lots of different places. The aim of the inaugural People and Environment Achievement (PEA) Awards is to highlight the inspiration and innovation pushing at the boundaries. Ten categories will recognise how

We should recognise people and reward them for finding alternative ways of living. If we work with nature rather than abusing it, we all reap the benefits.” Jo Wood, PEA Award judge

progress is being made, including in sectors that are often not seen as at the cutting edge of green transformations. For instance, there will be an award for efforts in the arts: a neglected area for green action, especially considering how leaders in this field inspire millions of us. The transition to a more sustainable world offers huge business opportunities and we want to know who is rising to the challenge. We need you to tell the PEA judges who you believe deserves recognition. Editor of Green Tony Juniper is chair of the judging panel, which also includes Josephine Fairley, co-founder of Green & Black’s; Richard Hammond, founder of greentraveller.co.uk; Rebecca Hill, international marketing director at National Geographic magazine; Leo Johnson, co-founder of Sustainable Finance (which advises over 50 leading financial institutions and businesses and is now a part of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Group; and organic entrepreneur Jo Wood. Awards will be presented at a ‘green carpet’ ceremony at the National Geographic store in London’s Regent Street next March. Readers of this magazine are invited too: all the details are on the website.

The PEA Awards get to the heart of the problem: we all have the chance for a colossal passing of the buck. Individuals can point the finger at polluting businesses. Businesses can blame governments and the lack of binding regulation. Governments can point back to the individuals and say it’s not what the voters have asked for. The PEA Awards acknowledge that we need everyone to work together and for individual leaders to create the points of inflection that direct their organisations towards sustainability.” Leo Johnson, PEA Award judge

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“At Simply we are proud to be the only UK laundry detergent company awarded the Eco label, by Defra, given to those products with outstanding environmental credentials which also deliver first class results. We applaud Green for informing people about the vital issues which affect the future of the planet. By sponsoring the Best Earth Saving Idea category of the PEA Awards we are pleased to help to recognise the exceptional achievements of others who are working for a greener future.” Gerry Hinton, CEO (simplywashing.com)

“Sponsoring the Entrepreneur of the Year category of the Awards is a reflection of Isklar’s efforts to be as environmentally responsible as possible. As a CarbonNeutral® product and company, we have been involved with Green since its inception and are excited and encouraged by the positive feedback we have received. Isklar, launched in 2008, is only starting its journey, but in common with the Awards, we are committed to making a positive contribution to the health of the planet.” Aoife Burnell-Smith, Marketing Director (isklar.no)

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pea awards

[ intelligencegardening ]

Natural Order Cut out the chemical warfare, says Alys Fowler of Gardeners’ World, and you create a more hospitable garden for nature to do its work

Photographs SIMON WHEELER

here is a moment in every gardening day that I love best. You never know when it will come and it can happen at any time. You stick your head up from an all-engrossing task and there it is, that moment when nature gets you. I’ve watched butterflies take their first tentative flutters, seen a robin with a beak full of insects, its nest squawking above my head, watched a slow worm slink by. I’ve seen newts dive-bomb through tadpoles for supper and been made to jump out of my skin by an unexpected frog hop. These are the times when you realise that it is not just your garden, but a home, a world even, to a million others. The thing about nature is you don’t just get the bits you like without having a fair few bits you could do without – the slugs, aphids, blights, fungi, midges and flies. You can, by all means, try to eliminate the parts that bother you, but it’s an endless and rather thankless task: once one goes, something else will fill its place. And it’s the latter that matters. Wildlife gardening is about embracing the balance and seeing your garden as more than the sum of its parts. There are over 15 million back gardens in Britain. That’s a huge patchwork blanket that all sorts of animals, insects, bacteria, fungi

and moulds call home. Many creatures that are in decline in rural areas, such as the common frog, thrush and hedgehog, are perfectly at home in a back garden, whether it’s in suburbia or the city centre. The more you invite in, the better the garden works: thrushes eat snails, frogs love slugs, earwigs eat aphids. There are several things that you can do to help this balance along. First, get a compost heap. It is one of the most useful wildlife habitats and a great soil improver. Plants that are grown in good, nutrient-rich soil, rather than force-fed on man-made plant food, are more likely to

52 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

withstand pest problems. Sure, they might be nibbled, but they have plenty of good energy to grow through that. A compost heap is also home to many insects, beetles in particular. Beetles love the compost heap because it’s so very close to their natural habitats – decaying fungi, dead wood, carrion and old birds’ nests. Rove beetles are most likely to be found in your compost heap. And rove beetles’ favourite food? Slugs. So in ➤

For a wildlife rich garden, embrace diversity. Growing flowers among your vegetables can attract beneficial insects such as hoverflies

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 53

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[ intelligencegardening ]

Simon Wheeler; froglife.org; Lars Karlsson

“ Don’t over tidy, particularly in the autumn ”

one way a compost heap is just a great big slug trap. Second, build a pond – or at least persuade your neighbour to do so. The creatures that live in ponds can’t live elsewhere. No pond, no newts, backswimmers, fresh water mussels, caddis flies, dragonflies, damsels or mayfly larvae. A pond ups your biodiversity hugely and with a pond you always get frogs. And frogs eat slugs. The very best pond has lots of vegetation (egg laying spaces) and no fish. A pond with fish is a pretty but dull pond. Fish, particularly big carp, eat most of the other creatures’ eggs and a lot of vegetation.

Third, embrace diversity. Grow lots and lots of everything. A wildlife rich garden has varied plant architecture. Birds like trees, hedgehogs like shrubs, insects like everything. The more varied heights across the garden, the more different insects you’ll have. It’s a myth that plants need to be native to attract insects. The truth is that insects can’t tell a foreign plant from a native one, though they can tell a pollen or nectar-rich flower from a barren one. Highly over-bred double flowers tend to have little or no food for wildlife. Look for simple flowers, go for ones with ➤

Top: The benefits of compost – Alys Fowler’s lush garden in September. Above: Encourage pest eaters like hedgehogs or pond-dwelling newts

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 55

CHARITY PROMOTION

TREE TREE BY

Project GreenHands in India is fighting to stop the catastrophic effects of climate change and rebuild biodiversity

Yogi, humanitarian and environmentalist Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is committed to the protection of the planet. He set up the Isha Foundation in Tamil Nadu in 1992 to promote self-enlightenment through yoga, and he set up Project GreenHands about six years later. But what inspired the highlyrevered mystic to pick up the ‘green’ gauntlet to begin with? Sadhguru explains: “In 1998 experts predicted that by 2025 60% of Tamil Nadu would be desert. So I decided to drive across Tamil Nadu to see for myself if it was true… And I realised they were wrong because it would happen much, much faster.” Sadhguru began to, quite literally, rebuild the natural world tree by tree. “From 1998 to 2003 I went about planting trees in people’s minds,” says the characteristically cryptic guru, “and since 2004 we’ve been transplanting those trees back into the ground.” With no investment and little infrastructure, critics applauded the resourcefulness of Project GreenHands, which has seen 1.4 million people involved in planting trees in the last four years. In 2008 it won India’s most prestigious environmental award from the national government, the Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Puraskar. Through his spiritual practices and environmentalism, Sadhguru is attempting to rebuild the relationship between man and nature in the face of impending climate catastrophe. “Getting the greenery back, reclaiming the world and making it to some extent the way it was, doesn’t take any great effort,” he says. “It just needs a committed effort. It’s time for world leaders to come together and make a stand.”

Hear Sadhguru Vasudev, head of The Isha Foundation and founder of Project GreenHands, and Jarvis Smith, publishing director at King Lion Media, discuss the links between environmentalism and spirituality at www.greennatgeo.co.uk/trees

[ intelligencegardening ]

Yellowj; SHEBEKO; robag

scent (a sign of nectar) and go wild – the more the merrier. Insect-friendly plants include the early flowering Pulmonaria, ice plant (Sedum spectabile), marigolds (Calendula officinalis), cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus), poached egg plants (Limnanthes douglasii), honesty (Lunaria annua), poppies, daisies, roses, red currants and perennial candytuft (Iberis sempervirens). These will bring in bees to pollinate your plants, hoverflies and ladybirds to eat your aphids and caterpillars to feed the birds. A few more words of advice. Don’t get hung up on straight lines. A perfect row of lettuce is a mental state, not a reality! A straight row is very easy to disrupt; it just takes one slug to eat through the middle and you are at war. Try blocks, particularly for things like carrots and cut and come again lettuce – the slugs might nibble the edges but rarely get to the middle. Keep the soil dry between plants by spot watering as slugs don’t like to travel across very dry ground and compost any old or tattered leaves as these are easy slug bait. Don’t over tidy, particularly in the autumn. For years gardening books have told us to sweep up every leaf going and cut back

every dead stem. Don’t do it. You can spend a fortune on ‘bug hotels’ and ‘bee homes’ but if you want to home these guys, just leave some dead stems up during winter and allow the leaves to rot down naturally as many insects overwinter in dead plant material. Thick layers of wet leaves won’t help your plants much, so remove the leaves from around the crowns of plants, but leave the rest. It’s often stated that you tidy up in autumn to help keep away pests and diseases, but really we do it because we’ve been conditioned to think it looks nice. What really looked nice were the blue tits eating off the seed heads of my Verbena bonariensis last winter. Many plants survive harsh winters better with their dead stems on as they add another layer of protection against frosts. Once spring has woken up the garden you can tidy any old stems and unrotted leaves. Further reading: No Nettles Required: The Truth About Wildlife Gardening, by Ken Thompson (£7.99, Eden Project Books) Alys Fowler’s most recent book is The Edible Garden: How to Have Your Garden and Eat It (£18.99, BBC Books)

Insect-friendly plants bring in bees to pollinate your garden, ladybirds to eat your aphids and caterpillars to feed the birds

CHEMICAL FREE gardening Some pest controls I like

• Used coffee grounds are excellent at keeping slugs at bay. Sprinkle a thin layer but in a wide area around things you love. • A milky solution sprayed onto plants will discourage mildews by making the surface more alkaline, which mildews can’t tolerate. • Spider mite is easily discouraged with water. The more humid the conditions, the better. Regularly spray plants with water, making sure to saturate the underside of leaves. • Carrot fly are actually not that good at flying. A barrier 2ft high will stop them dead as they can only fly along the ground. • If your house plants get covered in bugs, give them a good blast in the shower. It’s amazing how many insects you can get rid of this way. Make sure you wash under the rim of the pot where many things hide.

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 57

[ intelligencefood ]

LESS IS MORE A little meat can go a deliciously long way. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall gets creative with leftovers

The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan wrote “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” And he’s right. We shouldn’t be thinking meat and two veg. We should be thinking veg, fruit, nuts, pulses, wild and foraged food, oh and perhaps a little meat. When we buy meat, we should buy the best we can afford, ideally organic, and as near to its source as possible. And we shouldn’t waste a scrap. For example, after you’ve tucked into your roast chicken, remove every last morsel left on the bird and transform it into salads, soups, pasta sauces or risottos. Turn the carcass into stock. If you’re feeding four people, one steak can make a wonderful salad or stir fry to feed everyone. Do what our grandmothers did and turn leftover lamb or beef into shepherd’s or cottage pie. Pulses, mushrooms and nuts (see Mark Diacono’s Plot to Plate pages) are delicious on their own or give

58 National Geographic Green | autumn 2010

more substance to dishes where you’ve been thrifty with the meat. To go alongside our meat, if we’re buying exotics, like the mango and avocado in my salad recipe, make sure they’re Fairtrade which, as well as ensuring a better deal for the growers, take into account environmental concerns. All of these things we can do. Tweaking how we eat only slightly has the potential to make a huge impact globally. And we can do it without any sense of deprivation. I know. I’ve tasted the future and it’s delicious. For a signed copy of Hugh’s book, River Cottage Every Day, go to www.rivercottage.net

Mango, Avocado and Steak Salad Recipe on page 61 ➤

CHANNEL 4 (Photograph of Hugh); Colin Campbell (main photograph)

e’re possibly the first generation to expect to be able to eat meat at every meal. It’s never been cheaper, relatively, and yet the cost to the environment has never been greater. Earlier this year, the Soil Association declared that the UK needs to cut its consumption of poultry and pork by 75% if we are to meet targets to cut carbon emissions. Policy director Peter Melchett said consumers needed to eat less meat if the UK had any chance of feeding itself in an environmentally sustainable way. The behemoth of intensive, industrialised farming, with its dependence on fossil fuels and synthetic fertilizers, has a profoundly adverse effect on soil fertility and damages natural habitats. So what can we do if we wish to continue to eat meat? Well, for a start, we need to eat less of it and relish every single mouthful for the luxurious treat that it is, or should be. In his 2006 book,

WE CARE ABOUT OUR ENVIRONMENT And we know you do too. That’s why we’ve made it our mission to protect our island, Fuerteventura, as much as we can. Not only are our pools heated by solar energy, but the garden illumination is regulated by an automatic electronic system and we only use ecological products in our launderette. Also, due to a lack of natural water resources, we try to reduce the consumption of water however possible through initiatives like watering our gardens using recycled water and a water-saving system in the toilets and showers. But we still need your help!

For our new ecological project - 1€ a week pool towel hire - we will donate 50% of proceeds to the Voluntary Environment Association of Fuerteventura. This way we can support the protection of the “guirre” (national bird) and help to reintroduce the “tortuga boba” (tortoise) in Fuerteventura’s wildlife.

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[ intelligencefood ]

Mango, Avocado and Steak Salad One good piece of steak is enough to make a delicious salad for four. 2 garlic cloves, finely minced 1 tbsp oyster sauce 1 tbsp dry sherry 2 tsp soy sauce 1 tsp light muscovado sugar 1 tsp grated fresh ginger 350g sirloin or fillet steak 1 large, ripe mango 1 large, ripe avocado or 2 smaller ones A couple of handfuls of rocket A small bunch of coriander leaves

COLIN CAMPBELL

For the dressing: 2 tbsp Thai fish sauce (nam pla) 1 tbsp sesame oil Juice of a lime 1 tbsp soy sauce 1 tsp light muscovado sugar 1 small red chilli, halved, deseeded and finely sliced 1 garlic clove, finely minced Salt and freshly ground black pepper Whisk together the garlic, oyster sauce, sherry, soy sauce, sugar and ginger with a pinch of salt and some black pepper; add the steak and rub in the marinade with your hands until the meat is well coated. Marinate for 30 minutes to an hour. Peel the mango, cut the flesh away from the stone and chop into long, thin slices. Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing. Heat a ridged griddle pan or frying pan until very hot. Sear the steak for two to four minutes per side depending on thickness, so it’s browned on the outside and pink in the middle. Rest on a warm plate for five minutes; slice thinly. Cut the avocado into thin pieces. Arrange the rocket on a large platter. Place the steak, mango and avocado on the rocket, trickle the dressing and any juices from the pan over the top, scatter over the coriander and serve.

Chicken, Spelt and Kale Soup Once you’ve enjoyed your roast chicken, turn a chicken carcass and any scraps of meat into this wonderful soup. For the stock: 1 cooked chicken carcass The chicken’s neck and giblets, if possible (but not the liver; save it for sautéeing) 1-2 onions, roughly chopped 1-2 large carrots, roughly chopped 2 bay leaves A few black peppercorns 3-4 celery sticks, roughly chopped 1 large leek, roughly chopped A few chunks peeled celeriac or parsnip (optional)

1 sprig fresh thyme (optional) A few parsley stalks (optional) For the soup: 1 tbsp olive oil 1 large onion, finely chopped 150g swede, peeled and cut into small dice 150g potatoes, peeled and cut into small dice 150g parsnip, peeled and cut into small dice 150g celeriac, peeled and cut into small dice 1.5 litres chicken stock 100g pearl barley/pearled spelt 1 handful finely shredded kale 1 handful leftover chicken, if you have it, finely shredded Salt and ground black pepper

First make the stock. Tear the carcass into small pieces and cram these, along with any skin, bones, fat, jelly or burnt bits from the roasting tin, into a saucepan. Add the neck and giblets. Add the vegetables and herbs, packing them in so that you need no more than 1.5 litres of cold water just to cover everything. Bring to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for three hours. Top up the water as necessary. Strain through a fine sieve, leave to cool, then chill. To make the soup, heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion and sweat gently until soft and golden. Add the root veg, cover and leave to soften for ten minutes. Add the stock and barley, bring to a simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes, until all the vegetables are tender and the barley is cooked. Toss in the kale and chicken, simmer for a few more minutes and season. Ladle into warmed bowls and serve at once, with thick pieces of toast. ➤

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[ intelligencefood ]

Harira

This hearty Moroccan soup is traditionally served with dates to break the fast during Ramadan. You can certainly make it with fresh meat, but you can also use leftover lamb and chicken. Serves six to eight.

Warm the ghee in a large casserole over a medium heat. Sauté the onions, parsley, celery, pepper and turmeric for four minutes, stirring

62 National Geographic Green | autumn 2010

constantly. Add the cinnamon, ginger, saffron, lamb and chicken, and cook slowly until the meat is golden but not browned – about 15 minutes. Add the chopped coriander, lentils and passata to the pot and cook for 15 minutes over a low heat. Add the chicken stock and a bay leaf, simmer gently, covered, for about 30 minutes, then add the pasta and simmer until the pasta is cooked. In a small bowl, whisk the flour with enough water to create a liquid the consistency of single cream, and tip into the casserole. Stir constantly for five minutes, until thickened. Sprinkle coriander leaves on top and serve at once with dates on the side.

COLIN CAMPBELL

2 tbsp ghee, clarified butter or 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp vegetable oil 2 large onions, peeled and chopped (about 350g) 1 large handful (about 20g) roughly chopped parsley 1 stick celery, finely diced 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper 1 tsp turmeric ½ tsp cinnamon ½ tsp ground ginger

8 threads toasted, crushed saffron 400g lamb or mutton shoulder, cut into 2.5cm chunks 400g chicken, cut into 2.5cm chunks 2 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped 100g dried red lentils 500ml bottle passata 1 litre chicken stock 1 bay leaf 50g vermicelli, orzo or other small pasta 3 tbsp flour 2 tbsp coriander leaves, to garnish Dates, to serve

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[ intelligencefood ]

Plot to plate Climate change is an opportunity to grow different crops, including warm-weather nuts, explains Mark Diacono

Mark Diacono

ven if we become perfectly green tomorrow there’s going to be a certain amount of climate change as a result of our past emissions. If we are imaginative we may use this to our advantage. Even this relatively small change will give us longer, warmer growing seasons and that may allow us to grow some of the foods we normally source from overseas. Nectarines, peaches, olives and apricots are among the fruit that is increasingly viable here, along with all kinds of nuts. This is a big deal: if we can grow ‘foreign’ produce here organically and sell it to a domestic market, we avoid almost all the carbon normally associated with these foods. Given that food accounts for 30% of our carbon footprint, this is good news for the planet. It’s also good news for the punter as, picked at its peak rather than early for transportation, you get the food at its absolute best. Several varieties of nuts are becoming viable in the UK. As well as being entirely delicious and nutritious, they are exactly the sort of low input, high output foods we’ll need to be growing in a low carbon food system.

Walnuts: a great choice for smaller gardens You may occasionally see almonds or walnuts in parks and gardens but they don’t usually flourish: the last frosts often kill off the blossom before it can turn to fruit, and the heat is rarely there to encourage healthy growth. With climate change pushing the last frost back earlier in the year and the arrival of new, later-flowering varieties, both should begin to

deliver in the warm summers to come. Ingrid and Robijn are new, hardy, almond-peach hybrids that flower later than many traditional varieties and the nuts are incredible – like ‘regular’ almonds. You can keep both to small trees or bushes by pruning. New self-fertile and dwarf varieties make walnuts a great choice for smaller gardens, ➤

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 65

[ intelligencefood ]

Almonds could thrive in a warmer, wetter Britain of the near future

fantastic whole; any later and you’ll have to split the young shell to get at the soft centre. In early July, take a knitting needle to a developing walnut – if it doesn’t hit a shell when pushed into the green outer coating you’ve got to it in time. These golf-ball sized beauties are perfect pickled or made into walnut vodka. Dissolve 500g of unrefined sugar in 1 litre of vodka in a large bowl, add a cinnamon stick, a dozen cloves, ½ vanilla pod (split lengthways), and the zest of a lemon. Wash, dry and quarter 30 green walnuts, put them into a large jar, pour in the spicy vodka and seal. Turn the jar over once a day for two months, then let it rest for a month. Pour the liquid into a clean bottle to wait until Christmas, or longer if you can. A dark, sweet-bitter, syrupy liqueur results – perfect served ice cold

66 National Geographic Green | autumn 2010

at the end of a meal as a digestif, or with ice cream. Harvesting green nuts may improve your harvest, too – by leaving the tree more energy for maturing the nuts that follow. If you haven’t the space to grow nuts yourself, why not follow the example of Totnes, Devon, and organise some community planting? In recent years inhabitants of Totnes have been granted permission to plant nut trees in public spaces in and around the town in the hope of making it the nut capital of the country. Why not give them a run for their money? Mark Diacono is head gardener at River Cottage. His latest book, A Taste of the Unexpected, Growing your own Remarkable Fruit, Vegetables, Nuts, Herbs, Spices and Flowers (£20, Quadrille), is published on 17 September.

Mark Diacono

too. No 16 is lateleafing and reliably self fertile, as is Rita, although the latter is a better choice for a smaller space. The nuts themselves are a revelation compared to those in the shops. Almost all the walnuts you can buy are picked in autumn and dried, extending the shelf life but losing some of the texture and depth of flavour. Freshly harvested, green husk removed, fresh (or ‘wet’) walnuts are creamier, richer and more intense than their dried counterparts. They don’t last as long, but as they’re so tasty this usually isn’t an issue. Both almonds and walnuts also give you the chance of sampling an un-buyable treat, picked early and green before the shell forms. Green almonds haven’t had time to develop the characteristic almond flavour – they taste of fresh peas. Get them early in the season and they’re

Join the Green Wine Club and we’ll make it easier for you to find unique, ethical, hand-crafted wines from independent vineyards across the globe. We decode the complicated. Then put wine styles together using colour, so you’ll always find something you love. Earn double Green Wine Club points* when you first order with us, to get up to 50% off your next purchase at www.winesunfurled.co.uk/greenwineclub e: greenwineclub@winesunfurled.co.uk t: 01844 202 606

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Did you know? The world’s most endangered ape is the Hainan gibbon, which is now thought to number less than 20 in the wild. In fact, all known gibbon species are threatened with extinction, including the endangered Lar gibbon shown here. Adopting a rescued gibbon at IPPL’s sanctuary helps us continue our work to protect their relatives in the wild. Adoption includes a photo and profile of your gibbon, a personalised certificate, and triannual newsletters. Adopt a gibbon by visiting www.adoptagibbon.org, posting the completed form below to IPPL (UK), FREEPOST LON 15669, London, SE13 5YZ, or calling 020 8297 2129. Please use BLOCK CAPITALS to complete this form. I would like to adopt: c Whoop-Whoop / c Elizabeth for £24 a year and / or I would like to donate £___________ Title:

Name:

c I enclose a cheque made payable to IPPL (UK) or please debit my: Card type c Visa/Visa Debit c Switch/Maestro c Mastercard Card no. __ __ __ __ / __ __ __ __ / __ __ __ __ / __ __ __ __ Valid from __ __ / __ __ Expiry date __ __ / __ __ Issue no. __ (Switch only)

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[ intelligencedrinks ] The modestly priced Tavernello Italian table wines were the world’s first to be sold in environmentally friendly, recyclable Tetra Pak containers. Its Trebbiano Pinot Bianco and Sangiovese are now available at key Tesco stores

OUT OF THE BOX Susy Atkins considers environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional wine bottles

ou might have noticed your wine bottles getting lighter: as I reported in the last issue, lightweight glass is becoming more common for wine. Glass is glass, and as long as it doesn’t break, lightweight bottles can only be good news to the greener wine drinker. But how do you feel about your wine coming in boxes, pouches, cans, plastic bottles or Tetra Pak? That’s quite a different proposition. Wine buffs, in the main, cherish tradition. In a Which? report I helped write about ten years ago, a panel of expert tasters found

that several light white wines bottled under screw cap were fresher and crisper than similar wines under cork. As part of the report Which? asked a representative group of consumers what they thought of screw caps for wine. Most didn’t like them and I still meet wine drinkers who mistakenly equate screw caps with cheap magnums of pink Lambrusco. So how are consumers dealing with the arrival of other general forms of packaging? Mr Claret Connoisseur Esq, who thinks a screw cap is an abomination, must react with

complete horror when he spots his favourite cuvée in a 1-litre Tetra Pak or a space-age silver pouch. To be honest, that’s unlikely to happen. Posh wines are not yet out of normal glass bottles – there would be too much resistance from customers for that to happen at present, and then there’s the issue of how a fine wine ages when not in glass (badly, I suspect). No, you’ll find only everyday, early-drinking, inexpensive wines in Tetra Pak, pouch, plastic bottle (polyethylene terephthalate, or PET), bagin-box and can. ➤

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 69

[ intelligencedrinks ]

SUSY RECOMMENDS: ■ If you are prepared to enter the weird and wonderful world of different wine packets, then I recommend you start at Waitrose, which has the juicy, dry, grapefruittangy La Baume Sauvignon Blanc, vin de pays d’Oc in 1-litre, ultra-light plastic pouches (£7.59). I’d happily keep this in my fridge as an everyday quaffing white, pairing it with simple seafood and white fish. ■A t Sainsbury’s you’ll find Nottage Hill Chardonnay and Cabernet Shiraz packed in a ‘FreshCase’ – an innovative box (no bag) that keeps these ripe, soft and popular Aussie wines fresh for weeks, and which comes apart into easily recyclable pieces of plastic and card (£17.99 for 2.25 litres). ■ At Tesco, there’s now a reasonably good (though not knockout) New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc in a normal 3-litre bag-in-box. A first for Kiwi Sauvignon, Fern Bay costs £17.99. ■ And at the Co-op, the Fairtrade Chilean wines in a 3-litre bag-in-box deliver fair-quality, modern wines in a clean, easy-going style for £15.99. I marginally prefer the red. The wine industry has been working to reduce packaging, in particular with the government’s waste agency WRAP, through its GlassRite project. For more information visit wrap.org.uk/ retail/materials/glassrite.html

70 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

So how are these products faring? With mixed results, according to Andy Gale, technical manager for Tesco’s beers, wines and spirits: “Tetra Pak wines are selling well, but mainly in our Value line,” he says. “I think because people are used to fruit juice and milk in Tetra Pak, it is accepted for other drinks.” (As long as they’re cheap, by the sound of it…) “Plastic bottles – PET – have proved harder so far,” he continues. “They are convenient for certain occasions; we find people buy them for outdoor events and picnics, but not for their smart dinner parties.” Clearly, the alternatives to glass only make eco sense if people actually get round to recycling them. Good thing, then, there are more opportunities to recycle plastic and Tetra Pak, either on the kerbside or at municipal dumps. Cardboard from bag-in-box wine is, of course, extremely easy to recycle. So, let’s cut to the chase: how green are these other forms of packaging? I asked Gale which he considered the most ecological wine holder. “I can’t tell you,” was his honest reply. “Glass would be right up there, if we get lighter bottles and a high proportion of recycled material in there. The majority of bottles will still remain in glass in the future, but I think we will see more Tetra Pak, and more recycling opportunities for Tetra Pak. We are definitely looking at a broader range of options and there’s a lot of work to be done explaining these to our customers.” Nick Room MW, wine buyer at Waitrose, adds that “there is more potential for sparkling wines in cans as we always expect to pull the tab and get that ‘phush’ from pressurisation.” Waitrose is trialling PET plastic bottles for wine this summer, “linked in to this summer’s season of festivals instore”. If this is successful, you can expect to see more plasticbottled wines in the supermarket next year. In the end, as a wine drinker you need to make up your own mind, and that decision may depend on factors such as: how reliably you recycle; the recycling facilities near you; the way you transport wine from the shop to your home; and how much wine you drink. Is a 3-litre bag-in-box really the best option for a single person who drinks one glass a week? Thought not. Then there’s the question of the quality of the wine you wish to buy. If you favour Tetra Pak, are you prepared to put up with the likes of Tesco’s Value range, and the dubious delights of the Hock and Liebfraumilch that most other retailers package this way? Do you really want to buy bag-in-box if it means poor-quality Californian blush Zinfandel? Again, thought not. Back to glass for many of us. susyatkins.co.uk Contact details: page 92

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[ intelligencelittle green book ]

Dick & James Strawbridge Father and son Dick and James Strawbridge became familiar to television viewers through three series of BBC2’s It’s Not Easy Being Green which followed the family’s progress towards a carbon-neutral lifestyle. They continue to inspire with their eco-courses at Newhouse Farm in Cornwall and their new book Practical Self Sufficiency, which they wrote in response “to all the queries we receive. We firmly believe that anyone can lead a sustainable lifestyle – all that’s needed is the knowledge”. Which is why we asked them to open their address books  The Thoughtful Bread Company

72 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

As smallholders, hens are an essential part of our productivity. The very first hens we kept over 25 years ago were ‘rescued’, so when we moved to Cornwall it was great to have on our doorstep the British Hen Welfare Trust, a national charity that re-homes battery hens as well as educating the public about freerange farming and supporting the British egg industry. Every year Jane Howorth and the team save approximately 60,000 hens from slaughter so they can enjoy a free-range retirement. It’s seriously satisfying to see a bald battery hen scratching around in our willow coppice ➤

Dick (opposite left) and James (opposite right) in the productive Newhouse Farm salad and vegetable garden

We love good food and baking our own fresh bread is part of our weekly routine. Sadly, buying good bread can prove problematic so that’s why Duncan Glendinning founded The Thoughtful Bread Company in Bath, producing tasty artisan breads from local and seasonal ingredients. Duncan runs an extremely sustainable business using biodiesel-fuelled vans for delivery, foraged ingredients and clay earth ovens for cooking. He also runs courses on building earth ovens and has an online shop selling all sorts of homebaker’s paraphernalia. thethoughtfulbreadcompany.com

 British Hen Welfare Trust

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[ intelligencelittle green book ] enjoying its first day of freedom – and the eggs are great too! bhwt.org.uk

 Ecofan We heat our home here in Cornwall using highly-efficient wood-burning stoves. This means that over winter we’re always cutting kindling, splitting logs and lighting fires. The job of preparing wood is a real pleasure, but the hard work makes it essential to get the most out of the wood we burn. Our ‘Ecofans’ (above) sit on top of the stoves, to push the warm air out into the room instead of allowing it to drift upwards. With no batteries included (just a very clever thermaldynamic bridge that generates electricity), the fan spins round and allows us to enjoy the heat on the other side of the room. ecofan.co.uk

 Woolly Shepherd

Danie-Nel

We’ve known Val Grainger, the Woolly Shepherd, for years. She started selling knitting

wool because she noticed that it was almost impossible to buy locally produced woollen garments or products made of wool that had been grown in the region, even though the Blackdown Hills area where she

lives on the Devon/ Somerset border was once a centre of the West Country woollen industry. As well as high quality knitting wool, which is naturally coloured or dyed with plant dyes, Val now also produces sheep’s wool insulation and recycled wool felt to make, for example, yurt linings (below left), rugs and quilt stuffing. Somehow she even has time to run courses on lambing. woollyshepherd.co.uk

significant amount of electricity. At Newhouse Farm we are trying to harness nature in its many forms: solar to produce electricity (called solar photovoltaic or PV) and to heat our water (solar thermal); our waterwheel produces electricity to light the house and we use wind to pump our spring water and to produce electricity for the house. The government’s ‘Feed in Tariffs’ scheme means you

 Bubblehouse Worms When most of us think of compost we imagine an untidy heap at the end of the garden or a line of strange black plastic cones. But you don’t need loads of space to make your own compost, so even if you live in a builtup urban area there’s no excuse. Bubblehouse Worms is a lovely company based in Worcestershire and Woody, the lady who runs it, really does love her worms. They are all locally reared British worms (rather than being imported with all the associated ‘worm miles’) and the wormery bins are made from recycled plastic. You not only create amazing compost, but the top layer is a planter for growing fresh herbs or vegetables. bubblehouseworms.com

 Plug into the sun To live a 21st century lifestyle we end up consuming a

can get paid to make your own electricity so renewables are now more appealing. Getting our solar photovoltaic system (above) was really painless, and there is something about harvesting sunshine that makes us smile. plugintothesun.co.uk More contacts: page 92 Practical Self Sufficiency by Dick and James Strawbridge is published by DK on 1 September, £20. (dk.com). See newhousefarm.tv for more about the Strawbridge home and BBC2’s It’s Not Easy Being Green and practicalselfsufficiency.co.uk for information from the book. (Both sites have details of the various courses run by the Strawbridges.)

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 75

Every year in the UK more than ÂŁ14 billion is spent on materials for home improvement. By re-using materials and buying greener decorating products, we can reduce our impact on the environment. More than 35 million paintbrushes are discarded into toxic landfills every year, in the UK alone. This includes over 24 tonnes of Polypropylene, which with no additives is non-biodegradable, toxic to the environment whilst eroding and can take up to 450 years to degrade (dependent on landfill conditions). Whilst Polypropylene has a number of good uses, its key strengths of durability and resistance to fatigue are its enemy when it comes to biodegrading or recycling. As the importance of sustainability increases, and landfills are no longer a long-term option for waste disposal we need to look at reducing the amount of waste we produce. The most eco-friendly solution would be to reuse products for their life span; research shows that not all decorating products are kept. Keen to address this issue the Harris team developed Down to earth.

Down to earth is manufactured using the best materials and processes available to date. As technology advances we will continue to look at ways in which we can improve our eco-friendly range to make it even more environmentally friendly. If you are looking for a decorating product that is environmentally conscious then Down to earth is the perfect choice. The components of the range are manufactured using either sustainable sources or recycled materials and have been produced to ensure that all parts are biodegradable or recyclable. www.harrisbrushes.com/downtoearth

The Green Goddessn Josephine Fairley’s untainted beauty advice for purists

who’s naturally who: Botanicals Natural Skincare Who: Wendy Stirling (right) founded Botanicals Natural Skincare in a Leicestershire village in 2003, after her nine-yearold daughter suffered an allergy to an apparently ‘herbal’ shampoo. She was surprised to find a list of detergents known to be irritating (SLS and SLES), as well as parabens (chemical preservatives), and so set about developing a range of all-natural, organically-certified alternatives inspired by the English countryside. WHAT THEY BELIEVE: Even though “the jury is out” on the health risks linked to many synthetic and chemical cosmetic ingredients, at Botanicals they believe that “nature really does know best” and it is possible to create products which are as close to nature as possible (as they do in the ‘mixing room’, above). BESTSELLERS: Rose & Camellia Deep Cleansing Melt, £14.50 for 50g and Mint & Tea Tree Foot Balm, £12.95 for 50g, perfect for making tired feet feel instantly like they’ve had 40 winks. RECENT TRIUMPHS: Botanicals swept the board at the 2010 Soil Association Natural and Organic Awards, with the above products winning the Facial Skincare and Bodycare categories. FIND THEM at: botanicals.co.uk. For details of a special Green readers’ offer visit kinglionmedia.com

Take it back! How can beauty companies encourage recycling? One way is to offer incentives to return used bottles to counters. Origins’ ‘Return to Origins Recycling Programme’ rewards customers who bring back empties from any brand – not just Origins – with samples

of new products. Old containers will be sent to Waste Care, which will recycle 96% of empty cosmetic packaging. Another advantage? If you can try before you buy, you’re less likely to make beauty errors – and so waste less. origins.co.uk

TRIED & TESTED after-suns Aloe vera – which can be grown on a kitchen windowsill – is a perfect instant skin-cooler, but it’s hardly practical to pack a plant on your travels. These are the testers’ favourites for soothing sun-exposed skin.

Yin Yang pH-Amino Gold Defence Lotion. Score: 8.3/10 A daily face and body cream packed with antioxidant vitamin E, plus apple cider vinegar to balance the skin’s pH, coconut oil and wheatgerm oil. Comments: “Absorbed amazingly quickly” • “I burned my shoulders in the garden and it relieved my redness”. £16 for 200ml/yinyangskincare.co.uk Green People After Sun. Score: 8.2/10 Cooling action from aloe vera and mint, blended with lavender, rosemary and marigold for a zingy fragrance. Alcohol-free, and organically certified by the Organic Food Federation. Comments: “Softened, soothed and cooled” • “Immediate relief” • “Easy to apply”. £10.99 for 200ml/ greenpeople.co.uk Liz Earle Naturally Active Sun Shade Botanical Aftersun Gel. Score: 7.9/10 Light, cooling gel with antioxidant green tea, pomegranate and natural source vitamin E, to fight free radical damage. Comments: “Soothed tight, hot skin immediately; skin felt moisturised but not sticky” • “Gorgeous smell”. £13 for 200ml/lizearle.com

Josephine Fairley is co-author, with Sarah Stacey, of The Green Beauty Bible, The Ultimate Guide to Being Naturally Gorgeous (£14.99, Kyle Cathie). For further green beauty and wellbeing suggestions, visit beautybible.com/green_pages www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 77

Big, beautiful browses... and satisfying reads

Women harvesting sugar beets near Wismar, Germany (Photograph: Gordon Gahan)

n Simply Beautiful Photographs (£19.99, National Geographic) Award-winning photographer Annie Griffiths Belt has chosen the most appealing photographs (many never previously published) from National Geographic’s renowned Image Collection archive. There are 215 colour and 35 black-and-white photographs of extraordinary landscapes, magnificent wildlife, and fascinating people with each chapter highlighting an aesthetic aspect of an image. Published 19 October. (See also the photo on page 4.)

78 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

Gordon Gahan/SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL/NATIONAL GEOGRaphic; Photolibrary/Britain on View/David Clapp

Ancient Wistman’s Wood, full of miniature oak trees on Dartmoor, one of more than 350 stunning images in Trees by Hugh Johnson (£30, Mitchell Beazley), a completely revised edition of the author’s classic International Book of Trees, which has sold over 700,000 copies and has remained a standard work for more than 30 years. A gorgeous gift for gardeners, nature lovers, botanists and ecologists. Published 4 October.

[ intelligencebooks ]

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC; Jenny Zarins

n In Focus: National Geographic Greatest Portraits (£9.99) National Geographic’s celebrated photographers have taken more pictures of people than of any other subject, from fascinating archival images of tribal leaders, to riveting modern pictures of refugees. Published 21 September. On the cover is Robb Kendrick’s 2003 photograph of a rancher’s daughter in Nevada, USA, using the historic tintype process to create an antique look.

n Bugs Britannica Peter Marren and Richard Mabey (£35, Chatto & Windus) Sea squirts, nimble-dicks, coffincutters, male stag beetles duelling like Sumo wrestlers and a colourful cast of thousands are the stars of this glorious cultural guide to the interaction of creepy crawlies and man. (Richard Mabey is featured on page 88 of this issue.) A stunning companion to the bestselling Flora Britannica and Birds Britannica.

A child in Murmansk, near the Arctic Circle, holds up fingers to indicate her age in response to the photographer Dean Conger’s question (1977)

n The Running Sky Tim Dee (£8.99, Vintage) Acute observation, autobiography and engaging personal reflection mingle in this wonderfully idiosyncratic bird-watching memoir. Says Andrew Motion, former poet laureate: “As we read it we learn a lot about ourselves as well as the fellow creatures flying through, over and around our own lives.”

n Green & Black’s Ultimate edited by Micah Carr-Hill (£16.99, Kyle Cathie) Green & Black’s Head of Taste has collected melt-in-themouth chocolate recipes from fans, friends, celebs and chefs such as Delia Smith and Prue Leith. With luscious photography by Jenny Zarins, this is a tempting follow-up to the now classic Green & Black’s choccie cookbook of seven years ago. Josephine Fairley (co-founder of Green & Black’s and a contributing editor to National Geographic Green) has written a foreword to the book. Published 14 October.

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 79

[ intelligencetravel ]

QUALITY TIME Richard Hammond recommends holidays which make a positive contribution to the environment

80 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

Opposite top: British Trust for Conservation volunteers help bring in the olive harvest in Umbria and enjoy long, home-cooked Italian lunches Opposite bottom: Earthwatch volunteers collect data to help scientists monitor forest ecology in the Jizera Mountains region of the Czech Republic

foto76; BTCV/gemma hall

laire Baylis, 36, from Oxford, gave up a week to help marine scientists monitor dolphins off the coast of Spain: “Whether it was scanning the sea, looking for telltale fins curving through the surf, recording below-the-surface activity or steering the boat itself, tasks were varied and made you feel like you were genuinely contributing. There was a strong ‘mucking in’ mentality onboard, too – you take turns to cook along with everything else – but with the buzz of setting out at sunrise and watching dolphins play at the boat’s bow, none of it felt like work at all. It was an amazing trip and one I’ll never forget.” Claire is not alone in valuing the experience: conservation holidays are now big business and no longer just aimed at gap-year students. Avoiding air travel where possible is one way of curbing harmful effects on the environment, but for many, simply reducing the negative impact of tourism is not enough and they are choosing breaks that give something back. According to research analyst Mintel, the market for volunteering is worth more than £100 million and there are now countless ways anyone, whether seventeen or seventy and whatever their budget, can spend some quality leisure time helping protect the world’s endangered habitats and wildlife for generations to come. Whether it’s just a weekend break in the UK or a longer placement overseas, conservation holidays are about learning skills and making new friends while offering a valuable environmental contribution. The volunteering industry has also diversified into ‘voluntourism’, whereby travellers add some days of voluntary work to a holiday.

❺

great conservation holidays

Earthwatch/Viviana Lopez

❶ Bring in the olive harvest, Italy Spend a week helping a small cultural organisation (Matilde Pianciani) with the traditional olive harvest and restore ancient groves which have been an important part of the Umbrian landscape for centuries. Helpers stay in a beautiful stone cottage within an old villa complex, protected as an Italian National Monument, in the ravishing Umbrian countryside. Details: The trip is available over four consecutive weeks this autumn and costs £395 per week, including accommodation and food. It is organised by the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers, which runs conservation mini-breaks in the UK (from £60 for two days) and inter-

national conservation holidays in 13 countries overseas, including Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia and Portugal. 01302 388883, btcv.org.uk

❷ restore mountain waters of the Czech Republic Earthwatch, an international non-profit organisation, links ordinary people with scientists working in the field and on expeditions worldwide. Many projects are in Europe – as this one (below), where volunteers help to restore the vital links of ecosystems damaged by acid rain in the Jizera Mountains of northern Bohemia. Moun-

tains are the water towers of the world. The revival of fresh water resources is not possible without the rehabilitation of mountain ecosystems, which is the overall aim of this project. Details: The 15-day trip, on various dates in 2011, is £1,250 including accommodation and meals. 01865 318838, earthwatch.org Since its inception in 1972, Earthwatch has sponsored more than 2,000 projects in 118 countries and 38 states. The research by over 50,000 volunteers has resulted in 12 national parks and reserves being created, over 2,000 new species discovered, dozens of endangered species rescued from extinction, and health services ➤

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 81

[ intelligencetravel ] and sustainable agriculture brought to remote villages in more than 20 countries. The belief that fuels this success, according to Earthwatch president Roger Bergen, is that “almost every problem can be solved with the right blend of expertise and caring, knowledgeable individuals”.

❸ ‘voluntour’ in Costa Rica Spend a fortnight in Costa Rica, with ten days visiting the Arenal volcano, kayaking along the Tortuguero coast and whitewater rafting the Pacuare River, then four days helping with a rehabilitation project for wild animals that have been illegally kept as pets, including sloths, spider monkeys, raccoons (above right), parrots and macaws. Details: The 14-day trip costs from £2,250. 020 7193 1062, handsupholidays.com

❹ Track whales and dolphins in the Azores Live like a marine biologist on a Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) ‘Out of the

❺

Blue’ ten-day holiday, in the archipelago off the coast of Portugal on board a specially modified whale watch research vessel. Participants help the Whale Watch Azores Project monitor several species, including sperm, beaked, pilot and baleen whales, as well as dolphins and loggerhead turtles. Details: £1,949, including flights, accommodation at the Azores Ecolodge on the island of Faial, food, training and a £50 donation to WDCS. 0845 130 6760, oceansworldwide.co.uk

❺ Study coral reefs in Madagascar Madagascar, the world’s fourth largest island, is renowned for its wealth of unique plants and land animals, but less known for the diversity of marine life around its shores. Rising ocean temperatures are having a significant negative impact on the island’s coral reefs: a survey of reefs along its remote southwest coast has revealed massive damage from coral bleaching – the loss of algae

that live within corals and provide them with food and colour. While some areas were found to have lost up to 99% of their coral cover, researchers also discovered pockets of bleachingresistant corals. The scientists say these animals could help revitalise dying reefs. “To find these little foci of resistance is extremely rare and is of massive conservation importance,” says Alasdair Harris, research director for the London-based marine conservation group Blue Ventures. Learn to identify the coral and fish species in the lagoons of the Grand Récif de Tuléar – the fourth largest coral reef in the world – and collect valuable data to help establish Madagascar’s newest marine park. Details: A six-week expedition costs £1,900, including accommodation, food, marine science training and diving, but excluding flights. 020 3176 0548, blueventures. org

great UK conservation breaks

Help the National Trust restore footpaths (right) that have been trampled on throughout the summer. Several projects run from now until the end of the year, including a week

(4–11 December) on the south coast where you can help install a new visitor footpath and boardwalk at Purbeck to improve access to a popular bird hide overlooking the saltmarsh on the southern fringe of Poole Harbour. Details: The week

costs £170 including meals and accommodation. The National Trust has over 400 working holidays every year in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, from two to seven days, from £90 a week including food and hostel-type accommodation. Other holidays combine activities such as surfing and digital photography with conservation. 0844 800 3099, nationaltrust.org.uk/volunteering ➤

Hands Up Holidays; Dianne Lang; Viviana Lopez; Earthwatch/A Ogilvie

❶ Restore Purbeck Estate footpaths, Dorset

Food to come home to.

We support Meat Free Monday

Meat free is just the start for us. Inspired by Linda’s passion for celebrating life through good food, we’ve developed a range of wholesome, tasty meals. Try our Lasagne or Chilli with Potato Wedges and you’ll see what we mean. Find us in the freezer at all major food retailers or visit us at www.lindamccartneyfoods.co.uk

[ intelligencetravel ] ❷ spruce up bothies in Scotland The Mountain Bothy Association (MBA) has about 100 bothies throughout the British Isles – simple refuges with no water, perhaps a wood-burning stove and at best a platform upon which to roll out a sleeping mat. There’s no booking system, no room key and no charge – you simply turn up, sleep, tidy up and move on. Anyone who has used one knows how vital they are, especially after a day in the mountains. The MBA organises volunteer groups to help spruce them up, paint the interiors, repair the stoves and clear vegetation. Details: Accommodation free (in bothies), but volunteers pay for transport and food (though for the larger parties, the main meal is provided). To join a weekend work team, see mountainbothies.org.uk.

❸ Survey the Isle of Wight Take on survey work at one of five nature reserves on the Isle

opportunities are available, including survey work, estate work, practical habitat management and checking on livestock. Details: Residential placements from one week to six months all year round, staying in the Woolpack Volunteer Centre on St Mary’s. 01636 677711, wildlifetrusts.org

❹ Help at a Bird Reserve The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) organises voluntary projects at bird reserves throughout Britain. Work might include building stock fences and new hides (left), clearing paths for visitors or creating ponds for natterjack toads and dragonflies. Details: The RSPB has 39 reserves around the UK, with accommodation provided onsite or nearby. To source opportunities, visit rspb.org.uk/ volunteering. Volunteers just pay for transport and food during their stay.

Andy Hay (rspb-images.com); Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust

❺ Stay on an Organic Farm

of Wight with the Wildlife Trust, working in partnership with the Isle of Wight Natural History Society and the Wight Nature Fund (above). A wide range of volunteer

World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) links you with farms in need of help in return for free or very cheap board and lodging, providing an opportunity to learn about organic food and sustainability in relaxed and often stunning settings (above right). What started out as a small voluntary organisation has grown into an international

phenomenon with thousands of work placements worldwide – in Britain there are more than 400 hosts, from croft owners in the Outer Hebrides to secluded organic farms in mid Wales. Details: wwoof.org.uk

Volunteering Rules In the absence of any governing regulation of the volunteering industry, Comhlámh – an Irish association of development workers – has drawn up a Code of Good Practice for volunteers and agencies. Comhlámh’s website (volunteeringoptions. org) also has a list of volunteering projects worldwide. The Ethical Volunteering website (ethicalvolunteering. org) has some useful tips on how to choose the right agency depending on how much time you have to give, and gapadvice.org provides an advisory service for gap year placements.

MORE IDEAS: Check out Wildlife and Conservation Volunteering: The Complete Guide, by Peter Lynch (£13.99, Bradt Travel Guides), the first book of its kind to use a scoring system that allows readers to compare 50 conservation volunteering organisations in categories such as credibility, cost, safety, environmental impact and achievements, plus background info and interviews with volunteers during and after their travels. www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 85

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I know a place Prize-winning author and conservationist Richard Mabey has been called ‘Britain’s greatest living nature writer’ by The Times. He shares some of his favourite natural wonders BOAT TRIP: The Norfolk Broads We take our very old-fashioned, electric-powered boat along a one-mile stretch between Hickling Broad and Horsey Mere, along Meadow Dyke. It is one of the most magical journeys you can make in any kind of boat, but particularly in one in which the engine is virtually silent. You cut across the

FOR FLOWERS: Cévennes, France The greatest floral spectacle I’ve ever seen is in the southwest Cévennes mountains, where there are limestone plateaus called Causses. Here, in late May/early June, there are astonishing tapestries of flowers, maybe 20 species of orchid, pasque flowers, rock roses, and you can wander for hours up to your knees in these wonderful blooms. I’ve been back to see them every other year for the last 20 years and it never disappoints. Because of the density and proximity of the orchids to each other, you get really weird hybrids, especially one that’s between the ‘man orchid’ and the ‘monkey orchid’, which has been christened the ‘missing link’ orchid. To find one of those is a great reason for a celebratory drink in the evening.

path over which 100 or so marsh harriers – and the only sizeable population of common cranes nesting in Britain – go to roost in the broads. Sometimes in the winter 10,000 pink-foot geese all go to roost in the same very wild area of marshland. You feel like you’re in Africa because of the density of birds, and being on the water you’re able to get so much closer to them than anywhere else. We once had a kingfisher come and perch on the boat – which just goes to show how good the bird-watching can be.

Richard Mabey talked to Richard Hammond. Richard Mabey’s latest book, The Garden of Weeds How Vagabond Plants Gatecrashed Civilisation and Changed the Way we Think about Nature, is published in October (£15, Profile Books)

[ intelligencetravel ]

TOWN: Trujillo, Extremadura, Spain Here Spanish people and enormous numbers of birds live together harmoniously. You can sit in the town square and be surrounded by nesting white storks, which drop their guano on statues of the conquistadors! Some 100 pairs of lesser kestrels live in the area and are forever racing about chasing sparrows. Swifts fly through the alleys at about three feet above ground level – and the Spanish seem to enjoy them.

COLLECTION: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Surrey I’m not a great one for museums as I prefer to see living organisms rather than dead specimens. I adore Kew Gardens, not just because of the amazing diversity of plants, but also all the innovative things they’re doing indoors. For instance, in the Princess of Wales Conservatory, there’s an extraordinary replica of southwest American deserts and the new Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art is the best gallery space I’ve seen in Britain.

WALK: The Chilterns, Buckinghamshire I was brought up in the Chiltern Hills and my favourite walk was one I did three times a week for most of the first 50 years of my life. I always walk in an anti-clockwise direction – I don’t why, it’s just keyed into my brain. I would climb up to the top of a hill in South Berkhamsted and look down over a mysterious, secret valley, which was carved out by a winterbourne – a chalk stream which only flows from January to March once every seven years. I’d follow a very strict route where I’d cut down into the valley and up to the other side of the hill through an amazing ancient beech wood and then back along an ancient ridgeway where every so often you’d see the glint of water down in the valley and you’d know that the winterbourne had risen that year. I’d always find it a quite magical place.

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 89

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MORE websites, sources AND CREDITS PEOPLE & PLANET Pages 9–12 Alice Peperell (photographer): alicepeperell.com Jørn Madsen (photographer): eidoswildlife.dk birdlife.org greenbooks.co.uk Harmony: harpercollins.co.uk Juniper Green Organic Gin: junipergreen.org rainforest-alliance.org rspb.org.uk The Climate Files: profilebooks.com, guardianbookshop.co.uk soilassociation.org worldparrottrust.org WHAT’S NATURE WORTH? Pages 14–21 All photos on pages 14–15 from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), iucn.org, except where stated. Top row from left to right: A king vulture in Quito Zoo, Ecuador, Imène Meliane; Jaguar, Imène Meliane; orchid in the tropical cloud forest of Mindo, Ecuador, B Riche & G Davila; sealion cub, Galapagos, Ecuador, B Riche & G Davila; a lionfish in the Red Sea, Egypt, Christian Laufenberg; Bird of Paradise flower in Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, South Africa, Alicia Wirz. Bottom row: ladybird spider, Ian Hughes for Natural England, naturalengland.org. uk; logging road, Cameroon, Intu Boedhihartono; red breasted toucan in the Iguaçu Bird Park, Brazil, Imène Meliane; Sally lightfoot crab, Galapagos, Ecuador, B Riche & G Davila; gorilla babies, Kahuzi Biega National Park, Intu Boedhihartono; butterfly, Mindo, Ecuador, B Riche & G Davila. More information about biodiversity from the Department for Environment,

Food and Rural Affairs (Defra): defra.gov.uk/ environment/biodiversity/ index.htm Conservation International: conservation.org Convention on Biological Diversity: cbd.int COP10: The 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity will be held in Nagoya from 18 to 29 October 2010: cbd.int/cop10/ Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES): ipbes.net IYB-UK, the UK partnership supporting International Year of Biodiversity: biodiversityislife.net Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA): millenniumassessment.org Natural History Museum on biodiversity: nhm.ac.uk/ nature-online/biodiversity UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UK BAP): ukbap.org.uk YORKSHIRE Pages 24–31 english-nature.org.uk/Special/ sssi moorsforthefuture.org.uk naturalengland.org.uk rspb.org.uk yorkshirewater.com ywt.org.uk/yorkshire_peat_ partnership.php textiles Pages 32–39 naturalcollection.com ethicalfashionforum.com fairtrade.org.uk Data from Sustainable Fashion and Textiles (£24.99, Earthscan) by Dr Kate Fletcher: katefletcher.com made-by.org mrlarkin.net natureworksllc.com oeko-tex.com pachacuti.co.uk panamas.co.uk

92 National Geographic Green | AUTUMN 2010

BUSINESS Pages 45–48 Page 45: Photographs from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, iucn. org, showing, from left to right, a view of the Mamberamo River, Papua; watering the plants at the Forest National Corporation base, Gedaref, Sudan; agamid lizard in Bujumbura, Burundi. biodiversity.net PwC paper for the World Economic Forum on the risks that biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation pose for business: pwc.co.uk/eng/ issues/biodiversity_risk.html The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB): teebweb.org University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership: cpi.cam.ac.uk GARDENING Page 52–57 Simon Wheeler (photographer): simonwheeler.eu (from spring 2011) froglife.org The Soil Association runs courses, from growing your own fruit and vegetables to learning how to compost: soilassociation.org Wildlife Gardener: wildlifegardener.co.uk

the Unexpected are by food writer, editor, passionate home cook and gardener Debora Robertson, who writes the ‘Love and a Licked Spoon’ blog: lickedspoon. blogspot.com WINE Pages 69–70 co-operative.coop fairtrade.org.uk kingsland-wines.com marks-and-spencer.com rogerharriswines.co.uk sainsburys.co.uk tesco.com waitrose.co.uk BOOKS Pages 78–79 kylecathie.co.uk octopusbooks.co.uk randomhouse.co.uk/chatto shopnatgeo.co.uk/Books-s/28. htm vintage-books.co.uk TRAVEL Pages 80–85 Richard Hammond’s green travel site: greentraveller.co.uk Travel guides from Antarctica to Zanzibar, as well as Wildlife and Conservation Volunteering Guide: bradttravelguides.com gapadventures.com

FOOD Pages 58–62 Writer and broadcaster Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s website, with details about the River Cottage events: rivercottage.net soilassociation.org

I KNOW A PLACE Pages 88–89 Dave Appleton (photographer): gobirding.eu Eamonn McCabe (photographer): eamonnmccabe.co.uk franceguide.com kew.org trujilloespana.com

PLOT TO PLATE Pages 65–66 Mark Diacono’s climate change farm: otterfarm.co.uk A Taste of the Unexpected: quadrille.co.uk The recipes in A Taste of

WE’RE BACK Page 95 Highland Foundation for Wildlife: roydennis.org rspb.org.uk Scottish Natural Heritage: snh.gov.uk

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To describe Britain’s largest bird of prey, the white-tailed eagle, as a ‘flying barn door’ sounds disrespectful. With its eight-foot wingspan, the fourth largest eagle in the world (aka the ‘sea eagle’) is a magnificent creature. Declared extinct in Britain by the early 1900s, the return of white-tailed eagles to Mull, Skye and other parts of western Scotland has been one of the outstanding conservation success stories of recent times. Reintroduced first on the island of Rum (from 1975 to 1983) and Wester Ross (from 1993 to 1998) they are now triumphantly at home. The drive to re-establish them was propelled by naturalist Roy Dennis of the Highland Wildlife Foundation. Their presence is a benefit, he explains: “White-tailed eagles on the Isle of Mull are starting to kill the goslings of greylag geese, which have been increasing rapidly without a natural predator and causing problems for farmers.” White-tailed eagles are scavengers, but will also take live prey, ranging from fish to birds. Plans to bring the once-native bird south to East Anglia have proved controversial. “Say no to sea eagles here,” shout signs mounted on farm trailers by main roads in Suffolk. The potential threats posed to livestock and wildlife in the region by reintroducing the species are still being evaluated. Contact details: page 92

www.greennatgeo.co.uk | 95

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Interior Ocean view Balcony

Suite

Sailing Date

£2499 £2699 £3099 £3799

07 Aug 2011

Discover The Amazon 14 N

Interior Ocean view Balcony

Antarctica & Falklands 16 N

igh

£1 per 899 pers on

£p 339 ts er p erso 9 n

From

Save up to £650 Off Brochure Prices

Sailing on Azamara Azamara Quest Journey

Manaus, Brazil; Amazon River, Brazil; Parintins, Brazil; Boca Da Valeria, Brazil; Alter Do Chao, Brazil; Amazon River, Brazil; Macapa, Brazil; Devil’s Island, Fr. Guiana; Bridgetown, Barbados; Mayreau, Grenadines; San Juan, Puerto Rico. Cruise Only (Call for Flight add on) Look what’s included... 14 Nights full board cruise ● All port taxes.

Fly UK/Buenos Aires, Argentina; Montevideo, Uruguay; Port Stanley, Falkland Is; Antarctic Sound/Peninsula (2 overnights); Ushuaia, Argentina; Cape Horn, Chile; Puerto Madryn, Argentina; Buenos Aires, Argentina/Fly UK. Fly/Cruise ●

Amazing Value 08 Nov 2011

Save up to £1196 Off £788 Off Brochure Prices

Look what’s included... 16 Nights full board cruise ● Return flights ● All port and airport taxes and fees.

●

Sailing Date

Suite

£1949 £2169 £2549 £3129

ight

From

Sailing on Azamara Journey

10 N

igh

£2 per 499 pers on

From

Interior Ocean view Balcony

Amazing Value Suite

£1899 £2079 £2569 £3099

Sailing Date 13 Jan 2012

Interior Ocean view Balcony

Suite

£3399 £3699 £4199 £4799

Call FREE 0800 408 0752

Prices are from and per person based on 2 sharing on selected dates 2010/2011. All offers are based on the lowest grade cabins available unless otherwise stated and subject to availability. Terms and conditions apply, available on request. Transfers and gratuities not included but can be purchased. E&OE. Cruisenation is a trading division of Hays Travel Ltd bonded by ABTA & ATOL.

100

£ 1 0 0 . 0 0

H O L I D AY

V O U C H E R Quote

GREEN Discount cannot be used in conjunction with any other Cruise Nation funded offer and are taken off the regular price of the cruise. Minimum spend applies. Full conditions are available on request.

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