2010 has been designated the international year of biodiversity. It sounds very grand, but what does it entail for us ordinary gardening mortals? Well, firstly what does biodiversity mean? It's simple really, it’s a compound word made up from bio (life) and diversity (variety.) Therefore, for Bideford and district, 2010 should be a time of helping to safeguard and even increase the varieties of life we have in our area.
This ties in neatly with the way that Torridge and North Devon (collectively known by that clumsy phrase Northern Devon) is an internationally important bioreserve (another compound word you can work out for yourself.) It sounds good doesn't it?
But wait! There is a fly in the ointment. Now I am politically neutral and take no sides with any political party, but we have to discuss the Northern Devon Core Strategy; the plans our two councils have brewed up to take us towards 2026. Their leaflet makes interesting reading. The plans do not rest easily with being in the middle of a bioreserve. There are 21,600 new houses to be built, 8,200 of them in Bideford. As each house is built it eats away the countryside, forcing nature out and putting it under increasing pressure.
That's not say that we shouldn't build; far from it. It's the type of house we build that's important. We can enhance Bideford, making it an attractive environment to ourselves and wildlife, or alternatively we can spoil it. Builders and environmentalists need to get their heads together properly before this plan is agreed.
If we look at the building travesty going on in certain parts of Bideford, we see the slums of the future and the progressive ruination of our town, but with some imagination it needn't be like that. We can build houses with biodiversity in mind. They can be attractive and a pleasure to live in. It's known that gardens are generally more biodiverse than the countryside, so we need houses with gardens, not sterile yards. And if flats are built, give the block a green roof for the preservation of butterflies, moths, and insects.
As for the houses themselves, it's no hardship to install swift boxes, house martin nests, and house sparrow terraces. These species are under threat because of the way we construct houses now. However, because the scale of these projects is so huge, the cost of building in these wildlife aids would be negligible. We have the chance to be an example to the rest of the country as an imaginative, forward looking, and sustainable eco-friendly town.
So let's be careful and think this through properly. Can't the planners, architects, and builders would take off their blinkers, see the big picture and become more sensitive to the world around them? It'll do us good to remember the chorus from Joni Mitchell's 1970s song 'Big Yellow Taxi'… "Don't it always seem to go; that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. They take paradise and put up a parking lot." If we do the equivalent to Bideford, what hope is there for biodiversity and the long term future of the bioreserve?
There, that's got that off my chest!
NATURE FUN FOR THE CHILDREN
On a lighter note, do you remember the I Spy books? You had to tick off the things you saw until finally you had enough points to get a certificate from Big Chief I Spy. They were great fun and an ideal way to get children to learn and take an interest in the world around them.
They were first in print in 1948 and continued until 2002 when they were bought out by Michelin and ceased publication. But now they are back. They are available in most nationwide shops and online. If you want to get your youngsters interested in gardening and nature why not try these: I Spy Birds, I Spy Nature, and I Spy Creepy-Crawlies.
NATURE NOTE
Last month I asked you to let me know your unusual cold weather sightings.
Bob and Jan Hutton, who live in Mines Road, East the Water, saw among other feathered goodies, a brambling in their garden. That's not a common garden visitor at all.
Meanwhile, Michael and Sheila Masterman from Riversmeet, Appledore, were well blessed with redwings, thrushes, blackcaps (mainly females,) a meadow pipit, and a flock of long tailed tits (see Michael's photo.) That's a tremendous example of bird biodiversity in their little garden.
There was an unusual sighting from Suffolk too. Weldon's Farm, Newton Green, is an orchard established in the 1930s. Normally the owner, Andrew Weldon, sees a flock of about 200-250 fieldfares during the winter, but this year it was astounding. There was a record flock of at least 10,000, all greedily feeding on the rotten apples. Mark Nowers of the RSPB said. "It's a breathtaking sight. I've never seen anything like it."
This ties in neatly with the way that Torridge and North Devon (collectively known by that clumsy phrase Northern Devon) is an internationally important bioreserve (another compound word you can work out for yourself.) It sounds good doesn't it?
But wait! There is a fly in the ointment. Now I am politically neutral and take no sides with any political party, but we have to discuss the Northern Devon Core Strategy; the plans our two councils have brewed up to take us towards 2026. Their leaflet makes interesting reading. The plans do not rest easily with being in the middle of a bioreserve. There are 21,600 new houses to be built, 8,200 of them in Bideford. As each house is built it eats away the countryside, forcing nature out and putting it under increasing pressure.
That's not say that we shouldn't build; far from it. It's the type of house we build that's important. We can enhance Bideford, making it an attractive environment to ourselves and wildlife, or alternatively we can spoil it. Builders and environmentalists need to get their heads together properly before this plan is agreed.
If we look at the building travesty going on in certain parts of Bideford, we see the slums of the future and the progressive ruination of our town, but with some imagination it needn't be like that. We can build houses with biodiversity in mind. They can be attractive and a pleasure to live in. It's known that gardens are generally more biodiverse than the countryside, so we need houses with gardens, not sterile yards. And if flats are built, give the block a green roof for the preservation of butterflies, moths, and insects.
As for the houses themselves, it's no hardship to install swift boxes, house martin nests, and house sparrow terraces. These species are under threat because of the way we construct houses now. However, because the scale of these projects is so huge, the cost of building in these wildlife aids would be negligible. We have the chance to be an example to the rest of the country as an imaginative, forward looking, and sustainable eco-friendly town.
So let's be careful and think this through properly. Can't the planners, architects, and builders would take off their blinkers, see the big picture and become more sensitive to the world around them? It'll do us good to remember the chorus from Joni Mitchell's 1970s song 'Big Yellow Taxi'… "Don't it always seem to go; that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. They take paradise and put up a parking lot." If we do the equivalent to Bideford, what hope is there for biodiversity and the long term future of the bioreserve?
There, that's got that off my chest!
NATURE FUN FOR THE CHILDREN
On a lighter note, do you remember the I Spy books? You had to tick off the things you saw until finally you had enough points to get a certificate from Big Chief I Spy. They were great fun and an ideal way to get children to learn and take an interest in the world around them.
They were first in print in 1948 and continued until 2002 when they were bought out by Michelin and ceased publication. But now they are back. They are available in most nationwide shops and online. If you want to get your youngsters interested in gardening and nature why not try these: I Spy Birds, I Spy Nature, and I Spy Creepy-Crawlies.
NATURE NOTE
Last month I asked you to let me know your unusual cold weather sightings.
Bob and Jan Hutton, who live in Mines Road, East the Water, saw among other feathered goodies, a brambling in their garden. That's not a common garden visitor at all.
Meanwhile, Michael and Sheila Masterman from Riversmeet, Appledore, were well blessed with redwings, thrushes, blackcaps (mainly females,) a meadow pipit, and a flock of long tailed tits (see Michael's photo.) That's a tremendous example of bird biodiversity in their little garden.
There was an unusual sighting from Suffolk too. Weldon's Farm, Newton Green, is an orchard established in the 1930s. Normally the owner, Andrew Weldon, sees a flock of about 200-250 fieldfares during the winter, but this year it was astounding. There was a record flock of at least 10,000, all greedily feeding on the rotten apples. Mark Nowers of the RSPB said. "It's a breathtaking sight. I've never seen anything like it."