I attended the recent AGM of the Sedgemoor Gardening Club and listened to a very good presentation on the subject of the increasing risk of river flooding on the Levels and related issues. As a follow up to the meeting I met up with Gina Beauchamp who chairs the Curry Rivel Britain in Bloom group, CRIB, and Peter Goodenough who is Chairman of the Gardening Club and the main initiator of the Curry Woods Conservation Trust with the tree planting on the ridge.which I also support.
The three of us all agreed that we had a common interest in supporting County wide activities to cope with anticipated effects of climate change and could make a useful contribution to future discussions and proposals.
I hope to get support from our local group of the Wildlife Trust whilst CRIB has in previous years made reference to Batty Piece and Eastfield as examples of community support for our wild flower meadows.
What we would like to do next is to welcome village residents to join us in an informal group to discus and share information about future changes and action to protect and promote the wildlife in our Parish. We would write about this initiative in the Curry Rivel News . CRIB and the Curry Rivel Woodland Trust would be named and I would like to include reference to other local activities.You can see more on the whole story about Climate Change adaptation in Somerset on their web site at: www.adaptingthelevels.co.uk,
A big problem is the idea that catastrophic losses can be offset - which often they cannot. Whilst there are great opportunities to get developers and business to reinvest in biodiversity this should not be an excuse for irreparable damage. Landscape heritage is also not replaceable or capable of being 'offset' - so ancient woods, ancient hedges, veteran trees, traditional unimproved grasslands etc cannot be compensated for. The other real worry with this is the incentive for consultants to offer (for a good-sized fee) offset solutions which are essentially pie-in-the-sky and incapable of realistic delivery and not transparent in terms of their long-term outcomes. This appeals to developers, to politicians, and to planning inspectors since it justifies damaging developments but with a clear conscience - greenwash. We need to engage business and others in genuine commitment to sustainable ecological and heritage solutions. Finally, losses at a particular locale cannot be genuinely offset by actions displaced to another site - ecological systems & local communities simply do not operate in that way. We require more genuinely visionary and pragmatic solutions.
Comments welcome!