Hello All,
I would like to report a very nice article from the Evening Standard about the Benefits of Green Spaces published on the 21st June 2017.
I hope you will enjoy this useful reading.
Jen
"In the early Eighties, a young psychologist did something unusual. His name was Roger Ulrich, and he started reviewing the hospital records of patients recovering from surgery to compare the recovery rates for people with bedside windows looking out on to trees with those of patients who could only see brick walls from their beds.
What did he find? On average, the ones who could look at natural landscapes healed faster, needed significantly less pain medication and had fewer complications post-surgery. If you think about it, this makes sense. After all, we humans evolved in natural environments, so it’s understandable that we respond so well to plants, trees and biodiversity. As Florence Williams puts it in her remarkable new book The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative: “Our nervous systems are built to resonate with the natural world.”
There’s a wealth of evidence backing up this claim. In 2009 a team of researchers in Holland found a lower incidence of 15 diseases — including depression, anxiety, heart disease, asthma, diabetes and migraines — among people living within half a mile of green space. And in Japan, academics at Chiba University measured the health impact of walking in forests — and found a marked benefit: a 16 per cent decrease in the stress hormone cortisol, a two per cent drop in blood pressure, and a four per cent drop in heart rate.Back in the Victorian age, politicians didn’t have access to this kind of scientific data but they did understand the benefits of being exposed to nature. As early as 1833, the British government was commissioning official reports on the case for creating public parks to improve the wellbeing of working people.
As one report concluded: “A park in the East End of London would probably cut annual deaths by several thousand, and add several years to the lives of the entire population.” As a result, an Act of Parliament was passed to create Victoria Park, one of the first parks in the world designed to meet the needs of the surrounding communities.From Battersea to Finsbury Park, enlightened Victorian thinking led to the creation of generous green spaces across the capital.
Unfortunately, today we’re heading in the opposite direction. While London's population is rising, we’re not creating new parks to keep pace, meaning fewer people can access green spaces. According to The Wildlife Trusts, fewer than 10 per cent of children today ever play in natural areas, compared with 40 per cent of adults who did when they were growing up. And soulless corporate office blocks aren’t helping either — devoid of trees and nature, they’re making our city a less healthy place to live. Developers tend to see trees as an unnecessary cost, while the bureaucratic planning system makes things worse — at my company Second Home we were told by planners that we couldn’t plant fruit trees on the street in front of our building, on the grounds that they’d “make a mess”. (We did it anyway.) It doesn’t have to be like this. Singapore spends $200 million every year greening its capital — and, as a result, the percentage of residents living close to green spaces has actually increased in recent years, even as the population has grown.
If we recaptured the 19th century ambition to create more green spaces in our city, the benefits would be immense. Unfortunately, today’s politicians, planners and developers are less like the farsighted Victorians, and more like Woody Allen, who once said: “I love nature, I just don’t want to get any of it on me.” If we can change that daft attitude, London will be a healthier and happier place for all of us."
For the full article please visit the following link:
http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/politicians-underestimate-the-value-of-green-spaces-in-a-great-city-like-london-a3569781.html
Since the announcement of the realization of a Garden Bridge there have been very controversial opinions about its use, utility and purpose.
The supporters loved the idea of a garden in the middle of the Thames free from traffic while the antagonists were against the extremely high costs for building it and the inutility of it. In fact the Temple area, where the Garden Bridge supposed to be built, there are already Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge.
There has been months, if not years, of long and troubles discussion about the utility of this bridge and the resources involved in it for its realization.
When in the 2013 the project was originally presented for approval the social-political-economic situation of the country was different. Since then, the London environment changed and now the government is facing cuts throughout the different departments and it also has to consider the Brexit and the limited support that it will received from European Countries in the future.
The Garden Bridge Trust, the charity which aimed to raise money in order to fund this expensive project, in last August 2016, lost two of the major supporters of the plan and with them millions of pounds, for this reason public money will be needed in order to complete the project.
At the same time, the country is facing delicate financial and political situation and, the London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, refrained to enlarge further funds for this project and therefore Garden Bridge project came to an end.
On the other side, The Garden Bridge Trust is still supporting this project and they are willing to make it happen.
I am sure this plan will be discussed further more in the next months and years and from the bottom of my heart I really hope that Garden Bridge will happen, if not now in a prompt future.I was delighted by the idea of flowers perfume, green trees, birds singing in the middle of the peaceful Thames.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/apr/28/garden-bridge-dead-38m-public-money-repaid-boris-johnson
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/the-garden-bridge-is-like-a-student-project-%E2%80%93-good-on-paper-but-impossible-to-realise/5087188.article
https://www.gardenbridge.london/about-the-project
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/pull-the-plug-on-garden-bridge-says-hodge-review/5087152.article
Today I would like to write about the Tunnel Trees in the US parks as I found them enchanting...
The legend tells that the first tunnel tree was created in the 1881 enlarging an existing fire scar in a sequoia tree in the Mariposa Grove at Yosemite National Park in California. This tree was named Wawona. The aim of this project was to boost the car tourism into the park in that era.
Unfotunately, the heavy snow of the 1969 made the giant Wawona Tree fall but the great thing about this is that the tree remained in its location and created a new habitat for insects and animals and therefore boosted the ecosystem.
It is estimated that this sequoia was over 2,000 years old and now it is still a celebrity and it is known as Fallen Tunnel Tree.
More recently, this January 2017, a similar episode occurred in the Big Trees State Park in Arnold, in California where another giant sequoia tree has fallen as consequence of the winter storms that hit the country in this season. Its name was Pioneer Cabin Tree and it is estimated that this tree was 1,000 years old.
Between the 1800 and 1900 several sequoia trees had the tunnel dug into their trunks for the tourists pleasures to drive, bike, or walk through them.
Luckily, nowadays this torture has stopped and the parks do not need to promote themselves using the tunnel trees. In fact the tunneling inflicted profound and severe damage to the health and strength of the trees. On this purpose the National Park Service has commented: "Tunnel trees had their time and place in the early history of our national parks, but today sequoias which are standing healthy and whole are worth far more."
Before starting this article I was very fascinated about the tunnels in the Californian Sequoia tress as I believed that those tunnels were a consequence of a natural crack that are created in ancient trees, but I could not imagine that it was a man-made attraction.
I am relieved knowing that this form of promotion for the Californian Yosemite Natural Park now has stopped.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/us/pioneer-cabin-tree-sequoia.html
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/09/508919216/iconic-sequoia-tunnel-tree-brought-down-by-california-storm
http://www.sciencealert.com/the-1-000-year-old-iconic-tunnel-tree-pioneer-cabin-has-fallen-from-a-winter-storm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wawona_Tree
Hello All,
I would like to spend some time talking about my country and in particular what happened in Puglia the last few years.
Salento is an area in the Puglia region which has the most important olive-grove of the all country. In fact, over 25% of the agricultural area has olive trees, for a total of about ten millions of plants and more that 30% of them are secular trees.
UNESCO declared Salento a World Heritage site thanks to the historic origin of this area. In fact, accordingly with the historic information at disposal, it appears that olive groves in the south of Italy have been introduced by the Ancient Greeks.
Unfortunately, since 2012 it seems that olive plants are affected by desiccation that, in months, transforms the plants in skeletons. At the beginning, there was the suspect that a kind of sickness called Xylella was affecting this area of Italy, because few years before California and Brazil were affected by this disease which caused the same symptoms on their fruit plants.
In order to limit the damages to the trees surrounding the sick plants, the European Community asked the Italian government to intervene to contain the emergency.
After a short analysis of the olive groves, it seemed that just a small minority of them were affected by the Xylella virus, but despite of this, the Italian Government decided to eradicate all the olive trees of the area in order to prevent the spreading, regardless the fact that the plants were affected by the virus of not.
Obviously, this matter raised huge controversial discussions between the authorities which were pushing for a radical solution and the local inhabitants which were concerned about their crops and investments, and they were actually looking for a softer solution of the problem. In fact, the local communities support a different theory which sustains that the damages of the plants were caused mainly by a fungus and that it can be easily treated with natural remedies.
After over two years of analysis and investigations it has been confirmed that the Xylella virus is responsible for the olives trees desiccation and the Europen Commission has confirmed the eradication not only of the olive trees with the bacterium but also of the plants around them in order to prevent and limit the spread of this disease.
Unfortunately, even an olive tree old 1500 years has been eradicated in March last year.
Its name was Allister.
This is a real drama for the Puglia considering the olive oil production is the second major income for this region, not only the producers are affected by this eradication but also the local economies related to this market.
However, this 2017 seems to bring some positive news: the European commission gave the permission to replant olive trees in the areas affected by the epidemic. These new plants seem to be more resistant to the Xylella virus and hopefully will be able to improve the difficult situation this part of Italy is facing in the recent times.
This situation degenerated a bit further at the beginning of April 2017 since in the last few weeks the Italian Institutions decided to import gas from east Europe and to do so something like 200 olives groves need to be eradicated. Once again, the local population actively protested, both in the site and to the local authorities but they have been removed by police force.
Sadly it seems that the Puglia region will have a huge battle to face in order to save their olive groves from extinction. I really hope this situation is reversed for good.
THE BEST OF LUCH SALENTO!!!
http://www.salento.info/744-gli-ulivi-del-salento/
http://www.video.mediaset.it/video/iene/puntata/toffa-salviamo-gli-ulivi-del-salento_526752.html
http://www.bioaksxter.com/blog/xylella-puglia/
http://www.nationalgeographic.it/italia/2016/03/30/news/xylella_confermato_il_legame_con_la_malattia_degli_ulivi-3035084/
http://bari.repubblica.it/cronaca/2016/03/10/news/xylella_alliste-135196313/?refresh_ce#gallery-slider=128238649
http://www.panorama.it/scienza/green/xylella-ulivi-salento/
http://www.repubblica.it/ambiente/2017/01/23/news/primo_ok_bruxelles_reimpianto_ulivi_salneto_xylella-156713573/
http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2017/03/28/tap-via-libera-alla-rimozione-degli-ulivi-in-puglia-per-la-costruzione-del-gasdotto/3481248/
In my previous post "Breath your trees" I mentioned how the air quality in the Putney High street was dramatic because of the high number of buses per hour running through this street.
The full article is in this link: https://ourtreesproject.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/breath-your-trees.html
Well, I was very please when I saw that something has been done NOW in order to make a change:
Hello All,
browsing online, I recently found out some links regarding kindergartens managed in forests. I thought it was a bizarre idea and I wanted to find out more information about them, so here my discovery...
Forest Kindergartens are defined as a pre-school for kids and the majority of activities take place primarily outdoor.
Regardless of the weather conditions children are encouraged to stay outdoor and they are free to learn from the nature, their activities are focused on play and explore flora and fauna that surround them, everything with adults supervision.
As a general rule, usually mornings are spend outdoors and the afternoons indoor.
The most interesting fact is that this innovative educative method seems to have several benefits among children, such as:
*promote language skills and communication;
*reduce stress level;
*improve the balance, agility, coordination and sensitivity;
*improve attention;
*further more, playing outdoor proved to strengthen the immune system.
Germany embraced this kind of education starting from 1968 and since than kindergartens in the wild increased their popularity, in 2012 they were over 1000.
Please have a look at this super interesting video about the German Kindergarten, you will find further information about the way this structure works and you can see the super excited reactions of kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31eBV6ZTNDQ
Kindergartens education has spread in Canada too, and this Ted video will fascinate you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOngsiy67YY
I really liked this way of teaching as it reminds me when I was young and the time spent outdoor running around with my friends and create our imaginary world made of sticks and fantasy.
I hope you liked this post and I wish all Europe will embrace this way to educate their children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_kindergarten
Hello All!
If your are planning to go on holiday in Canada this year, you better have a look at the below link which entitle to get a Free Pass for the Canadian Park for the whole 2017.
This special promotion has been put in place in order to celebrate the 150 years of the confederation. The pass gives the opportunity to enter National Parks, National Marine Conservation Areas and National Historic Sites across the country.
http://www.commandesparcs-parksorders.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/en/parksb2c
Also, you can take part in a raffle and win and holiday in Canada!!!
I have already subscribed, wish me luck !!
