Village Sustainability Newsletter, July 2025
SUSTAINABILITY – WORKING TOWARDS THE COFE’S CARBON NEUTRAL TARGET 2030
Hope from the Arts
I’m sometimes disheartened by the vastness of the task of protecting the environment – global warming/climate change, water pollution/ocean acidification, and loss of biodiversity are the three huge key areas and our small personal actions of living sustainably can feel quite a big deal to us, yet we may still wonder if doing our bit actually makes a difference.
I’m a huge believer that we DO make a difference, by being part of a body of people thinking and acting as we do, and by explaining what we are doing and why, as far, wide and loud as we can! But we all need a morale boost at times and several experiences this week have brought me so much hope and encouragement I thought I would share them.
I joined a group from Chieveley Gardening Club on a guided visit to Chimney Meadows BBOWT nature reserve, a site restoring biodiversity by replacing former fields of monocrops with hay meadows, lush with a variety of grasses and wild flowers, buzzing with insects and alive with birds flying overhead. We learned how the meadows are created, about the importance of managing such a site properly and about the disastrous effects of climate change. We discovered how flooding at the wrong time of year or in the wrong place can damage a piece of land (which nonetheless survives normal annual flooding) and how it can take years to recover from a single incident. We heard curlews which have been coming back to the same location for decades, and excitingly, it appears they may even be persuaded to nest in a different location on the same site.
The song of the curlews reminded me of happy holidays on the western edge of the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. An hour’s drive further west is the Lake District, home to James Rebanks, well known for his writing on sustainable farming in Cumbria. James’s latest book, The Place of Tides, covers his season-long stay on a Norwegian Island, working with one of the few remaining “duck-women” who build nests, nurture the loyal and annually returning eider ducks, and when these have left with their chicks, harvest the remaining down to sell for eiderdowns. It is a story of the environment and ancient traditions and people and forgiveness and was another example of how climate change and changing working practices have harmed the world. There are people – like Anna, the duck-woman – working hard at a local level to change that and reverse the decline in biodiversity, and I recommend this uplifting read.
The third reason for hope was an exhibition called We Feed the UK: Celebrating Our Custodians of Land and Sea, which you may have heard featured on BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme. It is described thus: ‘We Feed the UK is a monumental undertaking with a clever premise whereby ten poets and ten award-winning photographers have been commissioned to tell ten stories of “hope” in an otherwise battered and bruised food-producing landscape: one damaged by Brexit, climate chaos, the cost of living crisis and heart-breaking biodiversity loss.’ I probably can't better that but do look up the Gaia Foundation who commissioned the work. The photography is brilliant, the poems thought-provoking and the stories behind the subjects enough to restore hope in anyone who cares about the food we eat and our environment.
So what can we do to replicate and embody these values here in the West Downland? The principles of no-mow May could be a useful starting point– planting wildflower seeds, or letting a corner of the garden or churchyard go wild. Keen gardeners can look into insect-attracting species, growing our own veg, or doing a skills-for-produce exchange with a neighbour. While we don’t all have our own eider ducks to nurture, we can draw on the earth’s cycles and patterns and take our lead from nature in the way we live our lives.
Julia Hoaen