Upton Nature Garden Volunteers.
Not too many people will be shedding a tear for the end of 2021, I suspect,
but what a year for nature in Upton! We received funding for the nature
garden, broke ground in September and planted bulbs in October with the
help of loads of village volunteers. Meanwhile in the overflow cemetery we
sowed wildflowers and a flying squad from a local firm planted a 90 metre
hedge in the middle of a gale.
What does this add up to? Well, it depends what you want to measure.
According to long-standing convention, economic growth is the only scale
worth paying attention to. If it doesn’t increase GDP, it isn’t worth the
candle. But this is to ignore all the soft benefits that an activity brings – and
any harmful collateral. Quick example: going for a walk generates no
revenue, no margin, but it contributes to the walker’s health and maybe
their happiness, without causing any pollution – as long as they didn’t drop
any litter while they were out.
Let’s take a closer look at the balance sheet for the environmental projects
in Upton:
Plants and materials provided a bit of income for suppliers, but the labour
was all about love, not money, so economically there’s not much to report.
When it comes to environmental impact the calculations get interesting.
Initially there are carbon emissions from transport of goods and people to
consider. But over the course of the, say minimum 30 years we’d expect the
hedges, shrubs and trees to grow, the capture rate (according to experts at
https://ecotree.green) averages at 25kg of carbon a year. That’s the
equivalent of the emissions a new car produces over a distance of 125 miles
(www.nimblefins.co.uk for the calculation). And since we’ll have put in
more than 600 trees when everything’s planted, we’ll be safely in the black.
Then there’s the direct contribution to nature: food and habitat for
creatures that wouldn’t otherwise have had the necessary. With the
potential to harbour thousands of species, a single hedge is a pretty
phenomenal ecosystem. Adding one means a net gain for nature – and
indeed for humans since one of the nature garden’s hedges is edible, with
fruit and berries for jams, jellies and syrups if you’re that way inclined.
And what about the contribution to community? Gathering people with a
common purpose is definitely valuable, although I’m not sure what metric
you’d use. And finally the business of enjoying the end result: bud-burst or
birdsong or butterfly-flight. Again, hard to quantify. And maybe that’s the
point. If the uncountable stuff – birdsong or bud-burst or bumblebee drone –
disappears one day, it won’t affect the economy, but it will affect all of us.
Kieron Humphrey kieronhumph@gmail.com