The Green Festival free screening of the award-winning ‘Sharkwater’ film, sponsored by Royal Haskoning was a fantastic success. It generated important awareness and support for a worthy cause and raised donations for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Following the popularity of the screening, PECT has been closely following the news.
The European Common Fisheries Policy is pending reform and an important draft proposal was published in Brussels yesterday. Full details of the reform can be read here.
Over 700,000 amazing people have signed up to the ‘Fight Fish’ campaign, showing support for need to protect both our fish stocks and our fishermen’s livelihoods. Sign up and get involved in Hugh Fernly Whittingstalls work.
Governments around the world are reacting to declining fish populations with some major policy and legislation changes. Leading the way – shark fishing has been banned in the Bahamas, creating a sanctuary that protects 40 species of sharks. To find out more click here to read a press release.
There are lots of ways you can help end the decline in shark populations through illegal fishing and the global shark-fining trade. Visit the PECT website for more information.
As the eco awards creep even closer, I am sure the hunger to win grows ever more amongst the children.Prizes will be awarded across 13 different subjects– from the individual to the team, the school to the community; everybody has a fighting chance of being named the greenest of them all.
The awards
Based on the children’s displays, award such as Waste and Recycling, Biodiversity and Healthy Living will be given by the judges to those children who’ve strived to create the most inspiring projects- showing enthusiasm and dynamism to take the lead. One of the most important features of the day will be the presentation of the Eco Leader Award. Nominated by the schools, this recognises the commitment of a truly inspirational person who has given up their lunch and break time and time again to promote a green way of life. Oh dear, I fear a few tears may be spilt!
So it's that time of year again; the weekend when cupid curls his finger around the twine and takes aim. In some cases, lets hope he strikes the bullseye and melds people in a bubble of happiness. In other cases, lets hope the little mite misses just a tad and actually severs the bonds that hold the more unsuitable couples together. I for one will bid a fond farewell to the unfortunate duo who seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that Poundland is a building soceity, and that by investing their jobseekers allowance there they are safeguarding their litter's future.
But nay, my whinge this week isn't about the great unwashed, rather about the absolute waste of everything that Valentine's Day has become. For starters, it has its origin in Christianity - some Pope or other decided it would be a good idea at some point - so if you're an atheist or a non-believer or of some other faith, there is a confusing issue to start with. Nowadays this celebration of love seems to be owned by a number of high-street card shops, lingerie outlets, chocolatiers and city-break touting travel agents. And I, constantly suspicious of what 'the man' is doing to distract the proletariate, am convinced the placement of Valentine's Day six weeks after Christmas is a conspiracy theory. Most people have just been paid for the first time following the glutonous spending in late December, and the coffers are back in the black. Put Valentine's on 14th January and it's a dead duck - nobody could afford the petrol to the garage to buy a cheap posy of wilting daffs, let alone an elaborate bouquet of roses. Seems to me old Pope Gelasius I knew what he was doing - probably links in to the Da Vinci Code somehow but I'll leave that to Dan Brown...
Anyway, back on to the waste side of things, lets look at the classic Valo gifts one by one...
Chocolates - Milk, yes. Milk means cows. Cows mean methane. Methane, like carbon dioxide, is a greenhouse gas but is twenty-five times more potent than it's more famous cousin. I'm not going to get started on the over-packaging, or the food miles or the fact that they make you fat. Alternative suggestion - locally-sourced produce, or a nice pint of organic milk.
Flowers - According to the Guardian, 55 million roses are traded around the world on the 14th. That means that 55 million roses are put in the bin on the 21st. If you work from the estimate that each rose stem grown in Holland produces 3kg of carbon dioxide emissions, when you hand over that beautiful dozen to your loved one, why not also pass her a bag and a half of building sand, just to demonstrate the carbon effects of this oh so common gesture. Alternative suggestion - some kind of origami flower, or just one rose?
Cards - We all know the scores here don't we; "You had me at hello..", "Love you baby..." and "You're the only one for me... (until next year when we've split up because you were seeing the guy from work behind my back for three months and I only found out because you text the wrong person by mistake one night!)" The global postal industry's carbon emissions are three times that of the much-maligned aviation industry, with 12 million cards delivered by the Royal Mail alone on Valentine's Day. Alternative suggestion - send an e-card, make a card or at the very least give the card to your loved one as opposed to putting in the post. Or don't bother with a card and just tell her how you feel, you cold, awkward thing...
I could go on... jewellery and gold mines and exploitation of workers in developing nations, clothes to replace ones that are pefectly wearable, beauty products that contain palm oils that contribute to the distruction of the rainforests.
How do I ever buy anything you might wonder, if I look behind every product to such a degree?
The answer is simple, I don't. I keep my money in my mattress and only use things I find on the street. This year I'm giving gifts of half eaten chicken tikka kebab, shoe and damaged wooden pallet, all wrapped in an old tarpaulin and sealed down with spent Hubba Bubba. Somehow I don't think I'll have to worry about it next year...
On the 23rd January, Thorpe Meadows saw a brilliant turn out for the first planting event of the newly launched project a Forest for Peterborough.
With the first 1,500 trees being planted, there was a real sense of achievement and the potential the project became a reality.
The project offers the opportunity to plant trees, shrubs and general coverage throughout Peterborough, giving you the chance to take part and contribute to the development of your city.
Sophie Antonelli, Forest for Peterborough project officer for PECT says,
“This project will certainly increase the number of trees planted in Peterborough. But it’s also about more than just trees – we want to increase the range of habitats in the city such as grassland and hedgerow as well as woodland. We want to create green corridors throughout Peterborough to allow our wildlife to flourish."
168,500 trees left to plant might appear a tall order, however after the success, enthusiasm and positive start seen on Sunday; PECT has complete faith in the project and feels confident they will succeed in their aim to have planted a tree per person within the 15 year timescale.
For more information about the project and future planting events, please contact
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
A blog by Iain Shanks, PECT's weekly volunteer, on one of our newest projects, A Forest for Peterborough
Now I may be being a little biased here but having grown up in the Fens, an area distinctly short of trees for small boys to climb, I think the Forest for Peterborough is a great idea. Of course we need to create green corridors for wildlife in the city but we need to create them for us humans too.
I attended the Forest for Peterborough launch in November and heard Clive Anderson talking with great passion about planting trees. Not just for a day out with the family but as a means of making a mark on the world that will out live you. He inspired me to buy a tree as a Christmas present for my mum’s partner, who has recently become a grand father. I thought the notion of Grandad’s Tree was a far better gift than a CD, socks or a joke present, and with far longer lasting benefits.
I loved the idea of the family being able to plant the tree together. The forest for Peterborough seemed a much better option than planting a tree in the garden of a house – the house could be sold on and then ownership of the tree would pass on with the land but buying a tree in a public space means that future generations will always have access to it.
Grandad’s Tree looks like it will be planted on the 22nd of February, at Thorpe Meadows near the rowing lake, He was too busy to attend the January planting on the 23rd of this month, although anyone else is free to attend.
If you would like more information on forthcoming planting events and how to plant trees in the Forest for Peterborough for your family and friends to enjoy go to www.pect.org.uk/forest or contact
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
MyView is the ultimate way to re-design the areas in your neighbourhood that you think need improving.
Through a simple click-and-drag process you can create tree-d places and green spaces in your neighbourhood that will benefit people and wildlife alike:
1. Take a photograph of a local space that would benefit from more trees (or if you are busy, try Street View)
2. Upload it into MyView, select from a portfolio of native trees and overlay (plant) them onto your photo
3. Personalise your MyView further by adding the reasons why you would like to see more trees in this space. You could use some of ours, too
4. Click to send it as an email straight to your local Councillors!
How does it work?
MyView is an excellent way to really demonstrate the difference trees can make to your community. Using images of real places, you can see what physically adding trees there would actually look like.
Acting like a visual petition, the clever little gizmo will send the image of your newly re-designed landscape and the reasons why you think trees will improve it straight to your local Councillors. They are invited to call for tree planting to be considered at full Council level...which in turn helps them tap into the great resources the Woodland Trust provides to see your plan take root.
Later on the in the Tree Planting season, you can then go back and check up on the progress being made!
In the long term, you will also be helping the Woodland Trust collect evidence to show how trees and woods really can improve the places we live in.
Ready to get creating?
Working with local authorities and the Local Government Association to develop MyView, highlights the genuine interest of Councils in seeing your ideas to improve your neighbourhood.
Every Councillor in the UK has been contacted to tell them about MyView and the response has been overwhelmingly positive - better still is how much willingness has been shown for turning designs into practical action.
I've never been a fan of Dirty Dancing. I've seen it, sure, and I know it's a classic; a film that defined a generation, and for some the sight of Swayze shaking his rump will forever send a shiver down the spine. Not for me. I don't like the film, and I can dance better than that as well. I also blame the film for popularising the phrase, 'time of my li-i-ife', a phrase that has plunged so quickly into cliche that it renders my claim that this weekend 'I had, the time of my li-i-ife' almost laughable. But I did, so ner.
Many will have heard of the Latitude Festival in Suffolk this weekend - probably for the wrong reasons. I was there, from Thursday until Monday, and I saw a different festival to the one that has been reported. So I feel compelled to reassure the 74 people that read this blog, and soon word will reach the four corners of the world; "Latitude's okay... Sam says it's okay!" And it was, very okay.
Florence Machined, the Vampires made the Weekend, and Tom Jones, well, sang some songs. Throw in some poetry, a few plays, some impromptu ballet (a glass of cider or two) and you've got yourself a fantastic festival.
But Latitude is about more than music - it aspires to be (and is) the greenest festival in the UK. Paper cups have been replaced by reusable plastic alternatives, bottle and glass recycling bins are as commonplace as tents, and everyone was given a composting bag to fill with undercooked pot noodle and cold beans.
Not only were these things there - people used them. I saw groups of sixteen-year-old kids making a conscious effort to recycle their empty beer cans. How they got the cans probably should have been my major concern, but I was, dare I say it, proud of the lil' nippers. I even felt compelled to tussle their unwashed hair and let out a, "good lad; am proud of you son." Fortunately I managed to refrain from what may have been a premature senior moment.
So as I piroutted to Rodrigo y Gabriela, as I bounced to Gentleman's Dub Club and as I pumped my fist to Mumford and Son's I felt part of something. Something exciting. Something burgenoning. Something green.
Could it be that amongst the throng;amongst the sweaty 30,000 stood,
that first shoot of something good.
In that field on the Sunrise Coast, did the swaying and the waving represent a greater movement? Were the faces drowned in green glow-in-the-dark paint a picture of the future? Was the clapping of the hands and the stamping of the feet symbolic of more serious noises beating in the collective conscious of a generation?
They say that the greatest achievements are only achieved by standing on the shoudlers of giants...
...perhaps those on the shoulders of their friends in the early hours of the weekend are aware that greatness is theirs to grasp, or let slip.
This weekend 26th-27th June The Wildlife Trust are looking for your insight into the species in your backyard. Everyone that enters will be entered into a free prize draw and will be entitled to a free gift with their next order from Vine House Farm Bird Foods.
If you live in Peterborough or Cambridgeshire then the wild life trust want to hear from you.
Gardens are especially important sanctuaries for wild life in our towns and cities and so it is of unique interest to the wildlife trust which species we share our urban environments and private spaces with.
You can join the Garden Watch Survey by filling in the online survey form (click here) and for further details visit the website (click here).
This week Boris Johnson with his usual enthusiasm and bluster announced the arrival on the streets of the Capital of the new hybrid Routemaster, a big Red bus with green credentials, yes it uses fossil fuels as a power source but the bus will use the latest green technology. It will be 15 per cent more fuel efficient than existing hybrid buses, and 40 per cent more efficient than conventional diesel double decks and much quieter on the streets.
The bus looks amazing with all the contemporary curves of that urban essential theiphone. This is what green technology should represent. Everything the consumer wants with the minimum impact to the planet and the next step towards bringing our society back in step with the earth’s natural systems.
We have a society enhanced by the mobility given to us by the internal combustion engine, reducing its impact on the environment and making mass transport more attractive, is the most consumer friendly way of making our daily lives greener.
This is an action to make buses more exciting and to provide a more attractive alternative to the car in the capital.
Academics and big business are urging our politicians to act in this spirit and to take it further. The Hartwell Paper is an international report coordinated by the London School of Economics which advocates a three stage approach to reinvigorating environmental policy, the primary principle of which is the raising up of human dignity, through empowerment.
They see renewable energy sources as the route to sustainable development providing the power for cars homes and businesses without producing the carbon that causes global warming.
By increasing the quality of public services and reducing emissions these busses improve the way that people interact with their urban spaces and symbolise the principles behind the type of development advocated by the Hartwell paper’s authors. By increasing the dignity of people in our cities, individually and collectively, whilst using more fuel efficient vehicles and showing real innovation that will reduce the impact of our actions on the earth, and lowering emissions to levels that the planet can cope with.
The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Peterborough is running a range of activities throughout the summer as part of the John Clare Country Project.
The John Clare Country Project, centred around the poet John Clare’s birth place in Helpston, celebrates the history, heritage, culture, wildlife and landscape of this beautiful area.
Activities include an Orchid Walk, Garden Watch Weekend and Dragonfly Day. They run from May through to August and most of the events are free and suitable for families.
A flyer detailing the activities can be found here
11:36:05
s being planted, there was a real sense of achievement and the potential the project became a reality. 
allow our wildlife to flourish." 
n a CD, socks or a joke present, and with far longer lasting benefits.
and will be entitled to a free gift with their next order from Vine House Farm Bird Foods.
