Nature

Why is spending time in nature important?

Spending time in nature is vital to broaden our awareness of how much nature is around us and how important it is to protect it. We need to relearn how to respect and treat nature better, because decades of putting profit, short-term benefit, and our economic wellbeing over the value of nature have not only destroyed a lot of life on earth but also our appreciation of a simple truth: putting nature first is a vital necessity for our own survival. We as humans also belong to nature.

Here are some ideas on how to spend more time in nature:

• Go walking or trekking with your Change Club, family orfriends. You could try to pick up some rubbish along the way.
• Go on a picnic with your Change Club, family or friends.
• Go to a national park with your Change Club, family or friends.
• Go for walks in nature. Take a forest bath (fresh air, soothing, healing, regenerative).
• Take breaks, stop and enjoy the beauty of our world. Be one with it.
• Stick to the walking path and keep your children and pets on them too.
• Don’t pick flowers or destroy mushrooms unnecessarily.
• Wherever you go, don’t leave any litter behind → This includes organic waste such as banana peels or apple cores, because these could lure wild animals from the safety of the wild and bring them closer to civilisation, causing more wildlife-vehicle collisions and other negative wildlife-human contact.

… And take your loved ones with you – particularly children and youth: It is very important to teach our next generation about the relevance of protecting our environment, the severity of biodiversity loss and the climate crisis, and the appreciation of nature.

External Articles & NEWS

Nature walk Banana peels

Why is inviting wildlife to your garden and planting trees important?

With the enormous population growth new problems arise, such as limited living space. Our solution is urbanisation, which encroaches on the living space of other animals and plants. Urbanisation has a very profound effect on the flora and fauna by blocking migration paths of animals, destroying natural habitats, and additionally, light, sound and chemical pollution heavily impacts nature. The decline or extinction of certain populations has a rippling effect on the carefully balanced ecosystem in that region.

Here are some examples for concrete steps you can take to invite wildlife to your garden:

• Set up a bird feeder, bird bath and nest box to invite birds to eat, drink, cool themselves down and build nests in your garden or balcony. Make sure that the opening of your nest box isn’t too big, because otherwise birds won’t lay their eggs in it with the fear of predators also entering their nest and stealing their eggs.
• Install or build a bat box. Here, you also need to make sure that all requirements for height and location are met. Putting up a hedgehog house is also pretty easy and affordable, just use an old wooden box, cut a hole in it as an entrance and then place it in the quietest part of your garden and cover with leaves to make it look as natural as possible.
• Mow your lawn less often and let wildflowers, dandelions, daisies and buttercups grow. Don’t underestimate which plants are already in your lawn. If you don’t want to let your whole lawn grow, then just let a patch grow. You could also try a new type of lawn like a clover lawn, which reduces water use, eliminates the need for fertilisers, cuts time spent on lawn care and also increases biodiversity. If you don’t want to go all the way, having a few clover patches mixed in with grass already goes a long way and attracts bees and other insects. Just be careful not to step in a bee in a clover lawn. You could also participate in “no mow may” and don’t mow your lawn for the month of may and see how many plants will grow in your lawn.

In particular, to help saving the bees:

• Plant nectar-producing native wildflowers. It’s very important that the flowers you plant are native, because flowers that aren’t native would disrupt the local ecosystem and might do more damage than good.
• Build insect hotels & be mindful about what products you use, standard backyard pesticides can be harmful or deadly to bees. It’s best not to use any pesticides at all in your garden, compost for example is a very good natural fertiliser.

Concrete steps to foster the planting of trees include:

1) Plant a native tree in your garden.

2) Take care of a tree in your neighbourhood if you don’t have your own garden → In many places, there are opportunities emerging, such as “green your city” initiatives, tree sponsorships (“Baum-Patenschaften”) etc. 

3) Set alternative internet browser (e.g. Ecosia) as your default browser and plant trees every time you surf the internet.

Did you know…

You can join a local initiative to plant trees in your neighbourhood for example or support a conservation or reforestation project to actively combat the loss of biodiversity and foster reforestation.

External Articles & NEWS

Bird boxes Bat boxes How to grow your lawn Eco search engine

Why is protecting the ocean important?

The ocean acts as the lungs of our planet by absorbing 25% of all carbon emissions and generating 50% of the oxygen we need to survive. Our ocean is also needed to regulate the temperature and weather of our planet by absorbing excess heat caused by climate change. Combating climate change therefore needs a healthy ocean and a healthy ocean needs climate action.

Special tips

• Join challenges like #take3forthesea.
• Avoid microbead plastics in peelings, toothpaste, make up, washing powder etc.
• Eat less or no seafood. If you do, make sure that it has been fished or grown in a sustainable manner.
• Avoid purchasing living coral and if you buy a marine aquarium fish, make sure that it has been collected or bred in a sustainable manner.
• Some water parks around the world don’t treat the animals right and are responsible for many avoidable deaths of sea life. If you like visiting water parks or any other captive animal parks, make sure you research first, and can agree with the park’s measures for animal treatment.

External Articles & NEWS

Reasons to protect the ocean

Further recommendations regarding biodiversity and nature protection are included in the module “Go Beyond“.