We must urgently rise and face the environmental challenges of our time by systematically reversing the economic, physical and social decline of places. This can be achieved by the practice of regenerative restoration of degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats in the environment by active human intervention and action.
Reversing the economic, physical and social decline of places is no small task, but it is nonetheless achievable, especially if we tackle the diverse range of challenges collaboratively at a localised level. The phrase “think global, act local” implies that many small local acts by many individuals is more effective when solving global environmental challenges. We agree!
Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic we have chosen to focus on home based actions that we can all practice — regenerative actions that increase our resilience and improve our prospects of a better future. As soon the pandemic subsides enough to allow more normal life we will shift some of our focus to ecosystem restoration and regenerative restoration of agricultural land.
The production of nutritious food using regenerative restoration principles is definitely something that we can all do in our own yards, school yards and on vacant land that is located within our communities. Small scale highly localised food production is especially important to food security while the Covid-19 Pandemic is still raging throughout the world.
UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, warned on Tuesday 9th June 2020 that the world is on the brink of the worst food crisis ever witnessed in the post-World War II era. Guterres said the virus pandemic could push more than 50 million into instant poverty, further saying countries must act now to shore up food security or risk imminent crisis.
“The Covid-19 crisis is attacking us at every angle,” said Agnes Kalibata, the UN secretary general’s special envoy for the 2021 food systems summit. “It has exposed dangerous deficiencies in our food systems and actively threatens the lives and livelihoods of people around the world, especially the more than 1 billion people who have employment in the various industries in food systems.”
And Covid-19 is not the only threat to food security. Locust plagues, disease, flooding, drought, heat waves and extreme cold are ravaging our food production. For example, African Swine Fever has wiped out more than half of China’s pig herd — and they are now flying in sows from Canada to build up the industry again — who said pigs can’t fly!
It has obviously become necessary that we all start taking action to ensure we have enough good food for ourselves and our communities. If you don’t know how to grow food, the Rescue Earth System will soon have many online courses that will be able to help you gain the relevant knowledge so that you can develop the necessary practical skills to grow nutritious food.
The ‘Home & Community Food Garden Challenge’ series will cover most of subjects that will also be covered in more detail in the online courses. The challenge for you, is finding what you would like to do so that you can commit to volunteering for an hour a day!