I attended the UK Premier of ‘Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai’ from the Green Belt Movement.  Taking Root tells the dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights, and defend democracy.

The Green Belt Movement (GBM) was founded in 1977 by Wangari Maathai (Nobel Laureate 2004). Green Belt Movement’s approach is based on the premise that truly sustainable development can only take place through recognizing the link between the environment, democracy, and peace.

Through its holistic approach to development, Green Belt Movement addresses the underlying causes of poverty and environmental degradation at the grassroots level. Green Belt Movement programmes use a ten-step development model that mobilizes communities to take action in their local environments. As a result over 40 million trees have been planted and hundreds of thousands of women in rural Kenya have lifted their families out of poverty.

I recommend seeing the film as it a true inspiration to all environmental campaigners. I believe it’s available on DVD at takingrootfilm.com/purchase.htm

The Green Awards Best Green Campaigner category is for those sorts of individuals. See www.greenawards.co.uk/categories_x_16/categories_x_16/best_green_campaigner_award We’re looking for any campaigner who has set a goal or campaign target, has set about achieving it and can explain what they were able to achieve against the odds. Campaigns can be as local as your street, school, college or company or may involve a town, city, borough or even a national campaign.

The Campaigner of the Year will be the individual who is judged to have been most creative in getting results for their chosen issue, regardless of the size of the campaign or the budget.

Wangari Maathai became the first environmentalist and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She overcame unimaginable obstacles that most of us never experience in daily life and yet still maintained a vision and reached into the consciousness of ordinary people to empower themselves to protect the environment and in doing so alleviate poverty. I think one thing I took from last night was the thought that no matter how big the problem is we face we can all make a difference and we should never just sit back through apathy when we hear of environmental degradation happening in other parts of the world such as the destruction of the forests. Because ultimately the planet will survive but the human race might not be quick enough to adapt to the changes that lay ahead because of the effects of global warming and climate change. We need to be focussed on our own survival and we need inspirational leaders to engage the mass consciousness. According to Wangari Maathai’s,Oslo, 10 December 2004, ”In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other.”

To enter the Best Green Campaigner Category visit: www.greenawards.co.uk/categories_x_16/categories_x_16/best_green_campaigner_award

For more information on the Green Belt Movement who is an Institutional partner for this year’s Green Awards visit:  www.greenbeltmovement.org

Separating your food isn’t a new idea let’s be honest. We’ve all been the grumpy five year old, pushing the carrots or sprouts to the edge of our plate with a thoroughly disgusted look plastered across our little face. Separating your food waste from your other household waste however is a practise that can have slightly more dramatic global consequences than missing out on some smelly veg’ (yes I still hate sprouts!).

WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) have reported that we – the general public – don’t mind separating our food waste (when given the appropriate equipment for storage) and of the 94,000 households offered the trial initiative, around 70% took part. Obviously this ties in well with the WRAP ‘love food, hate waste’ initiative, that aims to change the way we all buy food, showing the benefits to the environment and your weekly shopping spend if you only buy what you need and what you’ll actually eat (not to mention that it’d save food waste, and all the extra complexities involved in the production and transport of excess food).

“The collected food waste was either composted at in-vessel facilities or treated by anaerobic digestion.” And WRAP calculated that redirection of the 4,400 tonnes of food waste ‘saved’ the equivalent of 2,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions in little over a year, bargain!

The initiative shows that even those of us who don’t have use of the family compost bin can and will make the effort if given the choice.

WRAP Summary
http://www.wrap.org.uk/wrap_corporate/news/public_supports.html

Full Report
http://www.wrap.org.uk/local_authorities/biowaste/separate_food_waste.html

Love food hate waste
http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/