My name is Mark and I'm concerned with the rising CO2 levels around the World. I believe that we all should try to do more to reduce our impact on the environment. As you know, many people are already taking steps to do this in the form of renewable energy and recycling but these are expensive. Another way of reducing CO2 levels is by doing something that will be carbon positive such as planting trees or painting your house with photocatalytic paint. There are lots of ways we can do things to reduce CO2 levels, I believe that the hardest part is the Doing or more to the point getting other people to Do it too. This is why we must come up with new ideas that makes being green more natural and less of a chore. In fact if people can benefit from being green then there is even more reason to do it!
As well as being Concerned about the environment, I would like to see more positive things happening in my Local Community. I come from Didcot, a small growing town in the south of Oxfordshire and i am concerned that as the town grows we will slowly lose the sense of community that we currently feel. I recently went to London and felt sad at the way people treat each other, they don't speak to each other and basically ignore eachother. I don't want to see my town end up like that and i don't want my children to live in that kind of environment.
So, instead of waiting for someone else to solve these problems for me, i began searching for inspiration.
I live in a part of Didcot called Ladygrove, it is a fairly new estate with lots of green space. To be honest it is already a good model for the future with lots of footpaths (known as yellow brick roads) through the green areas that are adorned with ornamental shrubs and trees. Recently the Local council installed "The Ladygrove Loop". The Ladygrove Loop is a fitness trail, that has many exercise machines, which runs along the yellow brick roads throughout the ladygrove estate. It's basically a free outdoor gym for the local people.
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One day whilst on the Ladygrove loop i notice a few people out picking blackberries from the the numerous bushes that grow all over the estate. This got me thinking, why not have more fruits dotted around for the people to pick? And my idea was born...
The idea is to plant small scale orchards within Didcot to provide Local organic food to the population. The Aim is for the People of Didcot to get involved in the planting and maintaining of different fruit trees in order to provide themselves with healthy, free, organically grown fruit and a friendlier community.
The orchards will provide local people with an opportunity to get involved with their local community working as a team to manage the project. The Orchards themselves will be family friendly with local children being encouraged to take part through school projects. The Orchard will provide an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the life cycle of plants and their relationship with other species. Families can enjoy the experience of growing fruit together and when it is ripe and ready they will get to take some home with them.
The Trees will be grown naturally without the use of pesticides and chemical fertiliser resulting in healthier food and a healthier environment. As we know Trees are good for the environment, they help to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Fruit tree in particular help reduce CO2 emissions further, by growing the fruit locally the need to import fruit from other countries will be reduced. Reducing the CO2 emissions from supply chains will be better for the world not just Didcot.
Excess fruit can be donated to local charities that focus on feeding the poor. Also value can be added to fruit by processing into higher value goods such as Jam and then sold to raise funds for further development of the project.
As you can see there are many benefits to the project and i'm sure you have probably thought of some new ideas already. I would hope that other groups within Didcot would like to get involved in different ways, perhaps the Womens institute would like to process some fruit into Jam or a school may want to plant their own orchard onsite. The possibilities are endless. I hope you are interested and will continue to follow this blog and get involved.
Thank you for reading
~Mark
What a fantastic idea !
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