Earth Day took place this past Sunday with community action and green beauties taking a stand to save our open spaces as citizens of Mother Earth.
This year's OUR SCHOOL CARES environmental competition started off with a good show of enthusiastic learners eager to clean the Strand beach on Earth Day. No less than 9 schools, 18 teachers and 310 learners, plus 60 dedicated Peninsula Beverages (the sponsors) staff and their children, pitched in and systematically stripped the beach of 400 bags of rubbish in one hour!
This book was the first down to earth basic book about saving energy in the household using layman's terms that I have found. A must buy to have handy.
It educates people like me who only know Eskom as a monopoly and all the bad press around it. It informed me of all the other parties involved and that there are plans in place to make Eskom one of many to supply energy and also in different more sustainable ways.
On Earth Day, Accor Hospitality celebrated Earth Guest day and announced that it had crossed the initial one million trees threshold of its Plant for the Planet project.
Amanda Bourne (of the Climate Action Partnership) attended a presentation by IDEA WILD, a US NPO that supports biodiversity conservation efforts by raising funds and donating equipment to conservation researchers and projects. This includes office equipment and software, lab equipment, field equipment, and some costs such as for a field assistant or for fuel or transport costs up to the value of $1,500.00. It's a flexible system so you can get quite creative (though not too lavish) with requests.
There is 'hidden' economic value in protecting forests ' people and animals that depend on the forests. When they are protected, sustainable economies develop, and climate change is stopped.
For the ancient tribes of the world, respect was a fundamental value. They understood that their survival depended on their ability to appreciate life and live in harmony with nature. Sadly, it seems that the more 'advanced' civilisation became, the more it lost the very value needed to sustain its future.
