Showing Mother Nature love and appreciation doesn’t always require a grand gesture. More often than not, it’s as simple as giving your time.
World Environment Day is just around the corner – 5 June – and this year’s theme is Climate Action. Why is this important? Well, the recent storms in Cape Town give us some idea of what signals our exhausted Earth is sending us. What sort of signals are we going to choose to send back?
We’ve pulled together some really simple, easy and fun actions you can take to help Mother Nature! So get rid of the guilt, pull on your earth-cape and send some GOOD vibes to the Earth.
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Local Cape Town expert, Christy Bragg, refers to herself as a bohemian scientist, with her blended experience in conservation and feature writing. From rabbit-chasing in the Karoo to decoding climate change, she’s done it all - with a pen in one hand and a field guide in the other. She now splits her time between immersing herself in nature around Cape Town, parenting teenagers and freelance gigs. At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by local writers who know their cities inside out. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.
You might be thinking – that’s a weird climate action! But food and energy are tightly linked. Food waste drives 10% of total global greenhouse gas emissions (and emissions lead to climate change impacts). So pull out those carrots from the bottom of the fridge drawer and make some Veggie Broth, or save the broccoli stems for Pesto. Here are some recipes to get you started!
Just being grateful for Mother Nature sends her a strong signal. If you live in an apartment, go for a walk. If you live near a beach, go for a paddle. If you have a garden, go lie under a tree. Nature is everywhere. Spend a few minutes watching that sparrow looking for food, listen to the leaves rustling, breathe deeply and let your shoulders sink.
Nature is known for her powers of healing. Research shows that exposure to green and blue spaces results in a physiological state of relaxation.
Also read: The best day hikes in Cape Town
If you have a thumb, you can do this. So easy! Dig a hole, preferably somewhere protected from foot traffic, and pop a fynbos plant in it. Fynbos (‘fine bush”) is what occurs in our Cape’s natural ‘gardens.’ Where do you get a fynbos plant? (Not from the fynbos! We want to add to our heritage, not remove from it). Find a nursery near you –there are many around Cape Town, including Kirstenbosch’s Garden Centre, Cape Flats Fynbos Nursery, or the Living Roots Indigenous nursery.
Growing sunbird-friendly fynbos plants in your garden, such as Leonotis leonurus (wild dagga) and Cape honeysuckle, is a win-win option - a win for the birds, a win for the fynbos and a win for you watching pretty birds.
Why does fynbos matter? Well, it’s our natural heritage and it’s a very special heritage! Did you know that Cape Floral Kingdom has a significantly higher concentration of plant species per square kilometre than the Amazon rain forest?
A beach is where the ocean exhales onto land. And sometimes that exhale comes with clean, foaming susurrating waves. And other times it comes with human debris, like plastic and rubbish.
Join an organized beach clean-up, such as the one at the Soetwater Education Centre, Kommetjie, at 9:30am on the 5th June. There will be fun activities and info stands, so take the kids along.
Alternatively take a rubbish bag and a friend and have a nice gossip on the beach while picking up bits of litter (take some gloves to protect your hands). Cleaning the earth doesn’t need to be lonely!
Also read: The best beach walks in Cape Town
Get some worms (from the early bird, haha, or from worm suppliers) and get some kitchen scraps. Put them together in a black bin (bin supplier) and percolate for a few weeks, open the tap and,-ta-da!, you have worm tea.
Worm tea is what earth drinks when she’s thirsty after a rough day of being Mother Earth. To put it more pragmatically, worm tea is an all-natural, liquid fertilizer. Why do we want to use all-natural fertilizer in our gardens? Synthetic fertiliser is responsible for 2.1% of global GHG emissions.
Here’s a guide on how to make worm tea and here’s how to set up a worm farm!
Why not use plastic shopping bags? Yes, they are light but so light that millions fly into the ocean (around 300 million plastic bags enter the Atlantic Ocean alone every year). Then sealife think they are edible and only find out later that they really are not! Did you know that plastic bags are made of fossil fuel – in fact all synthetic plastic is. Fossil fuel emissions lead to climate change.
So one small but significant piece of climate action you can take is to use your cloth shopping bag (and you don’t only have to use it for shopping!. You can even get extra bang for your buck and buy a fabric bag with beautiful whales on it and some of your money will go to conservation NGOs saving whales. It’s a win-win solution!
Purchase your fabric bags from Woollies, Pick ‘n Pay or give a beautiful one as a gift!
Are you a climate action-taker? Are you also a coffee addict? Then buy a reusable coffee mug and use it for your caffeine fix. Disposable coffee cups often have a hidden plastic inner liner. This design makes them virtually unrecyclable and heavily polluting.
Rather indulge in some retail therapy (who said climate action was boring?) and get yourself a beautiful, funky coffee mug. Options range from the beautiful William Morris Ecoffee Cup from Makro, to 6060’s chic Foreign Ground Animal Print Bamboo Fibre Travel Mug.
If you really don’t have time to go clean a beach or plant a plant, there is always the donation route. This is one of the most important things you can do. Even if it is only R10, it is R10 that goes towards protecting this big, beautiful earth of ours. I can vouch for the people who work at these Cape-based conservation NPOS – they are passionate, dedicated and go the extra mile!
Research has shown that many of us are experiencing eco-anxiety (particularly about big, scary things like climate change). Eco-anxiety can make people feel helpless and powerless and unwilling to face reality, but the Earth needs us to be engaged and active. A trained counsellor will help guide you through the grief and worry onto the things that you do have some power over (like the activities on this list)!
Where can you find an eco-therapist? Try the Therapist Directory or an Anxiety therapist in Cape Town.
Spread the love! Everyone can send some strong caring signals to Earth this World Environment Day.
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