60 SEE IT ●●●●● from Friday, August 21, 2015

‘Thinkglobally,and actlocally’

I t’s six months now since Bristol becameEuropean Green Capital. So what’s beengoing on so far? Has anything changed?We didn’t expect outbreaks of rampant

greenery to sprout from every street corner,although the council parks department hasdone us proud within some fantastic pop-upmeadow planting in our parks.

Most of you reading this will be Bristol-basedurban dwellers. In fact, 82 per cent of thepopulation now lives in towns or cities. World-wide the figure is 52 per cent and predicted toincrease to 62 per cent by 2050. So more andmore of us are set to become city dwellers.

Although we relish the cultural richness andconvenience of urban life, the green and verypleasant land that surrounds our city alsoattracts us. The frequent weekend jams on theM5 are evidence of this.

We crave green space and our gardens canbe an oasis within the cityscape. Is there,however, anything practical we could do tomake our streets greener?

How about growing food in our streets? Thisis not just a quirky gimmick; it cuts down airmiles while empowering people to see foodgrowing, particularly our children, who arepresented with too many over-packagedanonymous products that bear no resemb-lance to the original.

I would encourage everyone interested inthis type of local action to take a look at PamWarhurst’s Ted.com talk titled How we can eatour landscapes.

It’s inspiring, with its common sense ap-proach to getting things done, cutting outbureaucracy and linking in with local schools.In her own words: “If you eat, you’re in!”

Small schemes like The Bristol Fish Project’surban fish farm and aquaponics centre, where

fish are farmed and supplied locally and fishwaste is used to feed vegetables, is a greatexample of how local businesses can start withsmall schemes to change the way we growfood.

I think it’s important to shop locally and weare lucky in Bristol to have some of the finesthigh streets in the country. Still, it’s all too easyto slip back into supermarket top-up mode.

If we unify behind local producers we can geta more balanced approach to our food andavoid the ridiculous situation where the sellingof cheap milk in supermarkets threatens todestroy milk production in this country.

Another initiative is the council’s one treeper child planting scheme, which aims to haveevery one of the 36,000 children in Bristol’s 130primary schools planting at least one tree.

Why not extend that to people at the otherend of their lives to extend it to two trees!

Gardening Garden designer TomPhillips outlines some initiativesgerminated for Bristol’s year asEuropean Green Capital – and argueswe can still do more!

Urban forests could be started to “green up”areas, bringing green lungs into the heart ofthe city.

These ideas are not new, but we must keepstirring them back up to the surface. If theconditions are right, they might germinate.

Bristol doesn’t quite have the green cre-dentials of the previous Green Capital holder,Copenhagen, but we have the thinkers anddoers to make huge changes this year, whichwill go on bearing fruit for years to come.

Think globally, act locally and, in the wordsof John Kennedy: “Ask not what your city canplant for you, but what you can plant for yourcity.”

■ Tom Phillips runs Bristol-based All GardenDesigns. For more information, visitwww.allgardendesigns.co.uk, or call 0117 951 1923,or 07739 456765.

Bristol City Council has beenplanting meadows in parks