April 12

Published by Panetary Health Initiative on 12/04/202212/04/2022

A YEAR IN A DAY CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECT DRAWS TO A CLOSE

I’d like to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone who’s participated in A Year in a Day since 1 January this year. Together, Council and Communities, in Australia AND Timor, have explored and taken actions to restore planetary health, culminating in over 365 actions on World Health Day, 7 April – the action of a whole year in one day!

This is the urgency we need going forward to protect the natural systems on which all life depends. It’s been a fabulous and inspiring 102 days with over 100 people participating and around 900 new actions taken.  But, tonight, with a celebratory first for me – a bowl of home-made vegan vanilla ice cream – our A Year in a Day Citizen Science project draws to a close.  Over coming days I’ll be collating and reporting back on what we’ve done, and we’d really love to hear your feedback – Were you inspired to take action? Did you learn anything new? Have you created any new habits? Do you have more ideas of what you could do?

For those of you who haven’t yet done so, we’d also love you to take one more new action – to share  your ideas for the old Katoomba Golf Course precinct plan before Friday this week. We’d love to hear your vision for the future of this extraordinary site and how you think it could be transformed to help restore planetary health. It’s an exciting opportunity to create a world leading centre for planetary health with possible research, learning and demonstration opportunities as well as being a stunning environment to enjoy in its own right. It’s a critical water resource, feeding a hanging swamp and Sydney’s water supply, and provides habitat for a number of species at one of the highest points in Katoomba. 

Go to https://yoursay.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/katoomba-golfcourse… to have your say – and then let us know so we can add you to our final tally of actions!

In today’s action I continued to explore new cooking techniques so that I can vary my diet with more plant-based meals. Out of one packet of dried chickpeas, for under $3, I was able to make 2 batches of vegan ice cream, a large container of sweet potato hummus, and 3 more full vegetable curries. Hard to imagine a more economical way of producing food.

Thanks to local writer Teya Brooks Pribac’s new cookbook, Not Just Another Vegan Cookbook, I made pouring cream with cashews, and ice cream with aquafaba and cashew cream.

Aquafaba is quite miraculous. It’s the water that results from soaking and cooking chickpeas and it can be whipped up just like egg whites to make meringue,  pavlova and ice cream.

Tonight’s dinner of avocado toast, sweet potato hummus with roasted carrot and parsnip sticks, garlic zucchinis and salad with lettuce, cucumbers and beetroot. #mountainsgrown zucchini, garlic, lettuce, cucumber and parsnip.

THE WAY FORWARD

1. TRAILER: Reviving Rivers with Dr Rajendra Singh the Waterman of India. This story features a community scale restoration project. Poor villages in the desert of Rajasthan with dying rivers, and extreme water scarcity, took community action in order to restore the health of their lands. The results? They revived 7 rivers, brought water back to 250,000 wells, went from 2% to 48% vegetative cover, and reduced the local temperature 2 degrees. Young people who had been forced to migrate to the cities for work, were now able to return home to a viable future. This community movement began with the work of a doctor – who had learned from an elder that if he wanted to help the health of the villagers, he had to focus instead on the health of their land. View here
2. NO MOW MAY is popular in the UK, and it’s now taking off in the US too. The initiative provides rare spring food for bees emerging from hibernation. No Mow May lawns had five times the number of bees and three times the bee species than did mown parks. Read more at NY Times
3. A new randomised clinical trial has found regularly donating blood or plasma can reduce blood PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ levels. The trial was funded and supported by Fire Rescue Victoria to find a way to remover the PFAS from firefighters’ bodies. Read more at The Conversation

WE ARE NATURE

It truly has been an amazing season for fungi and this is an example of a number of different coral fungi that have appeared this week. Doesn’t surprise me because it’s felt as though we’ve all been underwater for some time!

Again, thank you for you contribution to A Year In a Day and please do share your feedback, (here, on social media or by emailing lbastian(at)bmcc.nsw.gov.au), as it will help us design future programs and determine the most effective way to achieve the urgent cultural change we need going forward.