Ecology

Planting trees is the most effective measure against the overheating of the Earth. Maybe in a few years‘ time humanity will come to the realisation that part of our salvation lies in rebelling, i.e planting trees as if our lives depended on it and reanimating landscapes wherever possible… This is the way 48-year old Jochen Schilk puts it in his book Re-Greening the World “50 infectious stories about planting trees”. Rarely have I been sent a book in such an unconventional way. One Friday morning as I opened my letterbox down by the road there it was, wrapped in brown …

From time immemorial, Nature has been providing us with our essentials, including fruit, cereals, fish, meat and wood. Clean air and clean water are other free gifts of Nature. Economists group all these aspects together under the concept of natural capital. Put simply, natural capital is defined as the stock of natural goods and services, such as soil, forest or the sea, which provide fresh air, for example, or drinking water. Yet it is, in fact, problematical to attempt to place a value on the services of nature. If humans want to use the natural resources in a gentle and …

Born in Porto on 10 May 1951, José Francisco de Almeida Pacheco is a teacher, anthropologist and pedagogue. ECO123 had a chat with this resourceful educationalist, who has brought greater democracy to educational management, and asked him what value nature has in education in Portugal. Do you think that nowadays, when UN ambassador Jane Goodall is saying that human beings, the most intelligent creatures on Earth, are destroying their planet, it still makes sense to educate children? This was a question I asked 55 years ago, in 1968, when I was living in a country that was under a dictatorial …

What is wrong and what is right? If only this were always so clear. A decision had to be taken. It’s always easy to be wise after the event. On the morning of 3 August 2018, a group of men assembled at the Lisbon HQ to discuss the day’s business, weighing up the pros and cons. Should they switch off the overland power lines in southern Alentejo and the Algarve, or should they allow them to carry on as normal? This was the kind of day when anything could happen: an ideal day for a misadventure, an ideal day for …

“This is a book about our future.” These are the first words of “Earth4All”, published by the Club of Rome. Its subheading declares it to be a Survival Guide for our planet. Here are some quotes: “We all know that we have to put a stop to the extreme poverty affecting billions of people. We know that we have to resolve the galloping inequality. We know that we need an energy revolution. We know that our industrial diet is damaging our health and that the way we produce our food is destroying nature, triggering a sixth mass extinction of animal …

Per Espen Stoknes was born in Alesund, Norway, in 1967. He is a psychologist with a PhD in economics and chairs the Centre for Green Growth at the Norwegian Business School. He also spearheads the Business School’s Master of Management programme “Green Growth” and consults widely. A serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the clean-tech company GasPlas, he has also written several books and has been invited to participate in several TED talks. In Earth for All, at the Club of Rome, he belonged to the modelling team and the coordinating team who wrote the book. You can also find his …

Paulo Alves is 52 years old and was elected Mayor of Monchique on 26 September 2021. Before that, he worked as a bank manager at Caixa Agrícola, Banco Espírito Santo and Novo Banco. ECO123 interviewed the new Socialist mayor and his deputy, Humberto Sério, at a business lunch invitation. Transparency note: lunch was paid for by the Council.   Do you remember the forest fire in Monchique in August 2018? Paulo Alves: Yes, I remember it perfectly.   It was more than four years ago. The trial at Portimão Court was cancelled before it even started. The investigating magistrate didn’t …

Saturday the 1st of October 2022. Forests store CO2, forests store water, forests keep cities cool, forests ease droughts, forests protect against erosion. This is a list that could go on and on, at leisure. A forest that is properly protected is an investment in the future. By 2030 the EU wants to see at least three billion trees planted. That’s not bad. However, you can plant a lot of trees in eight years, but not a forest, right? Unless we were to plant a large number of Miyawaki forests. What are they? And how do they work? Akira Miyawaki, a …

Saturday 17th September 2022. Less is more. The particular, the fact of having less water available presumably spells more thirst. In times of climate crisis, living with this and managing this resource is turning in to an art form and an exercise in humility. All summer long, every evening I’d provide hundreds of trees with water. There is a deeper meaning behind this. The regreening of my little world is something close to my heart. Now the source of the brook on my property fell dry in the early summer. If it wasn’t for the municipal water I could say …