The Ghost Forest

The Ghost Forest consists of 10 giant hardwood rainforest tree stumps from the Suhuma forest reserve in Ghana and is an environmental art installation by artist Angela Palmer highlighting deforestation & the depletion of natural resources. Artist Angela Palmer says that the trees are intended to represent rainforest trees worldwide:"Today, a tropical forest the size of a rugby pitch is destroyed every four seconds, impacting on climate, biodiversity and the livelihoods of indigenous people" and that the absence of the trees' trunks in the installation is "a metaphor for the removal of the world's 'lungs' through deforestation". Most of the trees in the Ghost Forest fell naturally in adverse weather conditions, those that didn't were part of a sustainable controlled logging programme.

After leaving Ghana, the Ghost Forest was installed in Trafalgar Square, London, then outside the Parliament Building in Copenhagen during the Cop15 UN Climate Change Conference and, most recently in Oxford. Now it has come to the National Botanic Garden of Wales at Llanarthne, Carmarthenshire, for its final, permanent resting place.

The installation has been jointly secured by the National Botanic Garden of Wales in partnership with the Wales-based rainforest charity, Size of Wales. The phrase  'an area the size of Wales’ is frequently used to measure the rate of forest destruction. Size of Wales is a unique Welsh initiative aiming to turn the negative use of Wales' size around by aiming to protect an area of rainforest the size of the Welsh nation - that is 2 million hectares of rainforest. Director of Size of Wales, Hannah Scrase, said: “Wales is stepping up to the challenge of stopping tropical forest destruction and having Ghost Forest here in Wales to remind us will really strengthen our resolve and will help us all to get closer to the issue of tropical deforestation."
Garden director Dr Rosie Plummer said: “No one can fail to be awed by the sight of these huge botanic leviathans and we are planning to inspire all our visitors, young and old, to create poetry, art, photography, music and theatre out of their experiences.”

On Sunday, the 29th of July, the Ghost Forest arrived at the National Botanic Garden in a major logistical operation, involving 6 huge low-loader lorries, a massive crane, a team of engineers, garden staff, charity representatives, volunteers and much tea, coffee, sandwiches and Welsh cakes.

Here are a few pictures of the day:

The 20-ton trunk of a Denya (Cylicodiscus gabunensis, naturally fallen) arrives on low-loader

Preparing the Denya and then hoisting it into position

Left to right: Rosie Plummer (Director of National Botanic Garden of Wales), Lowri Jenkins ('Size of Wales' charity), Angela Palmer (artist) posing with cut-out Wales shape

Hoisting another buttress-rooted trunk into position - it look so surreal against the backdrop of native British woodland

Beautiful shapes reminiscent of so many things

And even before the installation is officialy open, a Garden volunteer explores the inside of an 8.8 ton Dahoma (Piptadeniastrum africanum)

...and the view from the inside

Yes, no doubt, the Ghost Forest is going to be very popular

Go and visit !!


And if you want to know even more about this project, here are some links:

http://www.ghostforest.org
http://www.sizeofwales.org.uk
http://www.gardenofwales.org.uk
http://www.angelaspalmer.com

The Earth Summit - 20 years on and has anything changed?

The Earth Summit takes place in Rio on 20-22 June 2012, 20 years since that first ground-breaking summit in Rio. The 1992 summit grabbed the world's attention. It was attended by 108 world leaders and other senior officials, plus thousands of representatives of NGOs and the world's press.  There was some tough talking and out of the conference came agreements and directives that have influenced the world ever since:

• the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development,
• Statement of Forest Principles
• The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, from which sprung the Kyoto Protocol
• The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity
• Agenda 21 

But have they made any difference?

In 1992 there was widespread water pollution, both fresh and salt water,  raw sewage was regularly dumped  into our rivers and seas, fisheries were being overfished and tropical rainforest deforestation was happening at an ever increasing pace. CFCs and ozone depletion was being tackled and scientists were getting worried about climate change.Things were looking a bit brighter for biodiversity. Governments had signed up to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity which declared that biological resources were to be shared and managed sustainably (this was at a time when people were concerned that large companies would grab the genetic resources of less developed countries).  In 1990, CITES had put a ban on ivory in place and elephant numbers were beginning to creep up.

Agenda 21 probably had the greatest impact on our daily lives. Many governments endorsed this whole-heartedly, and local governments and NGOs appointed their Agenda 21 officers. Agenda 21 was about sustainable development, beating poverty, helping developing countries, protecting natural resources through the reduction in deforestation and pollution control, and, importantly,  thinking local.

Here are some of our images from the early 1990s.

 Trees killed by acid rain from the burning of lignite were a common sight, like these in the former East  Germany (Ecoscene / Sally Morgan)

In Brazil, deforestation of the tropical rainforest was happening at a great pace, especially the Atlantic Forest behind Rio itself (Joel Creed / Ecoscene)

 

Deforestation was happening in Malaysia and Indonesia too, here in Malaysia the forest was cleared for new rubber plantations (Erik Schaffer / Ecoscene).

Water pollution was another problem in developing countries. The white foam on this river in East Germany was a result of detergent, now less of a problem as most detergents are biodegradable. (Chinch Gryniewicz / Ecoscene)

 

Another of the topics discussed in 1992 was the improvement of air quality in cities through the use of unleaded petrol  and use of catalytic converters on engines (Chinch Gryniewicz / Ecoscene)

And who could forget the iconic shroud of smog lying over LA, created by millions of cars pumping out fumes combined with the local atmospheric conditions. (Andrew Brown / Ecoscene)

So, 20 years on. The leaders of more than 130 countries are expected to turn up, along with their teams of advisors, and thousands of NGO representatives. What has been achieved in the last 20 years?

Deforestation continued to get worse during the 1990s reaching a rate of loss of about 16 million hectares a year. Since 2000 the rate has slowed down, with the loss of 13 million hectares of forest being lost a year.  There is a lot of forest planting going on, especially in China and Vietnam but when losses and gains are taken into account, there is still an annual decrease in forest area the size of Costa Rica. Its not good news for biodiversity, as the losses are mostly virgin forests with a high biodiversity and they are replaced by plantations that support far fewer species.

Most people agree that Climate Change is really happening and that levels of greenhouse gases need to be reduced. Kyoto has been and gone and there has been a lot of talk and not a huge amount of action. However, with rising costs of fossil fuels, there has been an uptake of renewal energy sources, especially in the more remote places of the world where a traditional electricity grid is not economic, such as this school in India which relies on solar energy. (Chinch Gryniewicz / Ecoscene)

Biodiversity is now a common word and 2010 saw the launch of the UN Decade of  Biodiversity (2011-2020). The aim is to achieve the 5 goals of the Aichi Target, namely

• to address the underlying cause of biodiversity loss
• reduce the pressures on biodiversity and promote sustainable use
• improve biodiversity status by protecting ecosystems, species and genetic diversity
• enhance the benefits to all from biodiversity
• enhance implementation through planning and management

In North America and Europe, water quality is much improved  and ecologists report seeing species that are sensitive to pollution, returning the rivers. However water pollution remains an issue in many other parts of the world, where there are fewer controls. Take the Yamuna River in India, for example, This river flows  beside the iconic Taj Mahal and very few visitors are aware that just a few hundred metres from this World Heritage Site, is the most polluted river in India, a product of uncontrolled industrial development along its banks combined with the waste from millions of people. 

In a world with a growing human population and an ever increasing demand for clean water, water resources will continue to be an issue, especially against the backdrop of climate change, disrupted weather patterns and extreme weather events.


Having heard the press release from Tusk this morning about the transport of a couple of rhinos from Aspinalls in Kent to Tanzania, I can't finish without mentioning the plight of the rhino. Twenty-odd years ago the future looked quite bright for the rhino with poaching under control and numbers increasing. Sadly, a few idiots believe that rhino horn is a miracle cure, and the value of powered rhino horn has been pushed sky-high, threatening the very survival of all the rhinos. This gory image of a dead rhino was taken by Karl Amman many years ago.

 

Now rhinos have to be protected 24/7 or have their rhinos removed so they are not the target of poachers. Here a female rhino in South Africa is drugged so that her horn can be remove. (Luc Hosten / Ecoscene)

World Oceans Day

World Oceans Day

Friday 8 June 2012, A celebration of the world's oceanic wildlife featuring the work of many of our photographers  including Reinhard Dirscherl, Phillip Colla, Luc Hosten, Steve Kazlowski,  and photographers from VWPics.

Merry Christmas

Wishing our contributors and readers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Roll on 2012

New Print Shop

Ecoscene is delighted to announce that their new Print Shop is open for business. Now you can buy prints, mousemats, fridge magnets of your favourite images. More images will be added in the coming months. Happy shopping! www.ecosceneprints.com

Harvest mouse - extinct in 25 years?

The farming conservation organization, Conservation Grade,  has threatened that some of the UK's farmland animals could become extinct within 25 years. They include the harvest mouse, the small agile rodent found along field margins near cereal crops. Its numbers have fallen drastically over the last few decades as farming has intensified with the loss of hedgerows, drainage of reed-sedge habitats, and increased use of pesticides, so it has been added the UK Red List. This sweetie makes its distinctive ball-like nest in hedgerows, so its is particularly vulnerable to hedge cutting and removal. Helping this mouse can be quite easy, simply making sure hedgerows are not cut before the fruits and nuts have been removed in autumn helps the animal survive winter, together with leaving grassy margins around fields.

Some conservation groups have been placing tennis ball nests in appropriate sites to encourage the harvest mouse to return. The tennis ball is the perfect size of the mouse and it's highly visible,  making monitoring easy.

 

Reservoirs - before and after

NW England has been warned that if substantial rain does not fall over the Lake District in the next week or so, much of the will be subject to hosepipe bans.  It seems odd that Cumbria, a county that was devastated by some of the worst floods in memory, should now be suffering from drought. Vey little rain has fallen over the last three months and temperatures have soared to the high 20s increasing demand.


Stuart Baines was about and about in the Lake District last autumn and now he has returned to supply a set of images showing the extreme low water levels that now exist. The pair of images below show Thirlmere in Autumn 2009 and from the same viewpoint in July 2010.

Thirlmere is  the main reservoir for Manchester and its looking very empty! Sadly the geography of the area means that the water runs off the land into lakes and rivers and flows quickly into the ocean rather than seeping down through the rocks to replenish the aquifers.

Sharks fail to get CITES protection

The current round of talks between  Parties to the Convention for the International Trade in Endangered Species, better known as CITES, has failed to produce any protection for 4 shark species - the porbeagle, spiny dogfish, scalloped hammerhead and oceanic whitetip. All the proposals put forward by the EU and the USA to protect these at risk species were voted out.

Sadly, this lack of protection means that these sharks, along with many other species of shark  will continue to be overfished for their meat and fins. Unbelievably, the numbers of the once common spiny dogfish have fallen by a massive 90 per cent or more. Heavily overfished for its meat (sold as rock salmon), this fish is now critically endangered. It is the slowest growing of  the sharks and has the longest gestation period, factors which mean that its numbers take a long time to recover. The rising demand for shark fins is threatening the hammerhead and oceanic whitetip sharks.

Ecoscene has an excellent selection of shark images such as the image of the spiny dogfish above. Check out our website www.ecoscene.com

Nuclear power stations - 10 sites proposed

The UK government has finally approved sites for 10 new nuclear power stations, which are Bradwell, Braystones, Hartlepool, Heysham, Hinkley Point, Kirksanton (shown above), Oldbury, Sellafield, Sizewell and Wylfa.  The proposed sites at Dungeness in Kent, Kingsnorth, Druridge Bay and Owston Ferry were ruled out. Before final planning permission is granted, the power stations have to prove that they are capable of disposing of their radioactive waste safely. Not surprisingly, there has been and will continue to be vocal opposition to the advancement of nuclear power in the UK. WWF, FOE and the Sustainable Development Commission claim that the issue regarding radioactive waste has not been resolved. The Sustainalbe Development Commission suggested that the govenrment would be better investing in small scale, smart power generation. 

The Government has a problem - a huge black hole in electricity generation that will become apparent in about 2015. Even if  construction on these power stations started tomorrow they would not come online for many years, The current generation of nuclear power stations about to be mothballed, but nothing has been planned to replace them,although the Govenrment has had plenty of time to do something about it.  The Government estimates that about 60 GW of new  genenrating capacity will be needed by 2025, with 35 GW coming from renewables. That leaves 25 GW to find from conventional generation capacity. But to meet the objectives in the Low Carbon Transition Plan, the UK will have to reduce emissions from power generation to almost zero by 2050. So the extra 25GW of power can't come from fossil fuels, its going to have to come from nuclear.

Meanwhile, just across the channel are the nuclear power plants of France which generate more than 70 % of the country's electricity.  The French are proud of their nuclear power industry which has created many jobs. There,  nuclear energy is seen as being clean and safe. And of course, the UK benefits too, as French electricity flows through our national grid when demand exceeds supply. The US are taking a fresh look at nuclear power too,  and Barack Obama has stated that nuclear energy will play an important role in electricity generation. More than  25 nuclear power plants have been approved, the first to come online in 2016. China and India are pro nuclear power, and each has plans to build 50 plants. 

So, is nuclear energy good or bad from an environmental point of view. That's tricky. From a carbon emissions point of view it represents a source of clean energy, although there are emissions associated with the extraction of uranium which is a non renewal energy source. On the other hand, it produces radioactive waste which we can't really deal with at the moment, other than bury it in the ground and forget about it for hundreds of years. However the nuclear industry is working hard to developing techniques to recycle the spent uraniun rods, which still contain 85 % of their energy and if this is successful, one of the biggest arguments against nuclear energy will be removed. 

Climate change is upon us and despite all the things we are doing, we are not ready to make the switch to a low carbon lifestyle. So I see nuclear power as a necessary evil. Its a stop gap remedy that may help us to beat climage change but something to be replaced as soon as possible.

World Rainforest Week 12 - 18 October

To celebrate World Rainforest Week I have posted just a few of  images that show the  amazing beauty of  the rainforests. But photographs do not convey the awesome nature of the rainforest - the size and complexity of the vegetation, and the overloading of one's senses from the  cacophony of insects, frogs and birds, the smell of decay, the lack of light  and the humidity that saps your body of energy.

The pressure on the forests continues - oil palm and rubber plantations,  clearance for cattle ranching, oil exploration, mining, quarrying, for timber etc etc. The list goes on and on.  Now the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) are highlighting yet another threat - this time to the temperate rainforests of British Columbia. The exploitation of the tar sand deposits in Alberta continues and a pipeline is proposed to take millions of barrels of oil  to Kitimat on the Pacific coast, from where it will be shipped around the world. I have visited this part of Canada and it is beautiful. I took the ferry along the Inside Pasage where we passed  forested islands separated by narrow channels. The region is rich in wildlife, both in the sea and on the land.

So whats the problem with the pipeline? The tankers travelling to and from Kitimat will have to pass along treacherous shipping routes where accidents are common. A navigation accident with an oil tanker could lead to millions of tonnes of oil pollution the pristine waters. Its not hard to imagine what would happen, one has just to think of Exxon Valdez. To find out more about this threat, read the excellent article on the RAN blog (http://understory.ran.org/2009/10/05/tar-sands-threaten-canadas-rainforests/)

Eco pic of the week

This image of disposable plates and cutlery collected at the Camden Green Fair caught my attention. The photographer is Pat Tuson.  All of  this waste will end up in landfill where the plastic will remain for many decades. The food waste on the plates will decompose and release methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Shame the food producers at the fair didn't think about this issue and choose to use biodegradable plates.

Eco pic of the week

I love this image of aluminium cans labelled as renewable energy, one of Niels Poulsen collection at Ecoscene. Aluminium of course can be recycled many times over. Each time aluminium is recycled, there are environmental gains - energy is saved as it takes much less energy to melt down an existing can, than it takes to quarry and smelt the raw material. Bauxite, the aluminium-containing ore has to be quarried from the ground at great cost. Often this rock occurs in areas of tropical forest, such as in Jamaica, and this leads to more deforestation. Bauxite has to be transported around the world to the smelters where lots of electricity is needed to extract the metal. In Canada, much of that energy comes from HEP but that is not true everywhere.
So next time you drink a can of coke or the like, make sure the empty can, be it aluminium or steel, goes in the recycle bin and not in the dustbin. Such an easy thing to do with great environmental benefit. As they say, very little counts.

Footprint Friends

Had a very interesting day today, attending a 'Women into Leadership' Conference at St Swithin's School in Winchester. I was invited to participate as a group leader in the workshops. The keynote speaker was Karen Ford, founder of Footprint Friends (www.footprintfriends.com). Karen set up this environmental social network site fo 10-18 year olds in August 2007 to promote the voice of young people in the climate change conversation, to raise environmental awareness, and to inform about climate change. Its a great site for young people, with visitors from around the world. Karen and her team visit schools and encourage young people to participate by painting their feet - their footprint.

One of their campaigns is a Million feet for Copenhagen.Footprint Friends is inviting all young people to either paint their feet and/or write a poem within the theme of ‘my dream for the future’, and have it included in a ‘book of dreams’, which will presented to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December. In this way each ‘foot’ will be symbolically present for the conference.

Have a look at the Footprint Friends website and get your footprint uploaded!

Eco pic of the week

We love this image that sums up a lot that is wrong with the world - a simple footprint superimposed with a montage of images showing environmental pollution. This image was taken by Chris Kitcher.

Dilemma of flying

With the Climate Change Conference at Copenhagen just three months away, we will be focussing some of our blogs on this very important issue.

Today, we are focussing on air travel. Headlines on the BBC today warned that emissions would have to be cut by 90 per cent by 2050 to compensate for the increasing emissions of airplanes. Why? Because this means of travel is becoming increasingly cheaper and accessible to more people, especially in the less developed countries of the world, and secondly, carbon kicked out of engines at altitude is far more damaging than that at ground level. Hopefully this means that plans for the proposed new runway at Heathrow will be kicked into touch. I also heard a very sensible suggestion that we should do away with domestic short haul flights. I have never understood the desire to travel for 40 mins by plane, with all the hassle and cost of airport parking, security checks and delays, when you can jump on the much improved rail network and travel in reasonable comfort to one's destination. Doing away with the really short, unecessary flights, say between London and Birmingham, or even London to Paris would go some way to reducing emissions.

I was reading the newsletter of one of our contributing photographers, Peter Cairns, regarding air travel and the dilemma facing the environmental and wildlife photographer. I quote, "Photographers have an annoying habit of justifying their extravagant global travel by claiming that their endeavours will somehow save the planet. To be fair, a small minority are helping to do exactly that, but in the main we go where we want to, when we want to ... just like everyone else. If photographers are really going to initiate behavioural change, they (and I include myself) might care to take a look in the mirror now and then." [see http://www.northshots.com/imagemonth.asp]

I know I think long and hard before travelling. I'm off to New York next month for Picturehouse NY, and the only way to get there is by plane. For me, I justified it as it was the first and only flight I will make this year. However, I have carried out a carbon audit with the World Land Trust and will be offsetting our carbon emissions.

On a brighter note, the incoming Japanese prime minister has announced that he wants to cut Japan's emissions by 25% by 2020 - thats a good start and puts the pressure on the rest of the world. Now I'd like to see some measurable targets - for example, to see the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere come down to 350 ppm, or to replace x number of coal-fired power stations with nuclear power plants etc.

To see a selection of images on climate change from Ecoscene, click on this URL: http://www.ecoscene2.captureweb.co.uk/lbshow.php?lightboxid=8581505383044

No more tungsten bulbs

At last the end of the tungsten bulb is close - from Sept 1st, shops will not be able to order new stocks of 100w incandescent and all types of frosted light bulbs. The rest are being phased out over the next two years. OK, so there are problems with some of the cheap low E bulbs as they are not as bright, but the latest ones have a brighter, whiter light and can be dimmed. Also once there is momentum and money coming in, the manufacturers of these bulbs with be able to put more R and D into even better ones, such as the LED light bulbs.

So why make the switch? Firstly it saves you money as each bulb uses a quarter of the electricity and lasts up to 20 times longer, so replace a 150w traditional bulb with one of the latest low energy bulbs and you could save as much as £20 / year as well as reducing your carbon dioxide output by half a ton. The switch saves resources too. Think of all the glass and metal that goes into making 20 tungsten bulbs compared with one low energy bulb.

Find out more about the pros and cons of the different low energy light bulbs here: http://www.ableduk.com/alternatives.html

Artificial trees and algal tubes

These are just two of the geoengineering ideas that the Inst. of Mechanical Engineers (IMECHE) have suggested in their report on geo-engineering. Geo-engineering is the manipulation of our built environment to counter the effects of global warming, such as taking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere artificially, and reflecting sun back into space. The highly efficient artificial trees would filter carbon dioxide and store it in underground in disused mines. They look a bit like large solar panels and are already in prototype. The report suggests that hundreds of thousands of them could be positioned along motorways and around wind farms.
Another idea is the use of bioreactors. Bioreactors contain green algae and they photosynthesise, taking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it to starch and sugar. The algae could be harvested and put to a number of uses, not least as a source of carbohydrate and protein. This idea is not new and there are a number of companies, especially in California that are pioneering bio-reactors, biofences and the like. However the engineers envisage tubes of algal being attached to the outside of buildings where they could take up carbon dioxide generated by traffic.
These and many other ideas will not solve the problem of global warming but they will reduce the rate at which the carbon dioxide levels are rising, giving us a bit more time to tackle the real issues.

Spear fishing is for boneheads

I enjoy reading the thought-provoking blogs of one of our contributors, Christine Osborne. One of her recent blogs is about the spear fishing of tropical fish off the coast of Australia and how this has lead to the disappearance of some of the large attractive fish such as the giant parrot fish. This definitely has to stop.
http://christinebosborne.blogspot.com/2009/08/spear-fishing-is-for-boneheads.html

Can Britain be self sufficient in food?

Food security is back in the news and that's a good thing. I have long been concerned that the Government has done nothing to address the issue of food supply. Over the last 30 years, valuable farmland have been lost to development, leaving us with less space to grow our own food. Farmers have seen their incomes slashed and to make matters worse they are swamped with paperwork. On top of that there are the global issues of climate change, energy and water supplies, and the rapidly rising human population. More food is going to be needed and producing it is not going to be easy.

As a country we produce less food in the UK that we did in the 1980s, especially fruit, vegetables and beef. Its all very well saying we can import food, but crop failures caused by drought, or flood can easily change that. Countries will soon stop their exports if there is a shortage of food for their own people, as seen by the shortage in rice last year. Variabilities in oil price can push the price of cereals and fertilisers sky high and this is reflected in the rising costs in the shops.

So can the UK be self sufficient in food by 2030? At the moment about half the food we eat is home-grown. Of the rest, about two-thirds comes from the EU, the rest is sourced elsewhere. Reversing the trend is going to be a tall order and I think its going to mean changes in our attitude to food. For starters, we are so wastful of food - and thats the whole food chain - not just the consumer. As much of 40 per cent of the crops in the fields does not get to the shops because of damage, spoilage in storage, or failure to meet quality standards. Then there is wastage at the processors, distributors and in the shops. Finally the consumer comes along and throws away as much as one-third of the food they buy. That's a massive 6.7 million tonnes worth more than £10 billion.

One way forward is to improve the consumer's connection with their food and this is where the wonderful trend to 'grow your own' is going to help . I'm lucky as I have a small organic farm and we are self sufficient in eggs and meat, and for most of our vegetables. I know that I use all the veg I grow, even the mis-shaped carrots and nibbled cabbages, and all of the vegetable waste goes into the wormeries or the pig pens. Raising your own animals changes your attitudes too. Having cared for them for many months, you don't like the killing, but you are determined to make sure their meat is put to good use, otherwise you feel you have let them down. Consequently we have learnt new skills to process their meat into bacon, ham, pate etc, while the vegetable gluts are frozen, dried, or processed into chutney and the like. Then you discover that food excites you again and you want to experiment with new recipes, and grow more! It is addictive. So hopefully the great stories that I read about people growing veg on every available space, about community supported agriculture, pig-sharing and villages becoming self sufficient in eggs etc., mean that we will reduce our dependency on imported foods.

Supporting honey bees

The news about honey bees is not great with as many as one in three colonies failing last year in the UK, and widespread colony collapses in the US. Now that more people growing their own veg and keeping chickens, there is greater interest in bee keeping. The National Bee Keeping Association reports a marked increase in new members and enquiries. Hopefully this will lead to more bee keepers and more honey bees.

So what can you do to help bees?
1. Become a bee keeper
2. Plant bee friendly plants such as foxgloves, hollyhocks, mint, sunflower, alliums
3. If you don't want ot keep bees, but have a bee-friendly garden or rooftop, offer space to a local bee keeper, in exchange for some honey!
4. If you see a swarm contact a local bee keeper
5. Support bee charities.
6. Sign the Soil Association petition to ban pesticides known to harm honey bees

What is Ecoscene doing? For every honey bee image sold during the month of August we will donate £10 to Bees Abroad. This charity works with communities in developing countries, helping them to establish bee hives. www.beesabroad.org.uk. The sale of honey from one hive raises enough money to put one child through their primary education while a donation of £15 buys the materials to make one hive.

Did you know there are more than 300 different species of bee in the UK including honey bees, bumble bees and solitary bees?

Ecoscene has photofeatures available on the honey bee plus a supper collection of images on bee keeping, bees in flight and life cycle of the honey bee. www.ecoscene2.captureweb.co.uk/lbshow.php?lightboxid=387429465654