Eucalyptus trees, Kenya and Madeira - ecosustainability

Did you know that the Eucalyptus tree needs vast quantities of water to survive and grow? Perhaps I should have known, linking it to the phenomenal growth these trees are capable of. They grow fast, and very tall. They can be as bad in that respect as “quick growing conifers,” the curse of the British suburban garden, in fact possibly worse. Last year in Madeira I saw these trees and they were simply huge – it is after all a very lush and fertile island. The locals were complaining that they are taking over the landscape - they are not trees native to that island. They are in fact an exotic tree, native to Australia.

Because the eucalyptus needs so much water, it was used in wet marshland areas to drain them for agriculture. The tree does the job very well. The trouble is, the trees carry on growing when they have done the job, and what is more they multiply.
And all this has worrying implications for our global eco-sustainability.

Reading more of Wangari Maathai’s Replenishing the Earth, reviewed elsewhere, I learnt that we British apparently introduced the tree to Kenya, originally for timber production, because they grow so fast. To maintain that growth rate they would be mainly planted along riverbeds, and wetlands. But there was an unwelcome impact. There are now vast tracts of land in Kenya that are too dry, dusty, and barren, and there are nearby streams and rivers that have dried to a trickle, and the eucalyptus is at least partly to blame. So much so that during a recent drought the environmental minister called for these trees in all river areas to be removed. Wangari herself has preached about this in church and called for her congregation to dig these trees up on their lands and replace them with indigenous trees wherever possible.

It may well be that Madeira needs to review its eco-sustainability policies, if it does not already have this on board?

Waste not Want not - Furoshiki

Do you know what a furoshiki is?

No I didn’t know either. Until I read Wangari Maathai’s new book, Replenishing the Earth. (I have reviewed this recently on Amazon). And what a super idea furoshiki is.

It is said that the United Kingdom generates three million tons of rubbish in the Christmas period alone. And much of that will be expensive colourful wrapping papers that are ripped off and instantly thrown away. When I was a child, wrapping paper was relatively expensive and it was valued all the more for that. We used to open our presents carefully, trying to avoid tearing the paper, and then after Christmas all the wrappings thus saved were carefully ironed for use another year.

Then such behaviour came to be seen as miserly and somehow “not done.” In those days eco sustainability was not even thought of.

Now thankfully the world is becoming more aware of its need to preserve its resources. And this is where the Japanese furoshiki comes into its own. It is a pretty piece of cloth used again and again for wrapping presents, dating back many centuries. The Japanese have a tradition of giving gifts on visiting anyone. Once all such gifts would be wrapped in a furoshiki, and the recipient on carefully unwrapping the gift would then give the cloth back to the donor, to use again and again. I say “would” in the past tense because with the advent of plastic shopping bags the tradition apparently fell away. But in 2006 the then Japanese Minister of the Environment Yuriko Koike made his own version of a Mottainai Furoshiki * cloth, to try and encourage the use of these environmentally friendly objects again. A google search now will readily show that this idea is indeed catching on. Surely we should all copy this wonderfully green idea this Christmas. Perhaps a little card could be attached to the greetings card with the present, explaining the origin of this tradition and urging all to take part next time a gift is offered.

* (The Japanese word mottainai basically means “it's a shame for something to go to waste without having made use of its potential in full – or simply; don’t waste.” Yuriko Koike’s furoshiki was made of a fiber manufactured from recycled PET bottles, and has a birds-and-flowers motif drawn by the Japanese painter Itoh Jakuchu.)