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Friends of Daisy Farm Park, Billesley.
Local Parks & Green Spaces As Action Centres For Climate Change
As we look at local change brought about through climate change our local parks and green spaces can serve as action centres for our local planet – and show the part played by plants, wildlife and people in a local Biodiversity Action Plan.
The effects of water in climate change are so different from one area to the next that we can find trees felled after dying from stress in the hot, dry weather and others dead due to erosion of their roots by heavy rain. Whilst our green spaces indicate the different responses from plants and wildlife, we can take action locally and recognise what affects us all in our local planet.
But are there really signs of an Ice Age or desert in our parks and green spaces? Well yes there are – in Cannon Hill Park there is a stone boulder left behind by the glacier which cut out the Rea Valley, and elsewhere in the region we find dramatic change in the landscape shown by local stone. Red stone in local buildings from the past desert in Warwickshire show the voyage of discovery undergone by building materials like limestone flint and volcanic stone, but we can also find small quarries, cave systems and other places where the earth moved and formed our local landscape – like Wrens Nest park near Dudley where signs of the giant Midland lake inhabited by exotic sealife and dinosaurs can be found. As we read in our newspapers ‘Heatwave breaks all records’ we can imagine the same effect on the Flintstones by the Boulder News and Black Country Bugle headline ‘Dinosaurs Face Extinction’.
And yet bats, birds and bugs in our local parks have seen other changes brought about in the local neighbourhood over the last few hundred years. Tracing the local mills on Birmingham rivers and brooks is a history lesson in local produce – from different cereal and wool farming, paper mills and blade making, to trade and crafts through the industrial revolution. To the Five Mills Trail at Cannon Hill Park linked to the River Rea heritage we are planning to display results of seeds research along the Rea valley by environmental archaeologists.
As we put out seeds for local birds in our garden and we appreciate the role played by birds. bats, bees and insects on the pollination of flowering plants we can recognise the importance of clock changes on their food cycle. The need for migrating birds to time their arrival at the many breeding places across the West Midlands with plentiful food supplies is a known evolutionary factor. BBC (Birmingham & Black Country!) Spring & Autumn Watch records are detecting both short and long haul bird travellers arriving back early from the hotter areas of Africa & southern Europe but elsewhere the diet of sea birds is affected by the warmer oceans, the puffin is one bird whose moves are seen to be out of step with food supplies, and other birds who rely on hatching two clutches of eggs a year are being hard hit. The Woodland Trust show records from local green spaces reflecting climate change and the RSPB have a good Climate Change Pledge leaflet available in many local parks and libraries.
How we use our local Parks and green spaces as action centres is down to us. We can use them as suggested to monitor climate change but also as action centres for our local neighbourhood – conservation work on trees, around woodland or water sources, and with local wildlife groups. Local parks affected by the tornados which hit the area brought about discussion of appropriate responses from local people. Now we can add energy efficiency, recycling and sustainable planning to our local Action Plans. Watch this space for more news shortly about local activities as part of the new City Parks Strategy emerging next month, and get involved locally with plans to save our city planet.
- Tony Fox, Cannon Hill Park Friends e-mail Sept 2006