*[Enwl-eng] Could you be a guerrilla gardener? Интересная идея про "партизанское садоводство"

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      If you have a garden, you have a tiny pocket of habitat itching to 
burst its bounds. How far you decide to let it do that is up to you. At 
stake are homes for local wildlife and a pump capable of removing more and 
more carbon from the air.

      The burning of coal, oil and gas dumped more than 36 billion tonnes of 
carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere last year, thickening the blanket 
of heat-trapping gases that is raising Earth's temperature. Clearly, the 
climate crisis demands a solution many times bigger than a lawn, but getting 
your hands dirty for the planet could be a good place to start.

      You're reading the Imagine newsletter – a weekly synthesis of academic 
insight on solutions to climate change, brought to you by The Conversation. 
I'm Jack Marley, energy and environment editor. This week, we're discussing 
a form of climate action anyone can do – even if you don't have a garden.

      Autumn looms and with it, the last cut and tidy of the year. Ideally, 
you would have delayed mowing your grass until midsummer and let patches of 
your garden grow wild to nurture wildflowers. Bees and butterflies are the 
beneficiaries of a light touch to gardening in the summer says Gareth 
Griffith, a professor of fungal ecology at Aberystwyth University. But with 
regular trims from August onwards (and not forgetting to remove the 
clippings) you can coax rare mushrooms from the turf.

      Some, like the brightly coloured waxcaps, were more common before much 
of Britain's grasslands were parcelled into manicured lawns.

      "The British Isles is a global hotspot for these fungi, but they are 
threatened by habitat loss," says Griffith. "Eleven species found in the UK 
were assessed by international experts as vulnerable – the same extinction 
risk faced by the panda and snow leopard."

      The mushrooms you're likely to see at this time of year are really 
emissaries for a much larger community underground. Fungi thread together 
vast networks in the soil that exchange nutrients and water with plants for 
the sugars they make via photosynthesis.

      A study published earlier this year suggested these microscopic 
filaments (known as mycorrhizae) connecting plants and mushrooms absorb the 
equivalent of 36% of the world's annual CO₂ emissions from burning fossil 
fuels.

      "As we search for ways to slow or stop the climate crisis, we often 
look to familiar solutions: cutting fossil fuel use, switching to renewables 
and restoring forests. This research shows we need to look down too, into 
our soils," says a team of ecologists led by Adam Frew at Western Sydney 
University.

      So what do you need to do to nourish carbon-hungry soil? The good news 
is, very little.

      "Gardening doesn’t have to be a guilt-inducing chore," according to 
Aimee Brett, a lecturer in ecology and conservation at Nottingham Trent 
University. "In fact, it can be a liberating act of eco-conscious laziness."

      Digging up soil exposes the carbon it contains to the air. Plant 
perennial soft fruit bushes which can grow for many years and require little 
maintenance; add companion crops like asparagus in between which suppress 
weeds and keep the soil covered. This ensures it isn't easily disturbed and 
allows carbon to accumulate.

      "Keep it covered, stay lazy," Brett urges.

      All the shade these shrubs generate will offer a lifeline to wildlife 
next summer. Extreme heatwaves are becoming more common, threatening animals 
with exhaustion and dehydration. A cool and leafy refuge could be the 
difference between life and death for some species.

      What if you don't have a garden?

      Not everyone is fortunate enough to have their own patch of grass and 
shrubs. In fact, a survey conducted at the height of the pandemic suggested 
one in eight people in Britain has no access to a private or shared garden, 
with black people in England four times less likely than white people to 
have outdoor space at home.

      That shouldn't stop you from cultivating habitats argues Ben Mayfield, 
a lecturer in law at Lancaster University. Instead, you could become a 
guerrilla gardener: someone who nurtures and revives land despite having no 
legal right to tend it.

      Guerrilla gardening involves spreading seeds, picking up litter or 
even planting herbs and vegetables for the whole community to enjoy on 
whatever patch you can access. It might be wasteland, a traffic island or 
something as small as the exposed earth beneath a broken paving slab.

      "But if you’re considering becoming a guerrilla gardener, it’s 
important to understand your rights," Mayfield says.

      If you live in the UK, most of the unused and abandoned land in your 
area will be owned by your local council. Walking across it is fine, but 
gardening may be an act of trespass. That would be a civil offence, Mayfield 
says, and so unlikely to result in a fine or criminal record.

      "One of the simplest forms of guerrilla gardening is planting seeds," 
he adds. "Some environmental projects circulate 'seed bombs' [small compost 
balls packed with the seeds of different wildflowers] and others use 
biodegradable 'seed balloons' that are filled with helium and deflate after 
a day, distributing seeds by air."

      When gardening for wildlife, it's important to carefully consider the 
wider ecosystem.

      "The most attractive species to humans might not provide the best home 
or food for wildlife. Some can even outcompete native plants and drive them 
towards extinction," Mayfield says. Guerrilla gardeners can help by pulling 
up invasive plants like Himalayan balsam.

      As any dedicated gardener will tell you, the party most likely to 
benefit from this toil is you. If you're worried about climate change, 
tending a garden with others could soothe your anxiety.

      "Community gardening is beneficial because it allows people to deal 
directly with their climate concerns by doing good for the environment," 
says Jose Young, an associate professor of psychology at Northumbria 
University.

      That good will be repaid in ways you'd probably struggle to predict, 
Young adds.

      "Contact with a soil bacterium called Mycobacterium vaccae can trigger 
the release of serotonin, while foraging in a garden leads to more dopamine 
in the brain (both of which are hormones associated with feelings of 
happiness)."

      - Jack Marley, Environment commissioning editor


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      From: Imagine newsletter
      Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2023 7:00 PM
      Subject: Could you be a guerrilla gardener?

 
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