24 days of walking, talking, seeing new places and meeting new people is a lot to take on board. I can't really stress how mentally tiring it was, yet at the same time profoundly invigorating. Of course I learnt so many things over the course of my few short weeks walking, but mostly notably I developed a new appreciation for biodiversity.
Along the course of just East Anglia's coastline I witnessed an enormous diversity in habitat types, from boggy mudflats to parched dunes, to rocky cliffs and sandy beaches. I saw too many birds, marine creatures and plants to mention, yet they were just a fraction of all the organisms thriving in these habitats.
Imagine a night sky of deepest inky blue, studded with thousands upon thousands of stars and comets, too many to fathom, let alone count. Each one twinkles in its own unique way, made up of its own different elements and playing its vital role in making up the great vastness of the universe. The night sky is a diverse, exquisite mosaic, too immense to fully comprehend but utterly beautiful in its transience.
This is biodiversity; the rich mosaic that is Life on Earth.
The World Economic Forum cites biodiversity as being essential to our physical and mental wellbeing, medical research, food security and global business. Without biodiversity we would not be able to research genomics, develop agriculture, build our tourism industries...indeed our coveted fossil fuel crude oil would not have come about had it not been for the marine life living in our seas millions of years ago.
In essence, biodiversity is key to the future success of society. With this in mind, I am making a call that is absolutely imperative that we each do our bit to increase the diversity of nature around us, no matter how small our patch may be. The RSPB's tagline "Giving nature a home" is good, but we need to place the emphasis more specifically on biodiversity. From growing a selection of house plants on your windowsill, to letting wildflowers bloom in your garden or buying sustainable coffee that contributes to reforestation, anything you do will have a positive impact across the rest of the planet. Every action reaches further than your visible horizons.
Like the rest of the organisms on this planet, we are not just single species going about our daily lives, but part of huge ecosystems that support the planet. We are not just spectators admiring this exquisite, but rapidly diminishing, mosaic. We are part of it.
Sheringham cliffs
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