8.2 million People can’t be wrong. London is a great place to live. Metre for metre it has more green space than most other Capital cities. In its open spaces and rivers, you’ll find porpoises, red deer, kingfishers, eels, peregrine falcons, scary-looking stag beetles and bats.
London’s wildlife dwarfs its human population, yet few tourists come to see the wildlife. Indeed, few Londoners would add ‘nature’ to a list of London’s top ten attractions. Enjoying nature is one of the few universally free activities; accessible by all, regardless of mobility, knowledge, language or age. We should all relish the chance to relax in its parks and open spaces.
The need for housing, additional transport links and the waste, water and power infrastructures required to support the burgeoning population of London is kettling nature; wild spaces are being fragmented and condensed.
As a classicist and scholar of ancient civilisations, London Mayor Boris Johnson is better placed than many to understand the lessons of history. Every continent has seen empires collapse when their needs outgrew their resources.
Earlier this year, changing weather patterns left the Capital with an early hose-pipe ban while, simultaneously, the drains overflowed; with heavy downpours sending raw sewage in to the Thames, de-oxygenating the water and killing plants and fish.
Mayor Boris rightfully cheerleads for London’s green credentials, its low carbon and environmental goods and services sector is forecast to be over £27 billion by the end of this financial year, an 18 per cent increase on 2009/10 levels. The RSPB welcomes that, but we’d also welcome a more concrete show of support for London’s natural assets and the contribution they make to its economy, public health and future.
London’s nature needs Boris’s rumbustious verbosity and dynamic buttressing as much as London needs its break-out spaces, pollution-filtering green canopies and mozzie-eaters.
What London doesn’t need is Boris Island. Apart from the danger to planes from the thousands of estuary birds, increased aviation scuppers the UK Government’s chances of meeting its 2050 target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80%.
Improving London’s connectivity to the world is not about physically moving people around the globe faster, it’s about communication and quality of life. Together we can make London step-up, head and shoulders, above its global competitors to become the capital to copy for modern living and economic growth. Follow our blog this week to find out more.