Fersiwn Gymraeg ar gael yma.
This is the latest part of our Revive our World - our campaign to get Governments to agree to legally binding targets to protect and restore nature which has become a vital tool for most of us during the pandemic. The shop shows the reality of the bleak future we could face, where the skies have fallen silent, nature has collapsed, and entire cities have disappeared under rising seas.
The idea behind the shop is to get people to see the grim reality of everyday essentials needed to survive and what the cost of those basic items could look like if we don’t protect nature, and what it would look like if we don’t everything in our power to protect it.
What’s on the shelves?
The shop has a long list of products we’ll need if we let nature collapse. There’s those things we take for granted - like clean air and water - but stored in cannisters and bottles because our skies and water sources are now polluted and poisoned. There are sandbags - a vital commodity to protect our homes from floods and rising sea levels.
There’s also expensive fruit and beer. This is a luxury only the rich can buy because the bees and other pollinators that normally pollinate our crops have become extinct, causing these luxury items to be scarce. In this future, birdsong vinyl will be the only way to recreate the birdsong which has long gone from our skies.
How to stop this from becoming a reality?
A new RSPB report published last week shows how governments could change the course of history and possibly release billions of pounds a year in public benefits - like clean air and water, carbon storage and healthy soils. The report shows how nature is crucial to our efforts to revive our world and highlights how it can help to store carbon, prevent flooding and safeguard communities’ way of life.
Another name for this is Nature Based Solutions. It’s a way of tackling the nature and climate crisis by protecting and restoring nature. One good example of Nature-based solutons in action is the work we’re going to restore peatlands. If healthy and well-managed, they can capture and store carbon, filter and slow the flow of water into our streams and rivers as well as providing homes to some of our most precious wildlife.
RSPB Cymru has worked with Hafren Dyfrdwy to restore areas of blanket bog around the RSPB Lake Vyrnwy reserve in mid Wales. Not understanding the value of these habitats for carbon and water led to these peat bogs being drained in the hope of improving agricultural productivity. Not only did this fail, but the damaged peat emits carbon rather than storing it. The restoration work aims to re-wet the bog recreating the natural sponge effect of the sphagnum mosses - the key to healthy blanket bogs. This traps in both carbon and water and is a wonderful habitat for our precious mountain wildlife.
We need you to sign our Revive Our World e-action and show the Welsh Government why nature must be a priority. We need 100,000 signatures and for every 15,000 signatures we collect an extra product will be added to the shopping basket which will be presented to the Welsh Government after the closure of the shop on 8 July.
For more details or to sign the e-action click here.