Our CEO Gill Perkins, provides an overview of how our Grasslands+ coalition is working with Terra Carta.
‘Climate change, land-use, food production and human health are all deeply interconnected. Transforming the land sector towards more sustainable practices could contribute an estimated 30% of the global mitigation needed by 2050 to deliver on the 1.5˚C target’. (Section 3 Article 7). Terra Carta Charter https://www.sustainable-markets.org/TerraCarta_summarium_Jan11th2021.pdf
Working with Terra Carta
The Grasslands+ coalition, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Plantlife, and Butterfly Conservation have come together to urge the Government to refocus on Grasslands as a natural solution to climate change. To urge stakeholders, partners and businesses to support protect and commit to funding grassland restoration and enhancement projects.
The Terra Carta aims to reunite people and planet, by giving fundamental rights and value to Nature, ensuring a lasting impact and tangible legacy for this generation. It is a charter of ambitious and practical action to help the private sector accelerate their progress towards a sustainable future.
This year the Grasslands+ coalition has been given an opportunity to provide Terra Carta with practical examples, with leadership and inspiration and drive momentum for change through the campaign. Grasslands+ will highlight projects that demonstrate innovation and inspire others to follow and crucially identify critical areas of focus where greater effort is required.
Our video articulates the case for Grasslands, through Terra Carta we can extend our reach, create more momentum and make Nature, the true Engine of our Economy. You can view the video here.
By any measure Nature’s contribution to the global economy is significant and some estimates hold it at greater than the annual G.D.P estimated at $87.79 Trillion in 2019. (section 3 Article 7) https://www.sustainable-markets.org/TerraCarta_summarium_Jan11th2021.pdf
The importance of grasslands
Carbon storage and sequestration is very well known to occur in forests, but the evidence is growing that also wild grasslands are very effective carbon sinks. Large amounts of carbon will end up in the grass and soils under grasslands. But investment is needed for the restoration and the protection of wild grasslands, as currently one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world.
We need our grasslands, and we need to acknowledge their immense contribution as an eco-system that provides us with clean air and water. Tree plantations have somehow become a much glorified ‘eco’-action but species rich Grassland are vital for carbon sequestration and for biodiversity. They currently sequester 30% of carbon and with protection could do even more.
Pollinators such as bumblebees and butterflies are essential to maintaining the complex biodiversity of grassland ecosystems. They aid the proliferation of wild flowers and plants which in turn attract other insects, birds and mammals to create a species-rich environment.
To preserve grasslands, or restore them in many areas, it is clear from research that we need a better understanding of the uncertainties associated with the driving forces that will impact grasslands under climate change, we need more well-replicated, long-term experiments carried out across different grasslands, and we need to better connect, often surprising results, with theory.
The Grasslands+ coalition wants to show the public and politicians alike that protecting grasslands on an international level is crucial in the fight against climate change.
Gill Perkins, CEO, Bumblebee Conservation Trust
