Today is World Environment Day! This year’s event, organised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is centred around the theme “Think.Eat.Save” – aimed at encouraging citizens to reduce their food print.
The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates that, although 1 in every 7 people in the world go to bed hungry every night, a whopping 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted every year. As well as wasting the food itself, the UN laments the fact that the vast sums of energy and resources that go towards producing all this food are also wasted. To quote an example, according to UNEP, it takes around 1000 litres of water to produce one litre of milk! So when that bottle of milk that’s been lurking around your fridge for the past fortnight finally turns sour, you’re not just wasting the milk itself, but also all the resources that have gone into producing it: food for thought indeed.
In honour of World Environment Day, we thought we’d take the opportunity to have a quick catch-up with the excellent work of Lattitude’s environmental volunteers around the world. Most recently, Chris in South Africa has been in touch to tell us about what he’s getting up to at his placement in KwaZulu Natal. As an animal lover, Chris has been charged with looking after a few special visitors to his host Outdoor Environmental Education Centre: most notably an abandoned baby Servile (similar to a baby leopard) and a couple of rare Crane eggs. As well as observing the eggs to check on their progress, Chris is responsible for feeding and generally looking after the baby Servile, which even occasionally involves cuddling it to keep it warm!
Elsewhere, we also send volunteers to our amazing Andean cloud forest placement in Ecuador where they live and work in an ecotourism community. Volunteer duties involve sowing crops, clearing ancient inca trails and helping with the reforestation of the surrounding countryside – excellent experience for anyone looking to learn about caring for nature. Similarly, our volunteers in Malawi also help to promote a sustainable human approach towards the environment. Taking a more educational approach to environmental work, our Malawian volunteers help to promote the sensitisation of their surrounding communities to environmental issues such as reforestation, nutrition and permaculture.
World Environment Day 2013 is hosted in Mongolia, but events are being hosted by communities around the world all aimed at encouraging a more responsible global attitude to the way we regard the food we eat. Buying locally, choosing organic products, and – of course – planning ahead to avoid buying more food than you need, are all suggested ways of improving our approach to food consumption.
If you would like more information about our environmental programmes around the world, have a look at our website or get in touch at [email protected].
