This week on Earth Beat, a Valentines day special. Love, lust, and how it affects the environment. Also, recycling to finance a wedding, and the Indiana Jones of seeds.
VALENTINE'S DAY
Aalsmeer global flower market:
It’s Valentine’s day and Marnie’s got some lovely red roses. She bought them at the supermarket, but where did they really come from? She traces her roses back to the global flower market in Aalsmeer, Holland.
Flower farms in Kenya:
Marnie’s roses didn’t grow in Holland, so we trace them even further back, all the way to one of the big flower growers in Kenya. Lake Naivasha, an hour’s drive from the capital Nairobi, is ringed by large, privately-owned flower farms. The flowers they produce are one of Kenya’s largest export crops but this productivity doesn’t come without its critics, as our reporter Michael Kaloki found out when he visited the region.
Flower farming from a hydrologist's perspective:
But are Marnie’s roses – and the other millions of romantic bouquets – really responsible for draining the water of Lake Naivasha and polluting it with pesticides and fertilizer? Marnie puts the question to hydrologist Dr Robert Becht, from the faculty of geo-information science and earth observation at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.
Envirominute:
If buying roses from Kenya sits uncomfortably then this week’s environminute offers a creative alternative. Here’s a 60 sec round up from Earth Beat’s Fiona Campbell.
Wedding cans:
Speaking of romance, tying the knot is an expensive business these days. Some people appeal to their parents to help with the cash… but one couple is relying on used tin cans. Andrea and Pete are hoping that they and anyone else who cares about their cause will help them gather 5 tones of aluminium before their big day in July. At 35 cents a pound they've got a long way to go, so why decide to collect cans?
GREEN GREEN GRASS
Renewable grass:
Last week on the show we considered the environmental effects of the grass lawn. One Dutch-Belgian company is trying to create the perfect “carpet of green”… artificial grass which is perpetually renewable. Our reporter Thijs Westerbeek went to talk with the CEO of Desso, Stef Kranendijk, and laid his hands on some renewable grass.
GOING TO SEED
Seed swap:
The UK's biggest community vegetable seed swap took place recently in Brighton and Hove on the south coast of England. “Seedy Sunday” is a chance for growers to swap seeds that are often no longer commercially available. The idea is to preserve “heritage” species of vegetables, safeguard choice, and beef up food security by encouraging biodiversity. Our correspondent Allis Moss went along to the Seedy Sunday at Hove Town Hall, and talks to Marnie about what she found.
Ken Street, seed hunter:
The gardeners at the seed swap in Brighton are doing their part for bio-diversity.
But there are a few “holy grails” of the seed world out there – ancient seed strains which can boost the stamina of some of today’s modern crops. To track them down requires the skill of a trained professional… a seed hunter. Marnie spoke to Ken Street, a seed hunter working at the International Centre For Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, in the Syrian city of Aleppo.
Ken's adventures with the ancient chick pea have been made into a documentary, Seed Hunter. Watch the trailer below.
Seed vault
The ancient seed varieties collected by Ken from the corner of Tajikistan could end up buried in a mountain of solid rock on the island of Spitsbergen, in the ocean north of Norway. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is built to last 10,000 years and is capable of safeguarding the world’s one and a half billion seeds against any threat short of a nuclear bomb. Marnie Chesterton spoke to the director, Cary Fowler and asked him why these seeds need to be stored in such a remote place.
See photos of the vault below and click here for an interactive image of the vault and how it works.
NEXT WEEK ON EARTH BEAT
Power to the peddlers of the world. We look at the high and lows of cycling.
“Here I am at the heart of Beijing near the centuries old bell tower where traffic is absolutely insane. Bikes using the main roads, cars using the bicycle lanes.”
Cities, cycling and other transport systems in the next edition of Earth Beat from Radio Netherlands Worldwide.
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Happy Valentine's day to all.
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