Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Going green for Earth Day
From sustainable dining to thriving nature reserves, Kent boasts plenty of ways to help protect our planet on Earth Day…
Millions of people will be taking steps to help protect the environment and create a more eco-friendly future this Earth Day.
The international event started in 1970 to raise awareness of how we impact the planet and takes place on Monday, April 22.
This year, the theme is Planet vs Plastics, highlighting the dangers of single-use plastics and fast fashion.
You can do your bit to reduce your carbon footprint by getting out and supporting Kent’s environmental initiatives and getting in touch with nature that’s right on your doorstep. An easy way to start is with the county’s many Green Flag parks, recognised for their good standard of upkeep, high environmental quality and biodiversity.
Brockhill Country Park in Hythe has been named a Site of Nature Conservation Interest, while Samphire Hoe, near Dover, boasts 220 species of birds and 30 species of butterflies.
Capstone Park in Chatham, Pegwell Bay in Sandwich, Shorne Woods, near
Gravesend, and Mote Park in Maidstone are a few more Green Flag parks worth a visit. If you want to try and spot even more of the county’s wildlife, you can spend Earth Day at a nature reserve. These include Oare Marshes near Faversham, where you can see seals, wetland birds and Sussex cattle, and Elmley Nature Reserve on Sheppey, a 3,300-acre reserve with water voles, grass snakes, birds of prey and dragonflies. Conservation of endangered species and their habitats can
help combat dangers such as deforestation.
Two of Kent’s biggest wildlife parks, Howletts Wild Animal Park in Bekesbourne and Port Lympne Hotel and Reserve, near Hythe, have worked with conservation charity the Aspinall Foundation
to breed more than 500 endangered animals.
The teams at both parks also help raise awareness of rewilding - the process of bringing wild animals back to their native habitats to support the environment’s return to its natural state.
These rewilding efforts have seen more than 75 critically endangered western lowland gorillas return to Congo and lions and cheetahs released in South Africa. Howletts is also currently working on a first-of-its-kind project to rewild the UK’S largest herd of elephants to Kenya.
Finally, making changes to the way we eat and drink can have a positive effect on the environment.
Kent has a wealth of sustainable pubs and restaurants, such as the Small Holding in Cranbrook, which boasts a menu of homegrown food produced by their own biodiverse farm, and the Foundry Brewpub in Canterbury, which has taken steps to be more eco-friendly by reusing the heat from the alcohol’s distillation process to heat the restaurant.
Plenty of places in the county are taking huge strides towards looking after our planet, so you needn’t go far to support these initiatives and make a difference this Earth Day.