Comment - November 2009
International Year of Biodiversity launch
This week sees the launch of International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) and the CofE will be playing its part throughout 2010.
I have been trying to find out just how many acres of churchyards there are as added together they must form a major national park - a major resource of the nation's biodiversity. I don't think we make anything like enough of this resource and so I hope IYB will help put that right. In the country where they are surrounded with agricultural land soaked to the eyeballs with chemicals, churchyards can be the only truly organic havens for miles around. In our town and cities churchyards can be the only green lungs in the community. They all need managing, not just allowed to grow wild and so enthusiasts, not ‘contract strimmer operators', are needed to come and help. This would not only save money but I am sure improve the biodiversity.
There are some excellent churchyards around the country managed with the support of Caring for God's Acre http://www.caringforgodsacre.org.uk/ and some county Wildlife Trusts. But churchyard conservation is patchy and so hopefully IYB will help get new schemes planted and enable many more communities to share in their own local God's acre. Hopefully many churchyards will be making a special effort to show off their unique nature reserves on Biodiversity Day in May. Plans are still being made, but wouldn't it be wonderful to find all the current members of our clergy who are following in the carefully placed footsteps of the parson naturalists of previous generations. If you have a new age Gilbert White in your pulpit, do let me know.
There was a very enthusiastic response when I mentioned this at an environmental workshop organised by the Birmingham diocese, but some delegates did remind me that many churches there, especially the newer ones do not have churchyards or even gardens. And so we discussed how space might be found to create a sacred space or a green corner. Is all the car park needed? Maybe the roof could be used, or even an appropriate wall. I will be giving more news of IYB including an award for London's Sacred Spaces in the New Year.
Before then the World Council of Churches are amongst a number of organisations hoping that churches with bells will ring them on 13 December when the Archbishop of Canterbury is preaching in Copenhagen Cathedral. On that Sunday, midway through the UN summit, churches around the world are being encouraged to use their bells, drums, gongs or whatever their tradition offers to call people to prayer and action in the face of climate change.
Groups ranging from the Open Sanctuary at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Tilba Tilba, Australia, to the Lutheran congregation in Sibiu, Romania, have already pledged their participation. Some link the climate action with their traditional advent celebrations, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Epiphany Church in Hamburg, Germany, that will invite children to draw stars of hope while the bells will be rung and 350 drum beats will be sounded ahead of the congregation's advent concert. http://www.bellringing350.org/
Here, Operation Noah can offer suggested touches of 350 changes, and materials which bands can send to local press and radio stations and their church magazine editors. bells@operationnoah.org
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