Here are some steps you can take right now in your own garden/yard/land to build an Ark! Visit our How To Build An Ark section for even more details for each step.
Step 1. Give at least half of your garden or land back to nature. If not half, as much as you can manage. Try to grow as much of your own organic food as possible in the other half.
Step 2. Put up a sign saying "THIS IS AN ARK - WWW.WEARETHEARK.ORG" . This simple action removes the shame that people feel about having a messy garden, and replaces it with pride that you're doing something important to help all of the creatures we are supposed to share the planet with. The website is set up to explain to people what is happening there on your Ark and why it is necessary.
Step 3. Try to remove any 'Invasive plants'. This is difficult on a large scale but on our individual patches of earth, we can manage it easily enough by hand. There is NO place for chemicals in an ark, they cause many more problems than they solve and are very destructive to life on all levels. Slug pellets are killing the birds and hedgehogs who eat poisoned slugs for example... there is always a knock on effect.
Step 4. Leave your lawns grow wild and just mow a path through it if required. If your lawn is a thick sward of grass, then maybe consider scraping away the grass and allowing the native weed seed bank have a chance to emerge. If your land is damaged or devoid of growth, sow a wildflower meadow. Only use local native wildflower seeds as these are vital genetic material for the local insect populations. This will reboot the ecosystem.
Step 5. A sand bank, a pile of rotting log and twigs and a small pond will be a great support to wildlife.
Step 6. Allow deadwood to stay where it is unless it is dangerous. A living oak tree will support over 500 different species of life, a standing dead oak tree will support thousands! Death is a vital part of life.
Step 7. Get together with like minded folk and go to your councils and estate management committees and ask for support to turn more and more park and public land into Arks. The signs will support the goodwill to leave land be untidy and messed. Allow as much land as possible to burst into life, a messy thicket of native plants and other life forms will gradually develop and create an Ark for as many creatures as we can save.
Here are some steps you can take right now in your own garden/yard/land to build an Ark! Visit our How To Build An Ark section for even more details for each step.
Step 1. Give at least half of your garden or land back to nature. If not half, as much as you can manage. Try to grow as much of your own organic food as possible in the other half.
Step 2. Put up a sign saying "THIS IS AN ARK - WWW.WEARETHEARK.ORG" . This simple action removes the shame that people feel about having a messy garden, and replaces it with pride that you're doing something important to help all of the creatures we are supposed to share the planet with. The website is set up to explain to people what is happening there on your Ark and why it is necessary.
Step 3. Try to remove any 'Invasive plants'. This is difficult on a large scale but on our individual patches of earth, we can manage it easily enough by hand. There is NO place for chemicals in an ark, they cause many more problems than they solve and are very destructive to life on all levels. Slug pellets are killing the birds and hedgehogs who eat poisoned slugs for example... there is always a knock on effect.
Step 4. Leave your lawns grow wild and just mow a path through it if required. If your lawn is a thick sward of grass, then maybe consider scraping away the grass and allowing the native weed seed bank have a chance to emerge. If your land is damaged or devoid of growth, sow a wildflower meadow. Only use local native wildflower seeds as these are vital genetic material for the local insect populations. This will reboot the ecosystem.
Step 5. A sand bank, a pile of rotting log and twigs and a small pond will be a great support to wildlife.
Step 6. Allow deadwood to stay where it is unless it is dangerous. A living oak tree will support over 500 different species of life, a standing dead oak tree will support thousands! Death is a vital part of life.
Step 7. Get together with like minded folk and go to your councils and estate management committees and ask for support to turn more and more park and public land into Arks. The signs will support the goodwill to leave land be untidy and messed. Allow as much land as possible to burst into life, a messy thicket of native plants and other life forms will gradually develop and create an Ark for as many creatures as we can save.
What Can One Person Do To Make A Difference?
For those of us that care about the living world around us and are aware of the challenges we all face, this is a painful and desperate time – but there is hope. We have waited too long for changes to come from our leaders and politicians. We cannot wait any longer. The change will come from the ground up – it will come from us.
This is a call to step up and re assess our management of every individual tiny patch of the earth possible. It’s a call to the guardians of the earth to step forward and make themselves known, to raise their voices. We need to help the natural world and not hinder it. We have to invite nature and wildness back into our gardens, parks and every tiny patch of this earth we can. To create sanctuary, food and habitat for the creatures we are supposed to share this planet with and who in return will help us survive here within a truly natural and beautiful environment.
It’s up to each of us to re-wild our world, piece by piece until we have a patchwork quilt of sanctuaries that wraps its way around the globe.
We Are The Ark. We Hold The Seeds For A New Earth.
Things are only hopeless if we do nothing, so let’s do something!
Let’s build an Ark.
Here are some steps you can take right now in your own garden/yard/land to build an Ark! Visit our How To Build An Ark section for even more details for each step.
Step 1. Give at least half of your garden or land back to nature. If not half, as much as you can manage. Try to grow as much of your own organic food as possible in the other half.
Step 2. Put up a sign saying "THIS IS AN ARK - WWW.WEARETHEARK.ORG" . This simple action removes the shame that people feel about having a messy garden, and replaces it with pride that you're doing something important to help all of the creatures we are supposed to share the planet with. The website is set up to explain to people what is happening there on your Ark and why it is necessary.
Step 3. Try to remove any 'Invasive plants'. This is difficult on a large scale but on our individual patches of earth, we can manage it easily enough by hand. There is NO place for chemicals in an ark, they cause many more problems than they solve and are very destructive to life on all levels. Slug pellets are killing the birds and hedgehogs who eat poisoned slugs for example... there is always a knock on effect.
Step 4. Leave your lawns grow wild and just mow a path through it if required. If your lawn is a thick sward of grass, then maybe consider scraping away the grass and allowing the native weed seed bank have a chance to emerge. If your land is damaged or devoid of growth, sow a wildflower meadow. Only use local native wildflower seeds as these are vital genetic material for the local insect populations. This will reboot the ecosystem.
Step 5. A sand bank, a pile of rotting log and twigs and a small pond will be a great support to wildlife.
Step 6. Allow deadwood to stay where it is unless it is dangerous. A living oak tree will support over 500 different species of life, a standing dead oak tree will support thousands! Death is a vital part of life.
Step 7. Get together with like minded folk and go to your councils and estate management committees and ask for support to turn more and more park and public land into Arks. The signs will support the goodwill to leave land be untidy and messed. Allow as much land as possible to burst into life, a messy thicket of native plants and other life forms will gradually develop and create an Ark for as many creatures as we can save.
We are all becoming more aware of our climate breakdown but we seem less aware of the silent killer that is biodiversity and habitat loss which is happening at a staggering rate and is equally – if not more – potentially devastating.
“With climate change we might feel the impact in our every day lives, but with biodiversity it is not so clear, but by the time you feel what’s happening, it may be too late”.
Cristiana Pașca Palmer UN Leader on biodiversity. Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
Whether we realise it or not, plants and all the other creatures we share this planet with are key to our survival and continued existence on this beautiful planet. In basic terms they clean our water, recycle our air, pollinate our food crops and help us in a myriad other ways that we know about and ways that we’re only just discovering. The earth is struggling to provide food, habitat and water for all her life forms – including humans. We are not making her job easy…
THE BIRTH OF THE ARK
One fine morning last year, I was sitting at my desk looking out over my garden when something happened that made me realise how we can all become part of the solution to the crisis we are facing with nature.
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GET INVOLVED – BUILD AN ARK
Download our community Ark logo. Get PDF HERE. Or make your own. Get creative with your sign and send us photos or post on Instagram and use the #thisisanark and #letsbuildanark hashtags so we can find them. We will repost as many as we are able on our social media sites.
Now you can be proud and everyone who sees it can research The Ark project on the website. You and your land are connected under the umbrella of our caring community.
GET STARTED!
The web of life is unraveling before our very eyes. It’s time to STEP UP NOW and start weaving multiple Arks like our lives depended on it – because guess what? – They DO!