HEALTHY LIFE ESSEXBLOG

On Saturday, Southend was one of the first high streets to turn on its Christmas lights. And it was done with great style!

The high street was absolutely packed and everyone was enjoying the normal Farmer’s Market plus the Bavarian Market which will be in the high street until 21^st December. The Bavarian Market traders have lovely wooden lit up cabins and a huge array of exciting goodies. There is even a special licensed open bar area available.

At the top end of the high street the BBC Essex Roadshow attracted hundreds of families waiting for the Chuckles Brothers, together with our wonderful mayor Gwen Horrigan and Southend West MP David Ames, to turn on the lights.

At the bottom of the high street there was a smaller BBC Essex marquee, busy entertaining the crowds until the later firework display which went off from a barge moored just off Eastern Esplanade.

It was lovely to see the high street buzzing with so many families enjoying the early Christmas festivities. The atmosphere was wonderful.

Well done Southend!

Channel 4 is just launching a Landshare scheme, a fantastic initiative.

There are so many people such as busy communters and the elderly with gardens and land that are bigger than they want and / or need. At the same time, there are waiting lists in most areas for allotments: more and more people want to grow their own. This new scheme is looking to put these two groups of people together for mutual benefit. They will also be looking for ‘land spotters’ and facilitators.

We shall be adding an article to the main web site about landshare soon, but if you would like to find out more visit http://landshare.channel4.com 

The Planning Bill set to go through parliament is undemocratic, reduces the rights of the public and won’t protect the environment, say The Wildlife Trusts.

Today, 6 November, The Wildlife Trusts will appear in an advert in The Times and The Daily Telegraph, in which a coalition of environmental NGOs, including The Wildlife Trusts, express their concerns over the forthcoming Planning Bill.

The planning coalition says “despite wide public concern, the Government has refused to change the Bill. More emphasis should be made on delivering a low carbon economy which respects and enhances our natural environment when planning energy and transport infrastructure.”   

However, there is still time to influence Government by writing to Hazel Blears, Secretary of State, and asking her to ensure your rights, democracy, and the environment are protected.  

Stephanie Hillborne, Chief Executive of The Wildlife Trusts, said:“The Planning Bill is vital to helping

For further information please contact:

Tanya Perdikou

The Wildlife Trusts media & campaigns officerTel: 01636 670057Email: tperdikou@wildlifetrusts.org

There is now very encouraging news for anyone involved in the supply and use of natural medicines.

The European Directive on herbal medicines was due to come in to force in April 2011. The legislation, which could mean the withdrawal of thousands of products from the market place, is largely based on pharmaceutical  criteria for over-the-counter medicines.

Irish MEP Marian Harkin, together with a delegation from the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) and the Irish Association of Health Stores (IAHS), met with senior European Commission officials yesterday to express concerns over this threat. The European Commission officials made clear to the delegation that they had become aware that the Directive fell short of its intended purpose of providing an effective simplified registration system for traditional herbal medicines, particularly those originating from non-western cultures such as India and China. The meeting focused on ways in which amendments to the existing legislation could be made in due course. The Commission emphasised that such changes could not be made without broad support from both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. 

Although there is still a lot of work to be done, there is now a possibility of a significant amendment to the directive which could avoid or reduce the devasting impact that the directive in its present format could have.

Leading environmental groups believe that the Earth’s natural resources are being depleted so quickly, particularly with the rapid economic growth of countries such as India and China, that we will would need the equivalent of two planets to sustain our present way of life in to the mid 2030s.

Jonathan Loh of the Zoological Society of London said “We are acting ecologically in the same way as financial institutions have been behaving economically – seeking immediate gratification without due regard for the consequences.”

According to the Living Planet Report, the world’s global environmental “footprint” now exceeds the planet’s capacity to regenerate by 30%.

Bold action is needed by us all if we want to retain a world fit for our children and grandchildren - and very quickly!

Garden Organic Local is a vision of how Garden Organic and other local groups can work together to encourage more people to grow their own organic food.

Garden Organic trustee Dave Allen is looking for groups and individuals who might be interested in getting involved in this project. For further information Garden Organic

5th November is National Stress Awareness Day so I hope everyone takes some time out for themselves. Probably not the best choise of days though with a myraid of fireworks whizzing and banging through the night. A soak in the bath or a meditation session might not be as relaxing as one would hope!

Nonetheless, so many of us do live such stressful lives and often don’t realise it. Rush, rush, rush!!! We have so many gadgets to make life easier for us and yet we seem to have lost the art of relaxation; the art of enjoying the simple things in life.

So whatever you are doing tomorrow, at work or at home, RELAX!

As individuals, more of us are looking to purchase local produce and support our local businesses. Local trades and businesses are in crisis and over 2,000 local shops are closing each year, so it is also important that businesses adopt the same policies.

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is run by its members for its members and lobby to protect the interests of SMEs whenever they can. A year ago, they launched the Keep Trade Local campaign, conceived a year ago out of the floods in South yorkshire when the FSB campaigned to encourage the use of local trades for flood repairs. They recently took this campaign to the three party conferences where it won support of MPs across the political spectrum. It is not only local business that need to consider keeping it local, but also our local councils and other governmental organisations.

If you would like to support this campaign, please sign this petition.

Using local trades and shops when possible not only boosts the local economy but also significantly reduces the carbon footprint of the goods and services we use. Some eco-towns have even introduced their own legal currency in order to encourage local trade. What a fantastic idea! 

Yet again, macabre science fiction has become a reality.  Japanese scientists have now cloned a mouse that had been dead and frozen for 16 years.

Cloning is not new and has always raised a host of ethical issues. It was 11 years ago that British scientists stunned the world with Dolly the cloned sheep. But that experiment and those that followed, until now, have used living cells.

Cloning is still a very dangerous technique and success rates are low. It is thought that, in the short term, scientists are likely to use this new breakthrough in research on extinct animals such as mammoths, whose bodies are often naturally preserved for thousands of years in ice or frozen tundra. But what next?

We are unable to sustain all the people already living on this planet and yet we are entering a macabre era when people can be cloned and ‘brought back from the dead.’ Fascinating - but very frightening!

The people of Burma continue to face poverty and oppression as their dictator generals become increasingly wealthy. But a new way of putting pressure on the military junta has been discovered.

Many of their western-linked business ventures are insured by Lloyds of London. Lloyds is one of the oldest and most respected insurers in the world and cares a great deal about itsxploitation  global reputation. If enough people contact Lloyds they can be shamed out of continuing these deals when they come up for renewal.

International pressure can tip the balance, and as individuals we can make a difference. 

Let’s stop this exploitation of the Burmese people. You can register your vote here.