by Olivia Thurlow
SUBU's Green Taskforce are running a 'Make your own wild flower seed-bomb' at the Atrium on Friday, 11am-5pm, in order to raise awareness of the decline in bees that pollinate one third of our crops.
Bournemouth University is the 11th greenest university in the country. The Green Taskforce is a student-led body that focuses on making BU and SUBU as sustainable and environmentally friendly as possible. The group aim to provide a way for students to get involved in green projects both on and off-campus, as well as as provide a means of support for environmentally minded societies such as the Green Students Society and the Wildlife and Conservation Society, with whom the force work and collaborate closely with. You can get involved by joining their Facebook page here.
“It’s an open group that is focused on getting like minded people together to discuss and work towards making greener choices as a university.” says Grace Burger, second year Ecology and Wildlife Conservation student and the Taskforce Events Officer.
The Taskforce is made up of passionate BU students that aim to make the university as Eco-friendly as possible.
Lisa Fischell, Vice President and Lobbyist between SUBU and BU says: “It’s a great place to actively engage in the environment that we experience everyday whilst helping make BU the most sustainable and eco-friendly university it can be.”
SUBU has managed to uphold an amazing reputation in terms of ensuring that green issues are at the top of their agenda. As a Fairtrade Foundation Accredited university, SUBU stays green through a variety of different ways. In case you haven’t noticed, the student shop doesn’t use plastic bags, rather biodegradable bags that are sold at 20 pence. The reason for this is that plastic bags can take up to 500 years to break down in landfill! All the tea and coffee sold at Starbucks and Dylan’s are Fairtrade and the eggs used for your morning hangover fry up are free range, supporting the welfare of animals and helping producers in developing countries create better and sustainable trading conditions.
The Green Taskforce have many exciting projects coming up. The group are hoping to introduce wild flower gardens to the university and have been running an ongoing campaign called ‘BU Plants for Pollinators’. Friday’s ‘make your own seed bomb’ event run by Grace and Fundraising Officer Scarlett is part of this campaign.
Grace explains “The event is aimed at promoting awareness of pollinator species, particularly bees, as well as giving students the chance to make their own wild flower seed bombs to plant in their own gardens! It’s totally free and will only take about five minutes- everyone should come along.”
Scarlett also adds:
“The Bee is so much more important than people realise in this environment. Habitat destruction, the use of pesticides and herbicides and the introduction of non native species has caused a huge decline during the last century, and so by planting bee-friendly wild flowers we can help to provide patches of habitat and food for the struggling bees!”
The Taskforce has also led to the creation of Communication Officer Louis Sherman’s “The Green Awards”. He said:
“I’m hoping to launch this next year as something that will reward all the incredible green environmental projects that go on at the uni”
Chloe Schendel Wilson, BU’s current SU president and prospective candidate for re-election posted on her Facebook election page about the Green Taskforce:
“This year I helped to establish them properly, got them trained by NUS and officially partnered them with BU’s Sustainability Team.
They helped recruit the new Head of Sustainability at uni, have carried out Environmental Audits with Bournemouth Borough Council and have been working on their own projects to launch over the next few months.
But most importantly, it means that from now on, students will be having much more of a say in how the university can improve in order to be as Environmental as possible.”
Make sure you pop along to the Atrium on Friday to get involved in SUBU green and make your own seed bomb. If you have any ideas as to how SUBU can change the environment for the better, submit your suggestions here.
You can follow the Green TaskForce on Twitter: @SUBUGreen.
For more news and information from Nerve News, visit nervemedia.org.uk.
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