Green Holidays

Would you rather plan several small parties – or one big one?

We all know how difficult it is to get loads of your friends or family in one place at the same time. Planning that office party, family trip or surprise ‘passed your driving test’ party is never easy – and to be honest – not very green either!

We seem to find ourselves trying to ‘big up’ virtually everything these days – and mini celebrations are cropping up all over the place.

It’s nice to be invited to BBQ’s and afternoon teas all the time, but isn’t it rather a waste of resources to just keep celebrating quite normal things?

I don’t want to be a party pooper, but these celebrations are becoming big business, and can cost quite a lot of money to set up – not to mention the things that we buy for these parties are normally not so green either.

Shiny banners, balloons and disposible party accoutrements are not top of the list for their green credentials – nor is a pile of processed food, crisps and cakes!

Think Big:
So, why not stop planning for the tiny things and think of something immpressive, like renting a huge property in the woods, in the countryside or even in a lighthouse?

There are a huge number of absolutely stunning and amazing properties that you can rent out for the weekend or fortnight that will be a lot better than the corner of the office canteen or a few seats in a local pub.

photo credit: Kenski1970

Now don’t let the £2000 a week price tag put you off either, as these places usually have around 10 rooms or more, so that is going to be less than £200 each for a week board and lodgings in a place so unique that you wouldn’t be able to stay in it by yourself.

Not to mention it probably has tennis courts, sun rooms, terraces, a beautiful garden, secret rooms, spiral staircases, cellars and roof terraces. Now, you won’t get them down the social club!

It All Adds Up:
By planning something big like this for your family or friends means that you probably won’t need to book another holiday that year – have this one at home.

You can all car share, buy and eat in bulk and generally spend more time talking and playing with each other that you don’t drain on other resources elsewhere.

Perfect for that green holiday you have been thinking of – and a perfect way to have a green adventure!

And it saves time, money and tinfoil for all those cakes and cards!

Cod & Chips; Tuna & Sweetcorn and Salmon and Cucumber sandwiches – Just STOP!

Of course, as humans in a developed nation – we can eat whatever we choose; but should we be a little more picky?

As consumers, we can demand whatever we want from retailers and manufacturers without donning placards, signing a 10,000 people petition or starting any riots.

How? you may ask – How else can you get people to listen to your opinions?

It’s called: Your Choice.

By choosing to buy a certain product, we are also choosing to leave something else behind – and it is what is left behind that forces retailers and manufacturers make big changes.

If 40,000 people all chose not to eat cod this week – there would be plenty of it left on the shelves of shops or in the fridges or restaurants. And this means that they probably won’t order any more of it for a while.

It also means that they are selling out of all the other fish products that you are buying, and so need to buy more of those to suit your needs.

Basically, your shopping choices can help to make big changes – and save threatened species.

Cod, Tuna and Salmon:
Of course you can still chose to eat any of these threatened species if they are available for sale when you eat out on holiday, but it is interesting to know a bit about what makes them so attractive to fishermen.

Firstly, they are big and live in shaols or behave in a way which makes them easy to catch; and due to their size and tasty flesh, they make more money per fish than the same weight of sardines (tuna can weigh up to 200kg and are mostly muscle – but the same weight of sardines would be riddled with bones and guts – even if they are still just as tasty).

The only downside here is that the reason they get so big is because they live for so long – and living a long time generally means that they reach sexual maturity later in life. Ultimately, if we catch more adults than can be replaced by reproduction then we have a serious problem.

A second downside to these ‘higher’ fish, is that they are predatory fish and so have to eat lots of other smaller fishes to get so big themselves. And as happened with Tuna recently, they can accumulate very high levels of toxin (a little bit from each of the smaller fish they ate over the years) and can actually became dangerous to humans if ingested.

The Answer?
We need to do the opposite to what we do now.

By aiming to eat all those little tiny fish we could not only help the larger fish numbers to recover, but we could also eat more sustainably and more healthily!

Smaller fish like herring, kippers and sardines reproduce very fast – so catching the adults doesn’t affect the number of young still in the water; and as they are not predatory fish, they will not accumulate high levels of toxins and heavy metals through their feeding habits.

And, as they are not normally caught by the big trawlers (who want to save all the space on their ships for the larger species), these fish can be caught by more sustainable and small scale fishermen making the most of the oceans along our coasts without affecting fish stocks.

So, next time you pull over in a small village for a travelling lunch – try something different!