Eco Garden Project
 

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has exposed and amplified green inequality in society. Too many towns and cities in England, especially those with a strong industrial heritage, have too little green space, too few trees, culverted rivers, poor air quality and are at risk of flooding. This holds back economic growth and the building of new homes. It’s also a fundamental moral issue. Areas of higher deprivation and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic populations have less access to high quality green and blue space, and this contributes to differing disease burdens and life expectancy.

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Creating, and connecting people with, green or blue spaces will support and benefit health and wellbeing. This is why it is important that the recovery from coronavirus is a green recovery. The pandemic has led to an increased appreciation of nature and more engagement with the water environment, we need to build on this revitalised interest in the natural world to achieve something that is better and that lasts.

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Air pollution today remains the single biggest environmental threat to health in the UK, shortening tens of thousands of lives each year. Even during the industrial revolution, the Victorians realised that parks would provide cities with “lungs”. Today our ambition can be greater than that: let’s Build, Build, build in ways that will help people to Breathe, Breathe, Breathe.

The world has gathered around one goal: the race to zero deaths from COVID-19. A healthy recovery from this pandemic means we need to continue and expand this race to zero deaths from climate change and environmental pollution, a race to zero people pushed into poverty because of health costs, to zero people breathing polluted air.

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Through regulation of the waste, water, nuclear and carbon intensive industries, through our flood resilience work, and by heading to net zero by 2030, the Environment Agency is reducing emissions from industry, creating cleaner rivers and bathing waters, and help in The physical and mental health of everyone depends on quality green and blue space, and it reduces the burden on the NHS. At a time when there is such widespread recognition of these essential facts, we should value work to protect and enhance the natural world highly to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change.