For those of you who don’t know Tatum, is Schalk and Candice’s daughter, the oldest of 3, a true bush lover and budding photographer. Tatum has the same passion, love, and respect for Nature as her parents. She was just finding her feet in the hospitality industry when the pandemic hit and unfortunately or fortunately for us, has returned home and has once again become part of the Ulovane team. She is currently studying Business Management through Unisa and until recently was working up North at Bushveld Terrace in Phalaborwa. Tatum is quickly becoming an integral part of the team, with some of the changes we hope to have up and running soon! Welcome home Tate!
The Environment
With World Environment Day coming up on the 5th of June, I decided to take this opportunity to focus solely on our natural environment.
This year’s theme is Biodiversity and as the avid Ulovane fans would know, we did a whole video on biodiversity last week. If you haven’t seen it yet, head over to our YouTube channel to check it out – Biodiversity Day
What do you think of when you hear the word “environment”?
The first thing that springs into my mind are the little droplets that form on the leaves on cold mornings, butterflies fluttering from one lavender flower to the next, how the sun streams across plains through long fluffy grass or how the dust steams behind a herd of elephants as they flow from one river bed to the next. All of these little things join together to form our environment.
The environment is every natural element that surrounds and keeps us as humans alive and breathing. This includes all relationships between biotic and abiotic aspects in nature. From the tiniest ant to the biggest blue whale, everything is connected to each other and connected to their surroundings. This makes it possible for all ecosystems and relationships in nature to work in harmony. Have you ever thought about how our air or water is purified naturally? Or how nature-based medicines are formed? These very important natural products are all thanks to our incredible ecosystems within our environment.
Some of you might be wondering why we even have a specific day for the environment. At first, I also found it a bit random as I believe every day should be seen as a World Environment day. I do however think that this day is very important in the sense that we can concentrate on spreading the word and making people aware of ways in which they could contribute to the environment instead of depleting it.
There are many changes we can make in our daily lives to contribute towards World Environment Day, here are a list of a few of them:
- Spread awareness to your fellow followers, make sure they know when and why we celebrate World Environment day. Spreading awareness is the most important part of this day. Use your voice!
- Starting a compost heap in your garden instead of just throwing away offcuts or leftover food.
- Be more conscious of the amount of electricity you use on a daily basis. Even hang-drying your washing saves a huge amount of electricity.
- Pick up rubbish that you see lying around your neighborhood or even just in your garden.
- Begin with that vegetable garden you have rearing to get done since the start of lockdown (you could have already had your first harvest!) You can even join the succulent trend while you’re at it.
- Become more conscious of the amount of fuel you use in a month (excluding lockdown months of course)
- Shop local! Support your local farmers and businesses.
- Start recycling your rubbish, even if it is just plastic, to begin with. We all have to start somewhere.
- Save water. I’m sure we all do this already as we’ve been in and out of drought for a while now. If you don’t save water yet, hop on the trend.
There are so many other ways for us to step away from our comfortable lives and into the preservation of our environment. In making these little changes we can immerse ourselves into the harmony of the environment around us and ensure the sustainability of nature for future generations.
Growing up in the bush, the environment has always been a huge physical and mental sanctuary for me. I have loved this extra time to spend the days outside in the sunshine with the birds calling in the background, the grass whispering to me while I smell the sweetness of the honeysuckle. I am sure a lot of us have been able to reconnect to nature in this time of standstill. We have been given the opportunity to relook at our lives and remember what really matters.
I hope that we can all take a moment to appreciate the earth even more than usual on Friday and make a contribution, big or small, on this special day.
Tatum Pretorius