Day 11. Write an essay on the importance of protecting local wildlife habitats.

Sunday’s Soapbox at Speaker’s Corner (284 words, 2 minutes of your time)

Let me put it this way – the loss of one species within an ecosystem, whether plant, insect or animal effects them all. Protecting one protects them all. And us.

So when the chef at your local pub decides to pitch a new menu to a posher clientele, and he pulls up all the wild garlic from the banks of the chalk stream, I’ll tell you, he’s not considering the damage done to pollinators, the bees and wasps and butterflies. They rely on a plant’s blossom to survive. And when that same chef thinks, Oh, I’ll put shaved wild fennel salad with Portuguese orange dressing on the menu, he doesn’t consider the air-mile-footprint for those oranges that he’ll squeeze for the juice alone, nor does…