Support the biodiversity project at Chateau Feely – adopt a tree or a section of hedgerow
Key elements:
- Build biodiversity on a certified organic farm
- Capture CO2 by planting trees
- Support resilience to deal with climate change
Adopt Trees or Hedgerows to support this project or make a one off donation below to give it a helping hand.
Make a one-off donation to support the project
The Chateau Feely Biodiversity project welcomes your support, all donations are gratefully received. Add your donation in denominations of ten euro at the link below. Thank you.
The link below doesn’t work on mobile phones/ tablets – for these devices please click through to the Biodiversity donation page.
In the coming years, Chateau Feely is planning to plant hundreds of metres of mixed hedgerows to support biodiversity corridors around the organic farm and hundreds of trees.
Join us as a Supporter of the Biodiversity project. This support is to help us to maintain the trees and hedges. By helping us to establish these biodiversity corridors and trees, you will create multiple benefits.
Adopt a set of 5 trees for 1 year- €100
A tree will offset 10 to 40kg of CO2 per year over their lifetime. In adopting these 5 trees, you are offsetting up to 200kg of CO2 at the top end of the estimate, equivalent to about 1 single one-way economy flight from Bergerac or Bordeaux to London.
The link below doesn’t work on mobile phones/ tablets – for these devices please click through to the Adopt a Set of Trees product page.
What is biodiversity?
Biodiversity means biological diversity in an environment, as indicated by numbers of different species of plants, insects, and animals. It is the opposite of a monoculture where a single crop grows on otherwise bare earth.
Sometimes people get mixed up between the terms ‘biologique‘ which means organic in French (a term that can only be used for certified organic products), biodynamic (a way of farming that is ‘organic +’) and biodiversity. Unlike the other two terms, biodiversity is not a certification, but it is a valuable component of a healthy farm, and something that can be encouraged on conventional, organic, and biodynamic farms, and in your garden.
Why is it important?
We are only beginning to understand the importance of biodiversity, at a time when we are losing biodiversity at a startling rate. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services estimated that 1 in 4 species was at risk of extinction due to pollution, loss of habitat, and climate change. Ecosystems are like a house of cards, if one goes, it impacts many others and accelerates more loss and potential collapse of the entire system. We are part of the environment and dependent on it, so this directly impacts us.
Why is it important for winegrowers/ farmers?
A variety of plants growing in the vineyard brings a variety of insects including the beneficial ones. At Feely farm we have large populations of beneficial bugs like ladybirds, typhlodromes, and chrysopes, that keep the less wanted insects like aphids and spider mites at bay. This means we avoid insecticides. Having a biodiversity of plants creates a biodiversity of insects and hence a natural solution to pests.
This concept goes beyond low level plants and grasses to include trees in the vineyard and hedgerows around the edges of the vineyard, and beyond insects to birds and mammals.
For example, bats can eat the equivalent of their body weight of insects in a night. They eat the European grapevine moth that produces the European grape worm and thus they solve the grape worm issue for us. But, to navigate, bats need multi-layered terrain, not monocultures. If we have hedgerows, trees, and other plants in the vineyard, we offer bats, other mammals and insects, habitats, or places to live, and layers to help the bats to navigate. It’s a win-win for everyone.
What can you do to encourage biodiversity?
We learned about how to encourage farm biodiversity on a course winter 2022 and many of the concepts we learned can be applied to a garden too. Here are some of the ideas that are simple and easy.
- Leave medium sized stacks of branches in a few places as a home for insects and small mammals.
- If you have a shaded wooded area leave logs to decompose as they offer fungi, moss, insects, and others a home.
- If you have the space, select a part of your garden to leave wild.
- For borders, if you have space, go for local multi-species hedgerows rather than walls or fences. Try to link your hedgerows to others so you create biodiversity corridors.
- You could also leave some grassy areas unmown, perhaps use the mower to create a path to a small section where you particularly want mown lawn and leave the rest to nature. It saves mower energy and encourages life in your garden.
- Avoid insecticides and herbicides for your health and for the inhabitants of your garden.
- Include a water source, even a small container or birdbath, is very beneficial.
- Help our biodiversity project above by making a donation or adopting trees or hedgerows. 🙂
If all the monoculture lawn gardens in the world were transformed into havens of biodiversity a major bulwark against biodiversity loss would be created.
