We are so lucky in Brisbane to have urban bush, parks and wildlife. Tōkyō is an amazing city, the largest in the world, with an energy to match. But I saw only two species of bird in 3 days, a few crows being one of them. Very few trees as well which doesn’t help, tree canopy at only around 7% and declining. Bird numbers are also declining https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/science-nature/environment/20241015-216633/ We should do all we can to keep and improve what we have in Brisbane. They are an asset the world will love come 2032.

The Kyoto/Osaka region has over 19 million residents, but the streets are much clearer of rubbish compared with Tokyo, despite there still not many rubbish bins. Less tourists or different attitude of the locals??

Thank you, gods for all the niceness of the nature you created. Too good to be true. Too beautiful... animals n fishes and so many beautiful flowers n plants. Let us protect them as you intended.

In Tokyo with my girls. Amazing city, people and culture. As usual I’m observing through a partial environmental lens, and I notice no rubbish bins. Heaps of rubbish in many of the streets. Apparently they were removed after the 1995 sarin terrorist attacks. A Time Out article in 2018 says the locals carry their rubbish with them until they get home. Maybe the increase in tourists post covid has contributed 😔

We are all just carers of some children, nature, animals, parents, or people in different careers and different ownerships, far from the universe and other planets. we would look like versatile carers. So who cares if they are my pets or my children or your garden,,, we are all here to do our caring duty in some ways for some 100 years... with a few strict lines of mine n yours, how successfully we cared and rewared for... far from the universe, just hard working carers... like how we see ants or bees.

I met with Sarah from Impact Dragonfly and had a great discussion about the future of greenbrand.org. Thanks Sarah for your feedback.

My flight home is not until tonight so had some time to myself during the day. I thought I’d clean up some of the rubbish in the local square where I was staying. I reacquainted myself with the same pick up stick I’d used in France on my last trip! I also had a helper, though I think he was only helping because he thought I had food lol Even collected a Fosters can. People drink it????

I had travelled to Dublin to watch the Wallabies play Ireland in rugby, a close game that Ireland won at the end. Wandering through the streets and parks beforehand I can see Europe is way ahead of Australia in promoting biodiversity and managing its park estate.

Visiting Cannes and Antibes with friends. I note that the marina has a floating automatic waste machine that collects rubbish. You can read more at ekkopol.com

World is flooding... due to too much water from melted iceberg...Too much rain here in Gold Coast when there should be bush fires around this time. Korea and France snowed heavily and Spain flooded badly... Storms n floods in China, USA, yet people do nothing. I guess all of us are depressed and suicidal since not much is done to address this life threatening issue !!!

I attended an information evening about Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s (AWC) wonderful work in protecting Australia’s ecosystems at scale. CEO Tim Allard’s session was not only inspiring, but optimistic. Optimism and joy is often missing in climate and biodiversity discussions. I also had the pleasure of meeting Kurt and Charlie from Co-Exist Australia. Another dynamic duo doing important repair at scale!

Meet the Eurasian blackbird, known as Manu Pango here in NZ. Or 4 of them to be precise! These guys, although introduced do some pretty good work along side our beautiful native birds. Turns out their best work is in the garden and not so much at caring for their young, as they eject their babies from the nests in our shed for us to do the hard yards. Often birds eject their new fledglings and tend to them from above - but these guys were barely feathered and easy prey for our chooks and of course our beautiful wekas. Soon these guys will be off back into the wild to do their thing ♥️

Carbon Emissions Rankings: 1st - China 2nd - United States 3rd - India 4th - Russia 5th - Japan 6th - Iran 7th - Germany 8th - South Korea 9th - Saudi Arabia 10th - Indonesia

Removed some balloon vine growing amongst paperbarks along the footpath in Whipbird park. I had a lovely chat with a local resident. Anne had inquired about joining the local Bushcare group, but it is no longer active. I showed her Greenbrand.org and how it records stories and impact. You can see the removed vines on the grass on picture 2.

I planted the remaining 6 free trees I was gifted, 5 bottlebrush and a grevillea. I did some weeding so council can easily see the plantings, and also watered the previous plantings as we missed the recent storms. It’s looking quite nice and lush now. Amazing what one person can do. I also removed a glycine vine that was loaded with seed pods. Removed via the roots, so can’t regrow, and I removed the vine and seeds so they can’t germinate. An hour well spent!

I walk or jog past this tree a few times a week. It’s in the process of being smothered by glycine vine. On Saturday afternoon it took 30 seconds to save by cutting the vine stems. The leaves in the canopy will die, the tree will continue to grow. And as I pass it often, any regrowth will be simple to remove.

I attended 2024’s last King’s College UQ Bushcare session on Sunday morning. During the two hours there I worked with residents Ned and Sam to remove glycine and balloon vine from trees planted some years previous. The White Cedar would have died without our intervention. Countering the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change are not just about planting trees, it’s their nurturing and survival as well.