25 Big Local Actions Update #2

March is here, and it does feel like spring has truly sprung! If the milder (and mostly drier) weather?is making you feel energised, then perhaps now is the ideal moment to think about which of the 25 Big Local Actions is right for you and those around you? What could you do to have a positive impact for climate or nature?

We know that different people have different values. It depends on your personality, what you do for a living, what your background and family situation is... and yet, we can all contribute in a meaningful way to making where we live a more pleasant, more resilient and more environmentally friendly?place to live.

Perhaps your home is one of the 1 in 6 currently at risk of flooding? If so maybe?Take Flood Action is the topic for you. Or perhaps you are interested in where your food comes from, and helping to support the people who produce it to Farm With Nature?

If these two aren't your thing of course, just?head over to our 25 Big Local Actions in 2025 page. What do you care most about? What are you good at? What needs doing where you live? Find the action that's right for you!

Taking the fear out of flooding

Flooding is the UK’s most serious natural hazard with a shocking one-in-six homes in the UK at risk. And yet, just two-in-five people believe their local community is prepared for a flood, according to the National Preparedness Commission . With more and more severe weather events, this lack of preparedness only adds to the fear of flooding.

But it doesn’t have to be this way and we don’t have to be or feel so unready. Building community resilience is vital. People can get tired of hearing the word ‘resilience’ but another word for the same thing is aptitude – that comes from the attitudes, habits and actions that we collectively share.

So, what does this look like in terms of flood resilience?

Rising water levels

There are a host of things we can do inside our homes. Mary Long-Dhonau OBE , more commonly known as ‘Flood Mary’, expands on this opportunity in the Carbon Copy Podcast episode about taking flood action:

“The average person who hasn’t made (flood) adaptations can be out of their home for about nine months (following a flood). In 2007, many people were out for two years because of the sheer volume of properties that were flooded. But people that have made adaptations, for instance, waterproof plaster, perhaps plastic skirting boards, taking tiles up the wall, solid flooring, electric sockets up the wall, waterproof plaster and plaster board, and waterproof kitchens as well… the people that have made these adaptations: the flood water comes in, they pump it out, light their fires, open windows and can carry on living there.”?

It doesn’t stop with shoring up our home; to be ready for rising water levels we all have to think more widely about the area where we live. We tend to feel more protected as a community behind visible flood defences and barriers – flood relief channels, embankments and other artificial structures. Such ‘hard engineering’ plays an important role, but it tends to be expensive and is only part of the solution.

Natural flood defences

We can also surround ourselves with small and large-scale sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) and natural flood defences that work with nature to manage surface water. This kind of collective activity could involve making more permeable pavements and soakaways; planting trees and digging swales; creating rain gardens and green roofs; protecting local wetlands and upstream peatlands. Flood Mary recommends solutions in the outdoor space around properties too:

“My strapline is to work with nature rather than against it. If we literally pave over everywhere, we are encouraging flooding. But if we can do a little bit of greening up within our gardens: with water thirsty plants that can absorb the water… Trees as well can absorb an awful lot of water. Planting trees can reduce flood risk. I don’t think generally people realise that nature in this situation is very much your friend. I know we have busy lives and we don’t have time to mow lawns, but actually having a garden can make a huge difference.”

Flood Action Groups

And we can go one step further still, if we consider the notion that infrastructure is other people too. Our social lives and our connectedness to each other have as much to do with our readiness and response to flooding as any physical project. For example, two-in-five people living in high-risk flood areas have not signed up for flood warnings, primarily because they were unaware of the service or did not know how to sign up. Flood Action Groups are a great way for people to get to know their neighbours before the storm: to be better prepared ahead of time and better able to respond.

We can’t do this on our own and we don’t have to. For more ideas on some of the bigger local actions that we can take together, visit Take Flood Action.

Regenerative agriculture as the new normal

How strange… As a farmer, you need to be certified to be organic. You need to register with an approved control body and undergo a thorough inspection process to ensure your farming practices meet the required standards – that you’re helping soil regeneration, not adding harmful pesticides and herbicides, providing the space and environments that your animals need. But if you follow ‘conventional’ practices (aka industrial farming), there’s no certification required to farm in ways that destroy the topsoil, poison biodiversity with pesticides, pollute waterways with fertiliser runoff, raise animals in intense confinement, produce lots more carbon emissions.

Regenerative agriculture

What if we inverted the ideas of regenerative agriculture and ‘conventional’ agriculture? What if we looked at both with the clarity that children have: some things are simply good and other things are simply bad.

It is good to keep our soils healthy by building soil organic matter, allowing plants to grow to their maximum productivity and for soils to store more carbon. It is good to use fewer synthetic pesticides in smaller amounts, and more natural ones that do not cause any harm to people or the environment. It is good to raise farmed animals to have a better quality of life and stay naturally healthy, with more outdoor access and humane treatment.

It is bad to degrade the soil (by tilling, monocropping, etc), reducing its ability to support plant life and so grow crops. It is bad to use chemical pesticides that are linked to chronic human diseases and are toxic to other animals. It is bad to inject farmed animals with unnecessary antibiotics or artificial growth hormones (with residues transferred into our own bodies). It is bad to use synthetic fertilisers in such quantities that the runoff leaches into our water systems, creating dead zones where aquatic life cannot survive.

Nature friendly farming

Some might say that to look at these things in terms of simple good and bad is na?ve. So let’s be clear on this too: clarity on which kinds of farming practices should be normal is not the same thing as being na?ve. It is na?ve to expect that the Government and others will promote sustainable farming practices without our insistence. It is na?ve to assume that farmers will be driving decisions around nature friendly farming without adequate financial support and a long-term policy vision. It is na?ve to focus only on what farmers can do as individuals, instead of what we can do together, in community and by supporting them.

A lot of people are already on side and are friendly about nature friendly farming. As Kathryn Machin , Head of Community Engagement Campaigns at WWF-UK , said:

“In the People’s Plan for Nature, which we co-commissioned in 2023, there was a clear public mandate for better support for farmers, and for ensuring that the people who grow and produce our food have a say in the key policies that affect this sector. An overhaul of current farming subsidy systems to prioritise sustainable and nature-friendly farming was in the top 10 recommendations voted for by members of the People’s Assembly for Nature, so this really is an issue that people care about.”?

Showing our collective support for regenerative agriculture and that we really care about it should be a part of this new normal too.

For more ideas on some of the bigger local actions that we can take together, visit Farm with Nature.