#BlossomWatch is a British environmental campaign designed to raise awareness of the first signs of Spring by encouraging people to share images of blossoms via social media. The campaign was begun by the National Trust in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in England.
#BlossomWatch was initiated by the National Trust in March 2020, in the first national lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic in England. [1] [2] [3] [4] The campaign was inspired by analysis from the Trust's Noticing Nature Report, which discovered that only 6% of children and 7% of adults celebrated natural events such as the arrival of Spring. [5] The campaign also drew on the traditional Japanese custom of hanami, where people communally enjoy the transient nature of cherry blossom. [6]
#BlossomWatch is part of a wider programme of work by the Trust to plant 68 new orchards by 2025, [7] and four million trees with blossom by 2030. [8] In order to understand the extent to which blossom has been lost from the British landscape, artificial intelligence was used to interrogate historic maps of orchards. [9] An interim report from the Trust showed that orchards had reduced in scale from approximately 95,000 hectares in the period 1892–1914, to 41,000 hectares overall in 2022. [10]
During the first campaign participants were encouraged to share images on social media of blossoms seen on lockdown walks. Shared images shown during the campaign fortnight were viewed four million times. [11] The campaign was repeated in 2021, [12] when people were encouraged to geotag their blossom locations, in order to crowd-source a map of blossom in the UK. [11] [13]
A third iteration in 2022 saw over 53,000 images shared on social media. [14] [15] It also saw the installation of a 'blossom circle' in Newcastle city centre, which opened on 23 April of that year. [16] [17] It also included the installation of 'pop-up blossom gardens' in Birmingham, at Edgbaston Street and St Philips Cathedral Square. [18] [19] The Trust also announced a scheme to take place in Autumn 2022 to plant blossoming trees along the circular No.11 bus route. [20] [9] [21] [22]
In botany, blossoms are the flowers of stone fruit trees and of some other plants with a similar appearance that flower profusely for a period of time in spring.
An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees that are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of large gardens, where they serve an aesthetic as well as a productive purpose. A fruit garden is generally synonymous with an orchard, although it is set on a smaller, non-commercial scale and may emphasize berry shrubs in preference to fruit trees. Most temperate-zone orchards are laid out in a regular grid, with a grazed or mown grass or bare soil base that makes maintenance and fruit gathering easy.
Spring, also known as springtime, is one of the four temperate seasons, succeeding winter and preceding summer. There are various technical definitions of spring, but local usage of the term varies according to local climate, cultures and customs. When it is spring in the Northern Hemisphere, it is autumn in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa. At the spring equinox, days and nights are approximately twelve hours long, with daytime length increasing and nighttime length decreasing as the season progresses until the Summer Solstice in June and December.
A cherry blossom, also known as a Japanese cherry or sakura, is a flower of trees in the genus Prunus or the Prunus subgenus Cerasus. Wild species of the cherry tree are widely distributed, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere. They are common in East Asia, especially in Japan. They generally refer to ornamental cherry trees, not cherry trees grown for their fruit. The cherry blossom is considered the national flower of Japan.
Hanami is the Japanese traditional custom of enjoying the transient beauty of flowers; flowers in this case almost always refer to those of the cherry or, less frequently, plum trees. From the end of March to early May, cherry trees bloom all over Japan, and around the second week of January on the island of Okinawa. The blossom forecast "cherry blossom front" is announced each year by the Japan Meteorological Agency, and is watched carefully by those planning hanami as the blossoms only last a week or two.
The Community Security Trust (CST) is a British charity whose purpose is to provide safety, security, and advice to the Jewish community in the UK. It provides advice, training, representation and research.
HIV/AIDS was first diagnosed in 1981. As of year-end 2018, 160,493 people have been diagnosed with HIV in the United Kingdom and an estimated 7,500 people are living undiagnosed with HIV. New diagnoses are highest in gay/bisexual men, with an estimated 51% of new diagnosis reporting male same-sex sexual activity as the probable route of infection. Between 2009 and 2018 there was a 32% reduction in new HIV diagnosis, attributed by Public Health England (PHE) to better surveillance and education. PHE has described an "outbreak" in Glasgow amongst people who inject drugs, and has campaigns targeting men who have sex with men in London and other major cities. London was the first city in the world to reach the World Health Organization target for HIV, set at 90% of those with HIV diagnosed, 90% of those diagnosed on HAART and 90% of those on HAART undetectable. The UK as a whole later achieved the same target. Under the Equality Act 2010, it is illegal to discriminate against someone based on their HIV status in the UK.
ShadowMachine is an American animation studio and production company for film, television, commercials and music videos.
FareShare is a charity network established in 1994, which aims at relieving food poverty and reducing food waste in the United Kingdom. It does this by obtaining good quality surplus food from the food industry that would otherwise have gone to waste and sending it to frontline charities and community groups across the UK.
Big Brother Watch is a non-party British civil liberties and privacy campaigning organisation. It was launched in 2009 by founding director Alex Deane to campaign against state surveillance and threats to civil liberties. It was founded by Matthew Elliott. Since January 2018, Silkie Carlo is the Director.
Gousto, a trading name of SCA Investments Limited, is a British meal kit retailer, headquartered in Shepherd's Bush, London, founded by Timo Boldt and James Carter. Gousto supplies subscribers with recipe kit boxes which include ready-measured, fresh ingredients and easily followed recipes.
A community orchard is a collection of fruit trees shared by communities and growing in publicly accessible areas such as public greenspaces, parks, schools, churchyards, allotments or, in the US, abandoned lots. Such orchards are a shared resource and not managed for personal or business profit. Income may be generated to sustain the orchard as a charity, community interest company, or other non-profit structure. What they have in common is that they are cared for by a community of people.
Simran Pareenja is an Indian actress who primarily works in Hindi television. She made her acting debut in 2015 with Tu Mera Hero portraying Rajni. Pareenja is best known for her portrayal of Bhoomi Agrawal Prajapati in Bhagyalaxmi and her dual portrayal of Kaali Nandu Singh and Thakurain Pavitra in Kaala Teeka.
Bimbo Ademoye, is a Nigerian actress. She won Best Actress in a Comedy/TV series at the 2023 Africa Magic Viewers' Choice Awards for her role in the film Selina.
BOSH! is a duo of British vegan chefs from Sheffield consisting of Henry Firth and Ian Theasby. They rose to fame in 2016 with the launch of their YouTube channel, and have gone on to host the ITV1 television programme Living on the Veg and author a number of books. Their eponymous vegan cookbook ranked fifth in the Sunday Times Bestsellers chart in 2018, and is among the top 50 best-selling UK cookbooks of all time.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, numerous protests took place over the government's response.
Menopause in the workplace is a social and human resources campaigning issue in which people work to raise awareness of the impact menopause symptoms can have on attendance and performance in the workplace.
Dominique Palmer FRSA is a British climate justice activist and student. She spoke at 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference, and began her activism as one of the U.K’s leading U.K environmentalists and youth activists in the School Strike for Climate Movement.
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