2. Company overview

Walk down an average English residential street where the houses have front and back gardens, and more often than not you will find, where it could be alive with bees, butterflies and a riot of birdsong, there is little to break the silence except the hum of distant traffic.  No problem – after all, wildlife belongs in the countryside.  But think again – with  our ancient (biodiverse) hedgerows reduced to a tiny fraction of what they once were, and liberal use of agricultural chemicals having driven our wildlife from the countryside – Where do they have to live now other than domestic gardens?  Even foxes, who are woodland creatures, are reduced to city vermin, having to raid domestic bins to survive.

 Most people simply don’t know how much ordinary people can do. Places left to nature are seen as ‘scrub land’ because they are messy. The trend is to tame everything, including our gardens – weed & feed our lawns to remove any wild flowers, mow every two weeks to keep it nice and short, clear up any twigs or dead leaves, and crop garden hedges to a neat box shape. There is no room for nature here. Hedgehogs need corners that are left alone, a bed of leaves to hibernate under in the winter, and gaps in fences to roam from garden to garden. There is no space given in most gardens to log piles or nature corners, and garden fences are kept too neat and new, right down to the ground, or even beneath it. This is not done on purpose, people just don’t know and we like to have well tended gardens.

It could be a very different story. Wild places could be valued and left as habitats, people could let their hedges or shrubs grow a little, leave a patch of lawn unmown til July pr August to encourage wild flowers, and leave some leaves on the ground over winter to provide cover.

David Attenborough in his new film specifically talks of the need for ‘rewilding’ and George Monbiot has been giving this message for years. Yet the UK is still one of the most nature depleted countries in the world. According to a new study by the Natural History Museum, ‘We have led the world in degrading the natural environment’. According to the RSPB, more than 40 million birds have disappeared from the UK’s skies since 1970 alone, and things are continuing to get worse, not better.

Wild Magic is set to change that. It is all centred around nature and wildlife, and by having displays of wildlife friendly gardens as well as a variety of wildlife gardens actually available to buy ‘off the shelf’, it will give a real live examples of what wildlife gardens of different sizes can look like. As well as forest gardens, there will be low maintenance / no work gardens etc, allotment or food gardens, ornamental gardens – all designed to make provision for wildlife as well as people. With lots of info to take away, new technologies to experience and try out, and new green innovations available to buy, the aim is to raise awareness of just how much one person or one family can actually change the direction of the climate chaos we are currently heading towards.

Scientific research is now conclusive -in less than a decade, the planet will reach a series of ‘one way doors’ (David Attenborough) leading to irreversible climate change, habitat loss and the sixth mass extinction, which if allowed to continue will mean just one thing – the ultimate extinction of the human race.

This is accompanied by an astonishing ignorance among most people of the scale, the urgency, and what they can do about it, if anything. While the plight of nature is becoming more and more well known, the ‘powers that be’, politics, global corporations etc, continue to fund the destruction of forests and promote choices that perpetuate the same behaviour, making change seem almost impossible for normal individuals.

The ‘green lifestyle’ takes a little bit of trouble – cumbersome and unhygienic water saving methods, having a food bin (discarded food can smell), time wasting recycling, while we remain inundated with products that all produce a huge environmental impact – tons of plastic, palm oil etc. Without enormous amounts of research, time and trouble sourcing alternatives, and expense, it is quite frankly impossible to live sustainably in the modern world . People are inherently good and want to do the right thing.  But the options that the general public are offered are very limited. Added to that, a conscience has a price tag in our society – free range, ethical or sustainable are always more expensive (and yet it should be the other way round).

Wild Magic aims to change that by giving us choice, as well as much needed information on the true environmental credentials of many large organisations.   Wild Magic will aim to be a bit like Amazon.com, in that it aims to be is a one-stop-shop enabling a new sustainable way of life, as easily and effortlessly, and cheaply, as possible.

Living sustainably is still very much a ‘middle class’ occupation, while there are millions and millions of people who simply don’t know (and can’t afford to care)  about things like avoiding plastic, reducing food waste, animal welfare in meat production, how to grow food, and any other sustainable behaviour. WM aims to be accessible and interesting to everyone – regardless of background, wealth, education, or age. We hope that by building a community of people who also share our vision, we will be able to influence decision making so that environmental impacts begin to be reflected in the price, making local, sustainable, unwrapped, free range, products available to the majority of people rather than just the ‘affluent middle classes’.

Again, it is currently only affluent people who can afford to care about animal welfare, because it has a price tag. No welfare should have a price tag.  Factory / intensive farming is only a relatively recent phenomenon (mainly since the 1960’s) and it is simply not necessary to cause the suffering of billions of animals to feed humans. There are many options for eliminating animal suffering and treating them with respect, with minimal change to our shopping and eating habits. We hope to explore and advocate some of these options in the fullness of time.

(Could mention here vision of something like ethical consumer database so people can easily check sustainability of ingredients widely used, searching by product or brand, eg a point system based on carbon footprint, ingredients used, etc).  

Watch this space !