Haiti is one part of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. Originally a French colony it gained independence in 1804, the earliest country in Latin America to do so. Although poorly known today, the flora was one of the first in the New World to be recorded due to the efforts of Charles Plumier, a French missionary and naturalist who visited the Caribbean in the late 17th century. He produced a manuscript with illustrations of over 6000 plants and animals that he encountered.

Paul Hoxey will report on a trip he made to Haiti in January 2017 to investigate the flora and especially the xerophytic vegetation including cacti, following in the footsteps of Plumier. He will illustrate the talk with some of Plumier’s illustrations together with photographs taken during the expedition.

Talks this term will be presented by zoom and will start at 7:30 p.m.

All members will be sent the zoom links for the talks. If the talk is recorded members will be sent a link to allow them to hear it again or if they were unable to attend, at their leisure. Membership costs only £6 (£5 if paid by standing order). See our membership page for full details of the benefits of membership and how to join.

To receive information on CNHS events, including the zoom links, without the other benefits of membership, join the email list by contacting webmaster [at] cnhs.org.uk to be added to the list. Please make sure that your spam filter (yahoo email addresses in particular) does not reject the messages.

On Thursday 18th February, the next CNHS talk will be by Dr Cicely Marshall, Research Fellow at King’s College. She will talk about the conversion of the King’s Back Lawn to a wildflower meadow, and the subsequent changes to its wildlife observed through ongoing monitoring activities.

Talks this term will be presented by zoom and will start at 7:30 p.m.

All members will be sent the zoom links for the talks. If the talk is recorded members will be sent a link to allow them to hear it again or if they were unable to attend, at their leisure. Membership costs only £6 (£5 if paid by standing order). See our membership page for full details of the benefits of membership and how to join.

To receive information on CNHS events, including the zoom links, without the other benefits of membership, join the email list by contacting webmaster [at] cnhs.org.uk to be added to the list. Please make sure that your spam filter (yahoo email addresses in particular) does not reject the messages.

On Tuesday 9 February 2021 at 6pm-7:30pm, Kim Wilkie, widely regarded as one of the UK’s top landscape architects, will talk about a landscape strategy for protecting a river and lead a community debate, hosted by The Friends of the River Cam, on how to protect the Cam and keep its tributaries and supporting ecosystems healthy.

Kim is a prolific landscape architect who works on large-scale projects in the UK and internationally, in both public and private spaces. He works on a scale that is beyond the experience of most designers, for example, designing the green spaces around an entire new city in Oman, he was working with the architects and deciding where the buildings would go.

He worked with local communities to develop the Thames Landscape Strategy, Hampton to Kew, that set out to celebrate and understand the exceptional character of the Thames and create a 100 year strategic vision for the river corridor that would stand the test of time. How can we do the same thing for the Cam?

To join the event, use the link below:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-to-save-the-cam-tickets-137615003179

Talks resume, online by zoom, on Thursday 4th February at 7:30 p.m.

Membership costs only £6 (£5 if paid by standing order) and all members will be sent the zoom links for the talks. See our membership page for full details of the benefits of membership and how to join.

To receive information on CNHS events, without the other benefits of membership, join the email list by contacting webmaster [at] cnhs.org.uk to be added to the list. Please make sure that your spam filter (yahoo email addresses in particular) does not reject the messages.

The first talk, on 4th February, is “Bees, bee conservation and bee roads” by Rosie Bleet

11th February: “Monitoring bats at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden” by Chantal Helm

18th February: “Kings College wildflower meadow” by Cicely Marshall

25th February: “Botanical explorations of Haiti” by Paul Hoxey

Speakers for talks in March are still being finalised.

It is currently intended that CNHS outdoor events will go ahead when they are again permitted by the Government.  When they do, advance booking will be required for all meetings to ensure that numbers are restricted to the allowed limit. The first might be the visit to Trumpington Meadows on 14th March which is part of the CNHS field studies for 2021.

What does the River Cam mean to you?

Tuesday 8th December at 6 p.m. ONLINE

Feargal Sharkey will lead an online debate about our rivers and saving the Cam.

The Cam and its tributaries, like other chalk streams, are in a very bad way. Sucked dry by water companies and polluted by sewage. This is a Cambridge issue, but it’s a national disgrace too. Feargal Sharkey, the former punk musician, businessman and now trout fisherman has led a remarkable campaign to stop the rot.      

Cambridge Labour Party Environment Forum (CLEF); the Federation of Cambridge Residents Associations (FeCRA); Council for Protection of Rural England (CPRE) Cambridge and Peterborough; Cambridge Friends of the Earth (CamFoE); Cambridge Schools Eco Council are proud to host Feargal’s talk and to discuss water quality and its connections to the climate emergency and economic growth.

The event promises to be exciting. Your voice as citizens is important to help us protect our chalk stream and its landscapes and wildlife

TO BOOK, click on the short link to the eventbrite listing below.

Thursday 10^th December 2020 18.30 GMT  ONLINE

A free on-line event organised by the University of Cambridge. 
Register for tickets here.

We need bees and bees need our help. The decline in pollinating insects is one of the most worrying symptoms of climate breakdown because much of our food production relies on them.  

So, what can we do? Does it help if we make our gardens more welcoming to pollinators? Can scientists breed more bee-friendly plants? What role can farmers and the food industry play? What about the government’s new Office for Environmental Protection? 

Our panel will address these questions and others from the audience, to set out the steps we can all take to give bees a better chance.

Dave Goulson is the author of several popular books about bees, including the Garden Jungle.
Lynn Dicks is a conservation scientist focused on insect conservation and biodiversity in agricultural landscapes.
Hamish Symington researches pollination and plant-pollinator interactions at the University of Cambridge.
Howard Griffiths, Co-Chair of Cambridge Global Food Security IRC, Professor of Plant Ecology, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge. 

An #AnnualFoodAgenda event, organised by the University of Cambridge, Cambridge Global Food Security IRC and CambPlants Hub, powered by EIT Food, supported by the EIT, a body of the European Union. 

Image by Sven Lachmann from Pixabay.