Welcome to a beautiful world of regeneration!

Kia ora,

I am a regular listener and watcher and appreciate your programmes. Thank you.

I am asking you, the media, to continue to expand on the Cop26. There was lots of coverage  during the summit about the necessity and urgency to act to restore the climate, and then it flopped when the media said the governments were not doing enough. Yes the governments must act faster, and everyone of us, at all levels must do our bit. We changed overnight for COVID, it shows we can change overnight to regenerate the planet and improve our lives too.

I am sharing a vision of regeneration where each of us, our society and our environment rebound from climate change, Covid-19 and social crises.  

Simply, regeneration is improving what we have and removing fossil fuels from our lives. 

So what can each of us do? 

We can all choose to adapt, to change, let’s do this together, each of us at our level, at home, at work, organisations, businesses, local and central government.

Each of us can ask ourselves: “What am I doing for the climate right now?” Each of us can look around and see what uses/contains fossil fuel and choose to stop buying/using it. 

Let’s learn to live carbon-zero or regeneratively, solutions exist, it’s inspiring, creative, good for wellbeing giving us a sense of power in our destiny and I know how Kiwis like a good challenge! It’s exciting, joyful.

Please, everyday in the news, help visualise a green sustainable world, of what each of us can do, in our house, at our table, in our garden and beyond, by telling the story of the many initiatives, sharing knowledge (lifehacks!) about sustainable/climate friendly/healthy/biodiversity and community enhancing. You could add a fun presentation of a practical tip for each of us to do, right now, a future-proof action/tip of the day. The food we eat, the way we keep healthy and safe in our homes, the way we travel, all can be carbon-heavy or carbon-light. For example showing on TV the difference of carbon content between a local produce grown with compost and a processed food in plastic packaging coming from Australia via Italy, do you see the impact? When everyday, we buy this food or that food just adds up to a big difference. When a prize is offered for a competition, choose a regenerative idea: an electric car, a kit to grow your own food, a bokashi set, a sailing trip (not a jetboat or helicopter ride!), I have many more ideas, just ask!

Yes the media do quite a few good little docos, Country Calendar shows many regenerative pesticide free farms. A lot more needs to happen, every day, a regular section, simply use the same time or place allocated to Cop26 in the news, or create a feature like Beat that in the Project, fun and compassionate as you, NZ Media, are good at doing, and add the practical future-proof action/tip/lifehack of the day. We hear sport news everyday, at every news, don’t we? Is it essential to life? I am sure you can find a space to broadcast life-essential news too. You will learn a lot on the way as well, it’s interesting and empowering.

So what am I doing at my level (beyond asking you to do something)?

• In my household, I am committed to reduce our packaging further. I always choose paper/cardboard packaging, there are many easy swaps. I am phoning all the companies of the few packaged products we still buy, to check how recyclable/compostable they are. If they are not, I stop buying them. I had to replace my favourite tea!
• For our property,  we have now stopped buying petrol to power our powertools, they are now all electric and charged by our solar panels. Our new electric ride on lawnmower is great, much more silent than the petrol one, clean and free to run, and at a similar price. Why are people still buying petrol ones? Because they don’t know. Medias need to tell this to people. 
• In my business, as well as reducing my own carbon footprint (eg. Hybrid van), I share how to garden without chemicals. Beyond saying “Round up is potentially dangerous”, I show my guests how to manage “weeds” without weedkillers. I share many other practical ways of living in harmony with nature.
• In my community, I hold and share a vision of a regenerative district where landowners are supported by the council to restore biodiversity and improve wellbeing for all on a part of their land. It covers all 17 UN sustainable development goals, land, biodiversity and water improvement, equality/resilience with public access and local food production. It is progressing. 
• We always plant trees (already 6 this year) to absorb carbon our life still creates. 
• And so on, caring for ourselves, caring for our people, and caring for our planet. It all is simple and makes a huge difference for us, the land and the people around us. 

Wherever people are in their carbon-free/resilience/ sustainable/ wellbeing journey, they can choose to start now and change.  If everyone would live a low-carbon life like us, it would make a global difference and the planet would have a chance to stay below 1.5 degrees average temperature increase.

A big caring campaign, and nec minute, we are creating a beautiful sustainable inclusive fair and safe world, full of trees, and down chorus. Creativity, resilience, sharing, slow-down, consume-less, calming, and fun! It’s possible, simple and we can start now. Why wait?

Soon the world will look again at a compassionate, beautiful and sustainable Aotearoa New Zealand, we can do it. 

Think about it this weekend: Look how much embedded oil is around you? What can you actually do? 

I thank you for reading and hope it will inspire you. 

Kindest regards,

Florence Micoud