Costing the Earth

Last year wildfires in the Amazon made headlines news. This year we've hardly heard about them - but that doesn't mean they're not happening. In fact the number of rainforest fires in Brazil rose by almost 20% in June, reaching a 13 year high, according to government data. Some estimates now point to 2020 being an even worse year for forest destruction than 2019. Meanwhile, from California to Siberia, fires have been devastating landscapes and throwing more greenhouse gases up into the atmosphere. In this programme, Lucy Siegle and a panel of experts explore the causes of fires around the world, and asks what can be done to tackle them.

Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Emma Campbell.

Record-breaking temperatures and months of severe drought fuelled a series of massive bushfires across Australia last winter. Dozens of people died and millions of hectares of bushland and forest were burnt.

Australia's plant and animal life are well adapted to natural fire but the additional burden of climate change ensured that many of the fires were more intense and widespread than ever before. Much of the country's unique fauna had nowhere to hide.

Peter Hadfield travels through the fire-ravaged regions of New South Wales to discover how local people are working to return injured animals to the wild and prepare habitats for a future that can only get hotter.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Do you know how much water you use? Despite campaigns to reduce our personal water usage from around 143 litres each per day to closer to 100, it's not improving.

Meanwhile Tom Heap has discovered that an innovation to a product we use every day, an innovation which promised to save water is actually making things worse. Billions of litres are being wasted every week – enough to supply the cities of Edinburgh, Cardiff, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and Belfast combined – welcome to the Great Leaky Loo Scandal.

We reveal how this is happening and what can be done. Tom gets a revealing look behind the scenes at a plumbing manufacturer where flushing systems are tested and the science of 'solids discharge' is analysed.

When water is being abstracted from rivers and being treated to meet our demands we ask if we need to take the resource more seriously.

Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock for BBC Audio in Bristol

Ellen Husain investigates the presence of pathoghens in the marine environment. She learns how surfers and regular sea swimmers may be more likely to have anti-microbial resistant bacteria in their bodies, and finds out about the ways in which antibiotics find their way into our oceans. Is the way we manage our seas actually fuelling the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria and increasing the risk of untreatable disease in future?

Producer: Emma Campbell

With an ever greater demand for more housing, and Boris Johnson calling for the country to "build buld bulid" post lockdown, Peter Gibbs looks at current trends in house-building. Are the government's plans for "garden communities" as environmentally-friendly as they sound? And how could developers be encouraged to build in a way which incorporates nature rather than squeezing it out?

Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Emma Campbell.

Lockdown saw many more people jumping on bikes and walking - as much as a way to get out of the house as get around - but pollution levels dropped and nature could be heard without the background roar of traffic. Jheni Osman asks if this the way it could or should be? Has this given us a new way of thinking about how we get around and can city leaders bank on this to change the infrastructure to be 'car free'?

After 100 years of city design being built around the private car, this is a rare opportunity to bank on the behaviour change to reduce pollution, improve air quality and get more of us active. Temporary moves to give over more road space to public transport, bikes and pedestrians may give way to more permanent measures and has accelerated plans for 'Car Free Cities'. Jheni explores models that have been applied elsewhere, looks at changes coming in across Milan, Bristol and Birmingham and asks what's needed to make them work? Will we be zooming about on e-scooters and goods transported underground instead? Plans aren't without cost or controversy but is this a rare moment to make a radical change the new normal?

Presented by Jheni Osman

Just a few months ago politicians across the spectrum were promising trees, glorious trees, in abundance. In an unlikely game of Top Trumps the numbers of trees promised reached into billions, ultimately settling at an ambitious promise of 30,000 hectares a year by 2025.

So, how are we going to reach this target over the next 5 years and is it even the right goal? Things have not begun well with thousands of saplings left to rot after they could not be planted due to coronavirus restrictions and campaigners condemning the government targets as ‘inadequate’. At the same time many experts urge caution as the current push for more trees could result in trees being planted on land which should be used for agriculture or on landscapes which are important carbon stores such as peatland.

Even if we can find the space we may not have the tree stocks or the skilled workforce to create sustainable woodlands. The current coronavirus crisis has highlighted just how vulnerable the UK nursery industry is without long term planning. We need a trained workforce to plant and care for trees as well as plans for the trees grown to be used sustainably.

However, there are other ways. Natural regeneration and nurturing existing woodlands could be a better way to capture carbon long term and improve biodiversity. What we plant and how will have a huge affect on how much carbon the tree absorbs depending on how long they will be left standing but landowners will want to see some return on land used for tree planting.

Peter Gibbs delves into the detail behind the mantra of ‘right tree, right place’ to find out what we should be planting, where we should plant and how to create a forest fit for the future.

Producer Helen Lennard

What's the best way to prevent flooding? Caz Graham finds out whether there might be environmental alternatives to building ever-higher flood defences. She talks to a campaign group in Kendal in Cumbria, where there are multi-million pound plans to build flood barriers through the town centre, and asks the Environment Agency whether there could be more imaginative alternatives. Is Natural Flood Management the answer? Caz talks to academics and experts to find out what new solutions there might be, and what other countries are doing.

Produced by Emma Campbell.

CORRECTION 22/06/2020

A decade ago, many people saw carbon offsetting as an excuse for carrying on bad behaviour. Need to fly? I can still fly ... look at me - I'm not so bad after all. And the critics lined up to shoot it down. So what has changed, asks Tom Heap, and is it something we should all be doing?

The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde

Sound is what the world does. From the tiniest bugs to the largest whales, animals use sound to communicate, for example, they sing to attract a mate and establish a territory. But this is all happening against a background of man-made noise that was, until the last few weeks, increasing in volume all the time. So what happens if you can’t hear or make yourself heard or you are too stressed or distracted to behave normally? Andy Radford, Professor of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Bristol explores the impact of this global pollutant and the mitigation measures that could help.

Producer: Sarah Blunt