Talking Point
How healthy are the rivers near you and can your Club do anything to improve the health of these rivers?
Rotary End Plastic Soup ambassador club, Kimbolton Castle, attended the
Conference of Parties 26th meeting (COP 26) in Glasgow during the first
two weeks of November to engage with climate change activists and policy
makers. These Rotarians attended as delegates in the civil society group of
Research NGOs (called RINGOs) and with our partner SeaTrust.
We advocated for our citizen science initiative from District 1070 (English
East Midlands) called “Rivers to the Sea, It starts with Me.” This local
initiative to address the challenge of plastic pollution in our rivers and
oceans is growing fast and the citizen science approach has resulted in an
interactive geospatial information system that is shared openly to capture
observations and inform everyone about the health of our rivers and the
ocean, particularly where we live.
Our club member, Dr Lynn Wilson, represented both SeaTrust and Rotary
on a side event at COP 26 sponsored by the Environment Ministry of North
Macedonia, entitled “Solving the Climate Crisis Together.” The key
message from this talk was that all parties and sectors must work together,
particularly to allow citizen representation, in healing our planet. Our
Rotary delegates will meet with the Rotary International President and
environment ministers of the Commonwealth Nations before COP 26
concludes on 11 November.
Joel Weaver, PhD
Rotary Club of Kimbolton Castle
District 1070 Clean Rivers/Oceans Initiative
TRF Cadre, Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention