Paul Zammit, championing the biodiversity cause
He concluded his recent presentation by saying that the other greatest threat to nature’s harmony is habitat loss.
Paul Zammit, Director of Horticulture at the Toronto Botanical Garden in Canada, recently paid the Walter Sisulu Botanical Garden a visit to champion the biodiversity cause.
Traditionally, missionaries would travel around the globe educating people about religion. Paul seems to have the same kind of conviction but about a different cause. He loves to talk about the intricate interaction between the environment, plants and people or biodiversity while travelling the world urging people to take a different look at how this delicate relationship is structured.
Zammit was recently in South Africa to help people rethink beauty and to teach them to plant with a greater purpose. He carried out a presentation at the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden, speaking to a full house where he showcased how nature and ecosystems are interlinked.
In his presentation, he indicated just how important botanical gardens are throughout the whole world. Zammit encourages people to use plants that improve quality of life, as in his eyes plants have therapeutic value aside from the oxygen that they provide us. He also advised people to use water sparingly and to rather use rainwater in their gardens as every drop counts.
He encourages cultivating plants that will attract pollinators which themselves need food and shelter, such as certain birds and of course, bees. “People like butterflies but they don’t like caterpillars because they eat plants. But guess what, no caterpillar = no butterfly as the latter is the end stage of the former,” he told the crowd.
Zammit cited another example of the extensive benefits of bees, saying people should try and make better choices by planting flowers that could attract bees for pollination. Bees have to visit the same flowers a million times in order to produce a bottle of nectar. If there are not enough flowers, the amount of honey they are able to produce is limited. He told the crowd that the honey producing industry is one of ‘liquid gold’ that is worth $11 billion worldwide. He is a great opponent of the use of pesticides, as he believes they infringe on the natural biodiversity. He concluded by saying that the other greatest threat to nature’s harmony is habitat loss.
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