You can help build and support a community of organic growers across the UK to halt biodiversity loss, by donating to Garden Organic’s match-funded Big Give Christmas Challenge.
Every donation you make to Garden Organic between 28th November and 5th December – no matter the size – will be doubled, helping it make big changes to how our land is nurtured.
There are 15 million gardens in the UK, covering around 270K hectares – that’s more than the area of all the National Nature Reserves in the UK. If each one was managed sustainably and organically, imagine how that could change our landscape and benefit our wildlife.
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By getting more people involved in organic growing, the collective impact will make huge improvements to biodiversity, food security and people’s health – and help counter climate change.
One donation, twice the impact
Helps the sustainable gardening charity boost backyard biodiversity during the Big Give Christmas Challenge – go to //donate.biggive.org/campaign and search ‘Garden Organic’ – and with one donation you can have twice the impact:
Support education
- £5 will become £10 – and could help us produce educational resources about organic growing to spread the message at UK-wide events.
Conserve heritage seeds
- £10 will become £20 – and could support and upskill a Seed Guardian to conserve heritage seeds and precious plant biodiversity.
Inspire the next generation
- £20 will become £40 – and could allow us to demonstrate practical techniques in our organic demonstration garden to inspire communities to tackle climate change in their own growing space.
Help fund citizen science
- £50 will become £100 – and could help fund our citizen science experiments including research into how to organically manage some key vegetable pests.
Safeguard rare vegetables
- £100 will become £200 – and could bolster our testing and evaluation of rare vegetable varieties at our Heritage Seed Library, safeguarding them for future generations.
Our biodiversity is in crisis
Global wildlife populations have plummeted by 69 per cent on average since 1970, with the main drivers being human use of land and climate change.
In the face of this emergency, you can take action at home to help protect biodiversity through sustainable gardening practices such as composting and recycling, reducing pesticide use and saving seeds.
But gardening skills such as food growing, and seed saving are not passed down through generations the way they used to be. And many people don’t know where to turn for reliable, simple and affordable advice.
This is why Garden Organic’s unrivalled 65-years of organic and sustainable gardening expertise is essential in helping more communities embrace eco-friendly practices for their growing spaces.
By providing simple, accessible organic growing advice for any size or type of growing space, the charity wants people to create a patchwork of thriving green spaces across the UK.
Why is biodiversity so important?
Biodiversity is the variety of life on Earth, in all its forms, from genes and bacteria to ecosystems – from small gardens and allotments to community growing spaces, peatlands and forests. According to the UN, these ecosystems are natural carbon sinks so conserving and restoring them provides nature-based solutions to the climate change crisis.
Fiona Taylor, chief executive of Garden Organic, says: “Studies show following organic gardening and land management principles leads to increased biodiversity and results in local species richness and abundance. Through our match-funded Big Give Christmas Challenge your donation will allow us to give people the know-how to cultivate seasonal organic produce, with no food miles, plastic packaging, peat or pesticides and learn to create havens for wildlife.”
The Big Give Christmas Challenge is the UK’s biggest match-funded campaign. For seven days, the challenge offers supporters of participating charities the opportunity to double their donations — and, in doing so, make an extraordinary difference to the world’s biggest challenges.
Visit BigGive.org between midday 28th November and midday 5th December to donate. Follow #BigGive4Biodiversity to get updates on the campaign via Garden Organic’s social media challenges and learn more about how to donate.
