Renewables Sector Expands with 'Renewable Nature'
Launch of new greentech venture opens the 'renewable nature' sector
The group that publish Surviving and invented the commercial diary 200 years ago have launched an ambitious new greentech venture called Letts Safari. Letts Safari was created to expedite the move to 'renewable nature', obtained through nature regeneration and surface-based carbon capture.
It sits within a growing movement to accelerate the removal of carbon dioxide. To date most commercial activities and greentech companies have focused on reducing emissions by providing alternatives to fossil fuels. Letts Group have been focused on the other side of the equation - carbon removal and storage. Their first greentech venture potentially expands the renewables universe to include renewable nature. At the same time it tackles the biodiversity crisis, which could prove equally timely.
Letts Safari harnesses the energy of the environmental movement and gives those involved actions to take beyond protest. It enables all people to do something about climate change. Members subscribe to a digital platform at LettsSafari.com that builds next generation safari parks - one tree, one animal, one new park at a time. Every 10 subscribers they plant a tree a year, every 100 subscribers they release a wild animal, and every 10,000 subscribers they will create a new, real-world safari park a year. Their first safari park is up and running in southwest, England.
The Letts remind us of the threat of climate change. “Our soil and waterways are so damaged that they're no longer able to absorb the carbon we produce. As a result emissions are trapped in the atmosphere creating pollution, violent storms, droughts, flooding and wildfire. We’re losing wildlife and plants faster than ever before. We need to do something about it.”
Letts Safari offers a simple answer by building rewilding safari parks that do something about climate change. Their parks rapidly repair soil and waterways so they can absorb carbon dioxide, and ensure that trees and plants thrive naturally, providing habitats for wildlife.
When you subscribe to Letts Safari they plant trees, release wildlife and build new habitats. Each tree they plant removes 1 tonne of carbon dioxide during its life. They also remove carbon with scrub, wild grasses, wetland and bog.
Once they get enough subscribers they will create more eco safari parks – with their members – to make a bigger difference. Hopefully along the way members will get inspired to build a mini wildlife haven in their backyard, at work, school and in their community. They'll share the secret source.
Subscribers to Letts Safari get a front row seat at the safari parks. With video footage, hidden cameras, wildlife photography and stories that transport them to the wild - online.
The Letts accidentally discovered rewilding in 2006 when they decided to create a small, wild space outside New York. They built an ecosystem of wild grasses, wildflower, shrub, scrub and trees on just a few acres. Before they knew it the wildlife started arriving. First insects, bugs and snakes. Then birds and mammals. A wasteland turned into a wildlife haven in just a couple of years.
They decided to do it again in a larger space. In 2014 they bought an old, run down 100 acre park and garden on the outskirts of Exeter, in the southwest of England. It was a mess. Today it’s a leading rewilding wildlife park. They created Letts Safari so they can share this fascinating new approach to 'renewable nature' and build many more safari parks. What they accidentally discovered back in 2006 is today called smaller-scale rewilding. If enough of us do enough of it, we can help fix the climate problem.
It looks like a fascinating new greentech offering - providing a mass market approach to rewilding with a digital, subscription economy wrapper. It could prove a timely way for us to offset carbon and restore nature, while reducing emissions and rebuilding biodiversity. You can subscribe to Letts Safari from £3.50 a month or £35 annually.
It is time for us to start moving beyond a narrative which is focused on climate analysis and blame/scare stories, to a more positive and inclusive movement for specific environmental action. After all, where there’s mass market action, there’s hope.
Surviving is a free publication. Subscribe so you never miss an update. You can reach us on twitter @LettsGroup.