The caterpillar story – or how it all began

It was summer 2007, in one of Worcestershire’s nature reserves.  I came across a black and yellow Cinnabar moth caterpillar crawling through the grass.  He was hungry, as he and his brothers and sisters had completely stripped the ragwort plant on which they had been born, so he was on the march to find a new one.  I was not worried about him – we were surrounded by ragwort plants!  But I thought “we should be so lucky”.  We in Western Europe and the US are currently living as though, when we have consumed the resources of this planet, we can crawl off and find two more to satisfy our needs.

How have we been able to develop such a destructive lifestyle?  We have done it through exploitation.  We exploited people all over the world through our colonial past – we continue to exploit people all over the world through abusive trading relationships.  We have exploited wildlife – one only has to think of rainforests logged, the oceans stripped of fish and an agricultural landscape in which once common animals such as the skylark have been silenced by destructive farming practices.  We have exploited the earth’s mineral resources and have gobbled up fossil fuels as though there is no tomorrow.

The lightbulb moment!

Our Worcester FOE group was sitting in the pub a few weeks later, gazing gloomily into our pint pots, and thinking “the Big Ask Climate Change campaign is great at a national level, but what can we do here in Worcester?  What should be our Big Ask for the city?  Hey! - what about grabbing an idea from WWF and asking Worcester to live as if there was just one planet?  Simple, clean, appealing!”

That immediately begged the question “when was Worcester last/ever a one planet city – living in right relationship with its local food supply, surrounded by abundant wildlife, engaging in a bit of modest trade and consuming locally grown timber for fuel?”  We couldn’t answer that one, but we rapidly concluded that changes would have to be made in every aspect of life to achieve one planet living – food, energy, transport, waste, jobs, housing, commerce, health and leisure, the lot!

As if that wasn’t enough, we knew there would be an ethical and moral dimension to one planet living – we couldn’t call Worcester sustainable if we exported our footprint elsewhere through unfair trade.  It would not be a sustainable Worcester if the plants and animals that have lived alongside us in Worcestershire since the last ice age were to be pushed to the margins.  Sustainability would be hollow if the water was polluted, the air poisoned and the soil exhausted.

We realised that this wasn’t a Big Ask – it was a HUMONGOUS ASK! 

So we bought in another round of drinks.

…and then we thought

“What if we brought together a coalition of all the other groups in the city that might also be struggling with similar ideas, and feeling equally inadequate to the challenge?   We could turn to each other for encouragement, share resources, formulate ideas, combine our energies and get our voice heard. 

And what if that broad and inclusive group could be nested somewhere within an existing civic structure – able to influence politics and commerce, rather than out in the wilderness baying to the moon.  Then it could really help to shape future policy, set targets and help to win Worcester citizens over to a sustainability agenda.  Also, speaking with one voice, such a coalition could dialogue with similar groups in other towns and cities, such as the rapidly spreading Transition Towns movement.

…so was borne

For the One Planet Worcester constitution - [ Click here ]

To find out more about the WWF One Planet Living model go [ Here ]

For the WWF survey of UK cities that refers to Worcester go [ Here ]

To understand the Transition Town movement go [ Here ]

Robert Wilkins

Worcester Friends of the Earth