Walking into Morley Butchers in Crouch End, the smell immediately transports me back to my childhood in Belfast — accompanying my mother to the local butcher, parting the metal chain curtain, and walking through the doorway into a domain of freshly-prepared meat. I would amuse myself with the sawdust on the floor, as my mother bought the cheap cuts of mutton on the bone for an Irish stew, or some kidneys and liver for a mixed grill.

Andy, who’s been running Morley for the past 10 years, greets me. We start talking about the meat he has on display, the…

One of my favourite smells is that of a forest after rainfall — that distinctive blend of freshness and rejuvenation mixed with decay and decomposition. Walking through Queen’s Wood after Storm Ciara, I savour that very smell and the period of calm that follows any weather event that merits a name.

As I make my way past the Shepherd’s Hill allotments, slipping and sliding up the boggy hill on my way to the cafe, I can’t help noticing the number of trees that have fallen. …

I listen intently to Ed Santry, the new Nature Conservation Officer for Haringey Council, as he gives a talk on the latest Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) he’s working on for the borough. His audience are members of the Friends of Alexandra Park, a volunteer group which plays a vital role in maintaining and monitoring the plants and animals within the park, one of many such groups in the area.

He stresses how conserving those green spaces, and the corridors between them, is vital to maintaining biodiversity within the borough, and it will be one of the priorities of the new…

When we think of food waste, we tend to think about what we ourselves are throwing away — that half-eaten burger, that bag of unopened salad leaves forgotten at the back of the fridge. And for good reason — we can see it, and we feel the sense of guilt and shame when we throw it in the bin. But we’re also reminded of food waste through supermarket and government- or council-funded initiatives — where the spotlight is also firmly placed on the household.

Current statistics, used to justify the focus on us, seem to validate this view. In its…

When we buy food, we are putting our trust in the shops we get it from. By association, we also put trust in their manufacturers and suppliers. Broadly speaking, we expect the products they offer us to be of good quality and not detrimental to our health and wellbeing, and most of us wouldn’t want our food to be produced in ways that cause suffering to other people, animals or the environment — not knowingly, at least.

But what do we know about the provenance of our food? What do we know about the production of the pre-prepared soup we…

In an ideal world none of our systems — especially those providing our basic, essential needs — would produce any waste. But the food system in its current form, be it at a national or global level, produces a criminal amount of waste — much of it avoidable. The reasons for this are diverse, and ultimately a by-product of a deeply flawed and inefficient system, that has for too long been allowed to function with little or no regard for the impact of both its production processes, and the waste it produces.

Things such as the cost related to the…