A Natural Step – Acting Together

As the Countryside Council for Wales was completing its 2012-2013 programme of work towards targets agreed with Welsh Government, Chair, Members of Council and Directors felt that it would be appropriate to record key aspects of the work of CCW over its 22 year existence1.  As a result a collaborative resource entitled ‘A Natural Step’ was produced. The following piece within this blog post is an extract from the publication. It was written by Alan Underwood and outlines the emergence and contributions of community groups – the environmental third sector2.

Chapter 5 – Acting Together: Local perspectives, global outcomes

Having started this book with a look at changes in society, with examples of CCW partnerships in following chapters, Alan Underwood describes the emergence and contribution of community groups – the environmental third sector. Volunteering drew its inspiration from a desire to maintain the natural world for its own sake, and ‘citizen scientists’ have provided a unique contribution to this goal. The arguments have now broadened as people have come to recognise that the natural world and the ecosystem services it provides are vital to our future and that much can be done on a broader front at the local community level. Community woodland groups have spread rapidly, and opportunities for waste management have generated effective social enterprises. Alan argues that we should not underestimate the role of inspired individuals and groups in seeking out a route to sustainable living.

Fallen leaves crunch crisply underfoot, made brittle by that same early visitation of cold air that sprinkled this woodland glade with glittering white while this small band of volunteers slept. Ahead, the sun’s weak rays pierce smoke that rises lazily through the still air and reveals, as does a scatter of freshly cut coppice stools, that the volunteers have been out of their beds and hard at work for some hours. Warmed by their labours, the flames, and cups of steaming tea, their fireside chat turns to the coming spring and the waves of white and blue that their morning’s work will help unfold across this woodland floor, as Wood Anemones and Bluebells take turns to carpet the ground, as a new year rises in vitality.

Fig 5- 1 Waves of Bluebells flow over the ramparts of this Iron Age hillfort at Coed y Bwnydd, a National Trust woodland and Scheduled Ancient Monument overlooking the Usk Valley in Monmouthshire [1].

If there is a traditional stereotype of environmental volunteering perhaps the cameo scene above goes some way to capturing it. The volunteers here are in intimate contact with Nature. They come to this wood to recapture some sense of an imagined idyllic and bucolic past. They do so by mimicking the everyday activities that our ancestors once engaged in to wrest the resources that sustained a way of life now long gone. Volunteers come to conserve that which the flood tide of modern times threatens to sweep away. To conserve the intrinsic natural beauty of the wood for future generations. To maintain the potential for simple wonder and delight that comes from contemplation of the spontaneous activity of Nature, of things unbidden by the mind of man.

A quarter of a century ago these echoes of Romanticism still provided much of the justification for the activities of environmental charities large and small, national and local. It all formed part and parcel of the soft sell to the public that by turns sought, via the seal pup and the tiger for example, to appeal to feelings for the sentimental and the awe-inducing aspects of Nature as things worth keeping in their own right, for their individual beauty and splendour.

Traditional national or well established voluntary organisations have always operated from a wider platform than this. They have been the home of the amateur naturalist; the volunteer experts in botany, entomology, ornithology and more; the acclaimed and accomplished citizen scientists that have done so

much to record, investigate and celebrate the natural world – and to chart its relentless decline. Their role could never have been filled by professional scientists. It is they and the national environmental charities that played a large part in raising the alarm about what man was doing to the environment and the living web by which every member of our species is sustained. For many years to proclaim the value of the natural and the wild was itself to be in a wilderness imposed by society’s lack of understanding. Through these times the environmental charities (the environmental third sector) persisted in championing and acting, to promote and conserve that which was largely unseen, unaccounted for and hence undervalued by society at large.

As the decades have unfolded and the flood tides of modernity and post- modernity have continued their seemingly unstoppable and all-engulfing rise, to the detriment of all things natural, other new perspectives have come to be articulated. These fresh perspectives on the significance and importance of Nature have gradually come to be less specific and more encompassing as the focus of the effort to conserve has moved from individual species and the scenic, to habitats and smaller protected areas, to landscapes and ecosystems, and to that most encompassing of concepts, sustainable development.

Fig 5- 2 The dormouse is one of many woodland creatures whose populations have declined in recent years.

It became clear that if individual species were to survive in the long term they would not do so in zoos, aquaria, or even relict areas of natural habitat with special protection but only as parts of the wider natural environment and systems which had, through evolution, given rise to them.

 

The full chaper, written by Alan Underwood for this CCW publication can be found here: http://www.environment-wales.org/resources/a_natural_step_-_ccw/1249

Source:                                                                                                                               1CCW (2013) A Natural Resource

2 CCW (2013) A Natural Resource pg. 64

The Garth Hillside Organic Garden “hedges” closer to perfection…

It isn’t that often that a Development Officer gets to visit one of their groups and take part in a day of practical environmental improvements; a standard group usually involves sitting and discussing new ideas or walking around to see project work. It is always nice to visit our groups but there is always a part of us that secretly wants to join in, that inner part of a Development Officer that wants to get our hands dirty with the rest of the volunteers. Recently I took the opportunity to do just that.

It was a bright and early start on a Saturday morning in the middle of February, I was getting quite excited, personally this does actually happen quite easily, for example, I received an empty wooden wine crate last Christmas; which would be brilliant for salting hams, I could not contain the inner excited child that never seems to leave a person. 

Today I was extra excited for two reasons, I was going to Glyn Ceiriog to visit the Garth Hillside Organic Garden, a community garden project run along the principles of organic permaculture; which is reason in itself to bring a smile to my face but I was also going to take part in a hedge-laying training day. Sharp tools, practical conservation work, fresh air, good company and plenty of cake; this was a dream come true!

The Garth Hillside Organic Garden is a wonderful project to visit; it is a community garden in the beautiful Ceiriog Valley. Despite being 300metres up on an exposed hillside the group grow food year round and follow organic permaculture principles. The site was until a few years ago a steep scrubby field with lots of stones and no facilities, it is still just as steep but now is clear of gorse, the stones have been used to create paths, has raised beds full of vegetables, a compost toilet and an active apiary, the groups aim is to be as holistic and sustainable as possible.

The aim of the day was to learn how to lay an overgrown hedge on the boundary of their site; this would provide an effective barrier to the edge of their garden, improve the hedge as a wildlife corridor and prolong the life of the hedge by encouraging regrowth through the removal of old dead wood and coppicing. I had brought along an old billhook that I had been given as a present a few months ago and I was itching to get stuck in.

There were 7 participants on the course, 2 members of staff Jude and Charlotte, 5 volunteers including myself and our trainer Chris. We introduced ourselves and over a panad and some delicious walnut cake, we got familiar with the tools we were to use; the objectives of the day and some background to the craft of hedge laying.

The hedge in question was a mixture of hazel, holly, ash, elder and hawthorn, the first job was to assess the hedge for dangerous trees and hanging branches then clear the accumulated dead material at the base of the old overgrown tree stumps, removing any dead upright growth; this would encourage new growth and let the light penetrate to the ground.

Assess the hedge for dead trees and hanging branches

Once this was done the next step was to lay the trees by cutting almost all of the way through the living stem which is known as the “pleacher”, leaving a thin strip of sapwood and bark to allow the pleacher to remain attached and continue to supply water and nutrients to the leaves to allow growth. It all sounded easier said than done, which we discovered when the first hawthorn pleacher we started to lay snapped off unexpectedly to our disappointment; Chris remarked that we didn’t have to worry as the stump would now coppice well.

In detail, the felling cut is made by sawing through the pleacher almost all of the way and then chopping out the wood above the cut, in this way the pleacher can then naturally lean and be bent towards the ground without splitting. The strip of remaining sapwood faces the ground and the exposed heartwood and stump is exposed to the light which encourages regrowth. As more of the hedge is laid in this way it is woven together and held in place with stakes cut from the hedge, it is then trimmed so it is neat and tidy.

Clear the leaf litter and check for old bits of wire fence

Time flies when you are having fun is the old adage, especially so when you are working outdoors and it was lunch time before we knew it. We stopped and sat looking down the Ceirog Valley from our viewpoint of the groups meeting area, homemade soup with home baked bread and cheese filled the gap nicely, we were joined by a friendly crumb stealing robin with no table manner whatsoever, finding a perch on top of a walnut which was decorating the top of our cake.

After a bit of practice we were laying the pleachers like professionals.

By the end of the afternoon we had laid a large section of the hedge, none of us really wanted to stop but as the day was coming to an end we packed up our tools and admired with a certain degree of pride the freshly laid hedge. With luck a well laid hedge will last a long time, grow thickly and form an effective boundary to a site whilst also provide a natural corridor for wildlife.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doin’ the DO – Nation

Just like 90’s rap/pop sensation Betty Boo, I too have been Doin’ the Do¹. By ‘Do’ I mean that I have pledged to make small changes in my lifestyle to reduce my carbon emissions.

It’s for a good cause..

The inspiration for pledging originated from an idea that was imagined by members of the Environment Wales DO team. They wanted to do something significant to celebrate 20 years of Environment Wales and raise awareness of the amazing projects the initiative supports. From the original idea ‘The 4 Seasons Challenge’ concept emerged and the rest is slowly becoming history. To date the DO team have undergone tough trials, pushing themselves physically and mentally – all in the name of a good cause. To be honest they appear to be superhuman in what they have achieved. So, it was only fair, for those not taking part in the challenges, to inspire the team by doing something that would make a positive difference by creating change. The end result was to sign up and pledge an action to encourage a more sustainable lifestyle and to do something fun! So far, to promote the cause we have received 97 pledges and met 52% of the target in achieving a saving of 10,000 kg of CO₂. With the final challenge fast approaching – a swimathon. Not just any swimathon, members of the team plan to undertake a 5km marathon swim at the end of April, which will complete the 4 seasons set. This looks to be the toughest challenge the group have entered into. Therefore, to show my support I decided that my last pledge to this cause would have to equal this mammoth distance swim. I had to think long and hard about this. Giving the car up is too easy (I use it less than 1 day a week), buying locally sourced food is already on my check list, there was only one thing left to do I had to give up something that is unthinkable for 90%^* of women out there…NO CHOCOLATE FOR 2 MONTHS! As I enter the final 4 weeks, 1 day, 7 hours and 50 minutes of my personal Everest I appreciate the hard work that has gone towards completing the 4 seasons challenge.

So, I am throwing down the gauntlet and encourage you to ‘Do’ the same.

It is really quick to sign up and chose one of the ready made actions that can be tailored towards your lifestyle. Examples of things you can do are:

Air dry your clothes instead of putting them in the dryer – pledging this action saves 416 kg of CO₂ ²

 

Planning to take a flight? Swap it for another mode of transport such as a ferry or a train – pledging this action saves a massive 22,225 kg of CO₂ ³

So what are you waiting for? Sign up http://www.thedonation.org.uk/doers/team-environment-wales/4-seasons-challenge  make a big difference, motivate and ‘Do the Do’

Source

¹ Betty Boo – ‘Doin’ the DO’ from the album Boomania

² The Do Nation Website http://www.thedonation.org.uk/how-it-works/doactions/home/just-hanging

³ The Do Nation Website http://www.thedonation.org.uk/how-it-works/doactions/travel/get-grounded

^* Fictional estimate

 

@NTErddig and @ChirkCastleNT Taking people back to nature.

Last week I dashed north to visit two National Trust properties and see if there were any community volunteering projects where EW could help them. Firstly I went to Chirk Castle. This is not a property I have really done any work with before or a place I know at all. It is a truly impressive beast of a building, obviously built to be defended, low, grey and lowering, hugging the top of the hill. It also has 5 acres of gardens and a large park surrounding it which is a SSSI because of its amazing veteran trees and the creatures they support. The park is a testament to 1000 years of habitation and management of this spot.

Where you enter is a more modern addition, Victorian I believe, that was once the home farm. Here they have developed a very nice community growing area and this was one of the projects I was there to discuss.

They would like to involve more of the community in the project and possibly consider working with another organisation to develop this area so that it provides vegetables for local people, the café and the shop. This would be a great opportunity for a group but, as usual, I can always think of the perfect group but they are never in the right place to take up the offer. So we have put out a few feelers and will see what happens on that one.

The other project they wanted to discuss was less clear cut. Bush craft says Shane. Tell me how it will benefit the environment says I. As so often is the case when you start to talk a project through what they say they want to do is only a means to an end. This time the end being to engage people with and get them to appreciate the natural environment and so before long we were wondering how ‘Green Olympics’ could be brought into the project and I was getting over excited. Now back in the cold light of the office I need to think through what is possible and what innovative ideas can we use to get people not to just use and abuse the environment, quad bikes would soon deliver that, but to use, appreciate, support and understand it. So if a Green Olympics meant identifying the most types of trees, maybe they don’t have to be able to name them just demonstrate they are different, or find and photograph the most fungi and this gets people to suddenly notice how bio-diverse the environment is, that can only be a good thing. And if youngsters walk and observe what is there because they hope to eat it again, as long as it is backed up with the sustainability message, it has to be a way to bring in a different audience and to move away from always trying to sell ideas to ‘people like us,’ although I am as partial to a nice field mushroom as the next forager.

And so then to the nearby property of Erddig. I have done a lot of work with Erddig over the past 9 years and Sue’s innovative community engagement, originally funded by EW, is renowned throughout the NT. Again there were two projects to talk about. The first one was around making more of  Erddig Youth Clubs environmental volunteering. The youth club has had a volunteering aspect on the estate almost since its inception. This has been an important part of engaging young people with the estate, the National Trust and the impact of vandalism on the estate. This work has almost eliminated vandalism which was a big problem before it started. Now Sue feels that she would like to establish a route for young people to volunteer on the estate, and maybe off of it too, without having to be part of the youth club. She wants to move away from ‘you come to the youth club so therefore you volunteer’ to getting them to volunteer because they want to and because they appreciate the positive impact their contribution has on the environment. I was very interested in this as, as part of my internal role, I had been thinking about a young volunteering offer within Wales and with Sue’s experience and training this is the perfect test bed to develop something that could be used as a template for other NT properties and other organisations to follow.

The other potential project was very dear to my own heart as it starts with hive bees and goes on to encompass pollinators, insects in general, hedgehogs and the whole wonderful web of life which we have unfortunately become rather disengaged from and are absentmindedly destroying despite being totally dependent upon it. Hopefully that one should come for registration later this month.

While I was there Sue took me to see the new natural play area currently being developed and due to be opened in late March. I have read up a bit about these areas so thought I knew what I was going to see but, as usual for Erddig, I was totally unprepared for the magnificence of what they were doing. No two logs in a neglected corner this but 2 or 3 acres of wooded space with all sorts of opportunities for creative play being developed.

There are picnic benches and brash and poles for den building at one end then at the other a range of logs, tunnels, walkways and other exciting wooden structures to stimulate active innovative play and suitable for a wide range of ages, even 56 year old DOs could not resist one of the walkways although jumping down was a bit of an ordeal.

 

If my grandchildren had something like this near them they would be there all the time, rain or shine.

I found its juxtaposition through a gate from a very formal garden really interesting too, nature tamed and then into a secret Wild Child experience. Also all the work has been done by staff and volunteers and all the materials so far have come off of the estate.

Swimming the final challenge

The new year has inspired us to get on with our 4 seasons challenge.  We’ve had a quiet few months with the build up to Christmas and now it’s time to get back on it.

Our last challenge was the Half Marathon, unfortunately some of us had to drop out with health problems.  It was a shame as a lot of training and hard work had gone into this section of the challenge but I guess running isn’t for everyone.  Luckily Alison Colebrook and Sara Wynne-Parri did us proud in the  Cardiff Half Marathon and flew the Environment Wales flag high.  The other team members are in training to replace this with an alternative race or challenge.

As you may recall, our fourth challenge is a swim.  I have just registered with Swimathon to do a 5km swim in April.  Training has started but there’s a big leap from 30 minutes to the 2 hours plus I expect it will take.

We are less than 50% way to our DoNation target so please help us to improve it.  It’s easy, you just chose an activity (e.g. turning the lights off, composting food waste) and it will calculate your carbon reduction.  Our aim is to save 10,000 kg CO2. http://www.thedonation.org.uk/doers/team-environment-wales/4-seasons-challenge

If you want more information on this years Swimathon, visit http://www.swimathon.org/

Julie, TCV DO

Using Twitter to Promote Your Group?

Like most people when Twitter first became newsworthy I could not see the attraction, what could its 140 symbols possibly offer to the thinking person in the street, it was so obviously a silly idea. I tried Facebook on the urging of my brother and hated it because I genuinely am a practicing curmudgeon, I did not care that my nieces were going shopping (again) or that the cat had been sick. I am not outgoing and would happily settle to a life on a dessert island provided I had my beloved as company, a way to keep bees, could regularly check everyone else was okay AND still had TV. So that is me, genuinely interested in other people but not one to make lots of deep social bonds. This Twitter thing still came and went in the news and people who I admired seemed to find it interesting so I was a tiny bit curious and knew, with some exclusions, you should not condemn until you have tried. Then in a quiet period at work our media guy showed me how to tweet for work purposes and both my own and my other halves addictions began. So what can Twitter and other social media do for you, other than becoming an obsession? Well number one is it does not have to be a two way relationship, you do not have to tweet at all but by following others in the fields which you are interested in you can broaden your horizons and keep up to date with the current trends. Andy Middleton, who has fingers in so many pies I don’t know when he sleeps, told me he thinks it is the best way of keeping abreast of things he has found. It can be more focused than searching on the internet, or if you choose, more diffuse. You chose who you want to follow, journalists, politicians (they are mostly really boring) activists. Or just people who are doing similar things to you elsewhere. They will tweet links to articles about subjects that may interest you and you will see things from all around the world. If they get too heavy, persistent or sometimes just plain weird you can just unfollow, you are totally in control. So method one is; To use twitter to watch what others are doing and to lead you to interesting articles on subjects you are engaged in or which you need to keep abreast of in order to maximise your work. Some people like to get followed by celebrities, to do this they fawn at them patting their already bloated egos. Others of us may want to promote our projects. There is no doubt a celebrity can get your project to millions, yes millions, of people with just one tweet or retweet. However Beyoncé’s followers may not be the people you need to reach. By developing a cohort of twitter friends they will retweet your tweets and spread the word about your projects. Tweets can reach 1000s of people very quickly although obviously, just with a newspaper advert, only a small proportion of people will really engage with it. To do this you have to tweet regularly, sensibly and interestingly and, more important, retweet other peoples tweets not steal them and tweet them as your own – which is very bad twitter etiquette. If you retweet other people then reciprocate by retweeting you and so your message can be spread. To maximise this you put in key words and use hash tags # to help people searching for those key words. So if something is happening in Pembrokeshire and you put #Pembs in your tweet there is a ‘Pembsbot’ which automatically picks your tweet theme up and retweets it to 851 people who are interested in Pembrokeshire. Of course they may all live in Nantucket but you get the idea. You’ll soon realise how efficient these search engines are if you even joke about your weight as you will then be spammed instantly by endless weight loss ‘gurus’. Method 2 is; Tweet your self to cultivate a group of followers who will retweet your tweets about your project and develop support which may be physical, emotional or even hard cash. An example of this in action has just happened. Jemima’s Place, an animal rescue centre in Cardiff, had an active support network already on Twitter which included Dr ‘Rhys to the Rescue’ Jones, 914 followers. Just before the New Year they announced they would have to close as the money was drying up but not the endless stream of things to rescue. Dr Rhys tweeted why not buy them a drink for New year by donating. Then he said lets all tweet after 6pm on Saturday about the place to try and get #@Jemimasplace trending. This worked and got this tiny refuge in Cardiff as the 6th most popular #tweet in the world that day and encouraged Jonathan Ross, (@wossy 2,804,078 followers), to make a small donation and retweet. Not sure where this will go but currently they have about £5k and more will come in. I’m not suggesting this is the way to get funding mind you, just that this is the way to raise profile if that is what you want and need. @Jemimasplace now have 4700 followers. So the other reason to tweet, and the one I kid my self I am doing with my personal tweets on my home twitter account, is to campaign about something you care about. I tweet because I care about our natural environment and the plants and animals dependant on it. So in my very, very small way I am trying to get the few followers I have to be more thoughtful in their lives about how everyday actions impact on our natural environment. I also do this on my work Twitter account, as this is also something the NT supports, but I can be a little less restrained and more political in my own name. (I find however I am a woolly liberal wherever I tweet and no where near as controversial as I’d like to be) They say there is a rule of threes in tweeting, a third should be fairly personal and chatty, a third about your work and what you are doing and a third getting your message across. I try to stick to this but its hard for me because I have become a twitteraholic and end up tweeting all sorts of drivel, this is not good! So method three; Develop an online persona that engages with others and makes you the sort of person whose opinions matter to them so that they will at least think about the serious things you tweet. The downside to this is, if you don’t want to be preaching to the converted, you have to engage with people you may not really want to engage with, whose behaviour’s are not what you feel they should be. Ideally I should be engaging with off-roaders and making them consider their impacts but so far I have picked easier targets, people who, in the face of a 140 symbol relationship, do not offend me. So the first use of expletives and away they go, no questions asked. What has surprised me most is how well you feel you get to know the other twitteraholics on your twitter stream. They feel awfully like friends, I know an awful lot about them, I would dash off to help them if asked. Many are fellow beekeepers, lots are gardeners, a surprising number are bird watchers. Surprising because I did not fully appreciate how interested in birds I actually am until the chance to find out what is happening in Wales and around the world came my way through Twitter, the same goes for insects really. I probably spend at least 4 hours a day on Twitter, this is excessive you say, but you would not if I said I read all evening which is actually what I mostly am doing. TV has become a mild distraction, whole darts matches are passing me by currently as I sit with my tablet of an evening. And if you think you are not technologically savvy enough to do this think again because my partner, who, despite a course and several attempts by me, persists in being totally phobic of computers and is just as obsessed as me. He has his people he follows and I have mine, they overlap on beekeeping and diverge on other interests. We sit side by side exchanging snippets, looking at photos discussing @Sheffieldhoney’s views on open mesh beehive floors etc. Both happily engrossed but together in our obsession and with the world at our finger tips in a way that we could never have believed possible when we were young. Another plus is that getting your message clearly across in 140 symbols using plain speech not text code should make you more concise in your bid writing so you get more successful bids! It would have taken me 60 tweets to say this, and multiple tweets to make up one message is also not good twitter etiquette, so that is why I have also embraced the Blog!

RAY Ceredigion, letting children play

When Gill from RAY Ceredigion contacted me I was not overly hopeful that EW could help them, play is not our field. However it can be hard to judge over the phone if a group is right for EW so I agreed to meet up to discuss the two projects she hoped we could feed into.

Project one is to develop innovative outdoor play areas around Ceredigion using landscaping of natural features and natural play items such as fallen trees. Gill has done so much research into this project, which has been funded by the Lottery and RDP, that she is now obviously quite an expert on all aspects of innovative play spaces. Her research included visits to Sterling and Plymouth to see the excellent projects that have taken place there. As she explained their work to me it became clear how well this work, even when in urban environments, fitted with what the National Trust is trying to do to promote the need for children to have contact with nature. In this case nature may well be a fallen tree that has been adapted, logs, large boulders, a grassy slope or even more manufactured items such wooden blocks and climbing frames. In addition she talked to me about hedges and dens, rough grassy areas and even trees to climb. I learnt how in Europe play is not limited to specific areas but forms part of the design of estates with play opportunities along the way. She told me of their work with Cantref Housing Association at their eco estate to design play areas that complement the natural spaces. By the time she had finished I felt I must find ways to help with this project. Getting our children outside is the first step in getting them to love and appreciate the natural environment and getting them to use natural materials as their chosen play medium must also help. I was so impressed at how they were consulting communities and ensuring that the work they will be undertaking in 18 villages in Ceredigion would be sustainable in the long term through their application process. I really felt this is an organisation that makes thorough and extensive plans to ensure success. In the end it seemed that most likely we could help some of the groups they are supporting with some added value to their projects around planting for wildlife, fruit trees etc so I look forward to hearing directly from those groups in the near future.

 With project two it was easier to see how we could work directly with RAY as they are developing a scrap store which will be using volunteers to design and produce packs that allow others to make art items from scraps. They had a tray of what looked like lavender bags but were actually little kits that had everything you needed to make a Christmas tree angel. By designing and marketing kits they are adding value to the end product ensuring it will be a cherished item and not consigned to landfill a fortnight later. EW has supported scrap stores in the past so I could be fairly certain there would be some aspects of what seemed to me a very innovative project that we will be able to help them with so we are going to work on the project registration very soon.