Selling the story of a Living Landscape

The Cotswold Water Park is a constructed landscape created from the gravel digging that has steadily gathered economic importance since World War 2. The result is the largest aggregation of gravel pits in England; a significantly larger body of water than the nationally famous Norfolk Broads.

However, like the Broads, these manmade wetlands have become so important for wildlife that there are now of international Interest.The water park is economically vibrant and is in essence, an example of the Living Landscape vision that the wildlife trusts are promoting; a holistic ecosystem approach that melds environment, economy and peoiple.

The choice of the Four Pillars Hotel, located at the centre of the park, was a very appropriate location for The Wildlife Trusts national Marketing conference. Staff and volunteers, including the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust’s chair Hugh Tollemache, spent two very busy days working together on the important communication challenge of selling Living Landscapes in a clear and understandable way.

The 47 Wildlife Trusts achieve a tremendous amount. No other wildlife conservation charities achieve more at a local level. Our national work is equally impressive. The recent Marine and Coastal Access Act resulted from the well informed and well supported campaigns the trusts ran. It is just that our combined strength of almost 800,000 members and UK level work is not well enough known.

Effective marketing and clear communications are critical to the future success of the trusts. Gloucestershire is very fortunate in having a Wildlife Trust with a very effective marketing team. The conference benefited from their expertise too.

Cotswold Water Park Key Wildlife Statistics

• Aquatic macrophytes: European importance
• Wintering waterbirds: National & internation importance
• Breeding waterbirds: National importance
• 10 SSSI lakes & 6 SSSI Grasslands (including 2 SACs/1NNR)

Signs of Spring

Spring has many messengers, but for me the chiffchaff is the most powerful both aurally and symbolically. This small LBJ (little brown job to quote birder jargon) makes a huge journey for such a tiny creature. Chiffchaffs winter in southern and western Europe and North Africa. In common with other spring migrants, their arrival is timed to coincide with the rapid increase in their insect food that occurs as temperatures rise and days lengthen.

My chiffchaff gave only a few experimental calls this morning and was definitely out of practice when compared to the robins, wrens and dunnock that were in full song. But perhaps I might be a bit off key if I had just made the same journey using just my own energy and determination. Wikipedia provides a good explanation of the ways of this little warbler.

However, no matter how much I might be thrilled by my chiffchaff, it falls into second place as an unusual experience compared to that relayed to me by my wife last week. Sitting behind my desk, churning through emails and papers, I was amazed to hear from Margaret that she had seen a water rail foraging on the ground under our bird feeders!

From Encyclopedia Britannica:

The water rail (Rallus aquaticus) is a slender marsh bird of the family Rallidae (order Gruiformes), native to most of Europe and Asia. Its length is about 28 cm (11 inches), and it has a moderately long beak. The sides of the bird have black and white bands. The name water rail also is used as a general term for the larger group, or tribe, to which R. aquaticus belongs. Rallus aquaticus can be distinguished from the tribe Rallini by its relatively long beak.

Working for a Wildlife Trust, the proud manager of four fantastic square miles of Gloucestershire, does not mean that I either have the time to visit these 60 nature reserves or be successful in spotting the shy or rare residents. My local patch is where I get the most pleasure from wildlife sightings. Margaret’s water rail was only 100 meters from my chiffchaff. The area is an overgrown field with brambles, hedgerow trees, two fantatstic oaks and the clean and sparkling River Cam. This emphasises the real value of green sites in towns and villages. Nature reserves are important but they are part of the rich mosaic of sites that are critical if wildlife is to survive and people are to benefit spiritually from experiencing it.

Oh and I am still envious of Margaret’s bird – I have never seen one!

Women in Work - Lantra Learner of the Year

Baroness Prosser, vice chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission, spoke passionately as keynote speaker at the celebratory dinner held by Lantra to mark the third year of its Women in Work programme. She stressed the historic inequalities that still persist within our society that make career fulfilment more difficult for women employees than men.

It is ironic that women still do not fit well with conventional employment patterns when they have such potential to improve the UK’s performance as a mature economy. My experience as the Chief Executive with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust is that women are excellent team workers and communicate well in busy work places. Our workforce of 40, full and part time, is predominately female, talented, energetic and committed. Employers miss out on huge potential by not modifying work roles to make them women friendly where this is possible.

The Government funded Women in Work sector pathway has enabled Lantra to support over 880 women to access training and mentoring is support of their jobs. Two of my team in Gloucestershire benefited from the support and were very grateful for the support that they received.

The overall winner of Lantra’s Women In Work award was Tracy Guiller who found that training as a forester lifted her depression and resulted in her finding a new job. Tracey’s experience is a great reminder of the importance of mentoring and the value that can accrue when opportunity is fully supported.

"Learning how to fell these massive trees really did something to me. It was as if my depression was felled too. I think the hard physical work in a peaceful woodland and the achievement of passing a difficult course lifted me mentally, emotionally and spiritually."

Tracey Guiller

Too Great a Price?

The River Room of the House of Lords is an extremely pleasant venue and an excellent location for the launch of The Wildlife Trusts report Energy at Any Price. The event had been organised to coincide with a very high tidal bore - a likely casualty of a full barrage across the river Severn. The event was hosted by Baroness Young of Old Scone, and Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer.

I was most struck when Stephanie Hilborne, CEO of the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, mentioned in her speech that half her lifetime ago the subject of the barrage had been discussed in detail by staff at the University of Bristol where she was then an undergraduate. It struck me forcibly because 21 years ago I was one of the audience at Bristol University listening to Sir Hermann Bondi reporting on issues relating to a proposed barrage. Bondi had been asked by the then government to investigate the implication of building and running a structure designed to extract tidal energy from the Severn, the river with the world’s second highest tidal range.

The essence of the Bondi Report, and the issues that still remain unresolved 21 years later are simple. A huge concrete structure with electricity generating tidal turbines is old technology and not necessarily the most appropriate for the job, and the impact of such a gigantic structure on an estuary that is of local, national, European and Global environmental importance is simply not understood.

The Wildlife Trusts report argues very persuasively that if the UK is to spend 10s of billions of pounds, irreversibly changing one of its greatest environmental assets irreversibly, it must do so wisely and on the basis of accurate scientific data. We are all aware that climate change is forcing us to move to energy production that does not involve burning fossilised sunlight (coal, gas, tar sands or oil). However, this change must not be at any price and tidal power generation from the Severn must make the best use of a precious environmental asset. The Severn Estuary deserves our full respect, much more research is needed before an over hasty decision is made on political grounds,

Energy at Any Price can be downloaded by clicking here.

Too Tweet?

Garden birds are a great source of joy to most people. For a modest sum, it is possible to increase the frequency of visits and the range of avian visitors by providing quality food in bird feeders. In terms of value for money, there are few better shows than finches, tits, thrushes and dunnock.

Wild bird food is available widely from garden centres, pet shops and even supermarkets. But the best value is to be found from the specialist suppliers who retail via their catalogues and online sites. Vine House Farm has gone one further than most companies by supporting The Wildlife Trusts with 5% of sales.

I purchased my Mother's Day gift - 56kg of premium finch mix and 'Ultimate Energy' for ground feeders - from them. I was very impressed with the speed of delivery and the pleasant telephone manner of the patient approach of their sales staff (you have to be when I am a customer). Free delivery of the three bags of food that I ordered occurred two days later. I am hoping the birds are as impressed as I was.

Vine House farm may be contacted on 01775 630208 or online at:

www.vinehousefarm.co.uk

Pictured here with my Mother's Day gift!

Fired with Enthusiasm

Wildlife Trusts have two great assets: their nature reserves and their people. Our recent staff day out at Greystones Farm Nature Reserve combined these impressively.

If I had written a list of objectives for the day, I doubt that I would have aimed as high as what actually happened. Not least because the weather on the high Cotswolds can be unpredictable. How lucky we were!

The task that 30 staff attended to was to help with clearing the huge piles of hedgerow thinnings that have been built by visiting volunteer groups. Because the site is a nationally important Site of Special Scientific Interest, we had to work carefully in line with our English Nature licence. This meant that our bonfires had to be contained within limited areas and built onto protective galvanised sheeting.

Despite the enthusiastic work put in by the staff, half of whom are primarily office based, we still left much work for Reserve Manager, Amy and her volunteers to finish by the end of March. What we did achieve however, was:

• Great team work
• Activity and exercise
• Increased understanding of nature reserve management
• Fun
• Enthusiasm for our sandwich lunch

I had a great time, and it reinforced to me why I still love working in Gloucestershire and why The Wildlife Trusts are so good at involving people with wildlife.

The Environment Cannot be Taken for Granted

I have been a lapsed blogger for too many months. The downside of being busy and doing lots of interesting things is not finding the time to share the experiences and (occasional) thoughts.

To get things going again, here is a piece that is featured in the current Lantra Connect magazine, available here.

The environment can not be taken for granted

warns Dr Gordon McGlone OBE, Chairman of Lantra

Having worked as an ecologist/conservationist for over 30 years, I sometimes feel as if I am part of the PR team for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Messages describing the increasing pressures and strains placed on our environment are not welcome, especially when there might be a perception that farming is part of the problem. But it underlines why this is such a priority sector for us all.

Today, the dark riders of population growth, urbanisation, increasing energy demand and climate change are reflected in daily media stories and represent a huge challenge to the health and well-being of our society and environment. This means there is a much greater awareness that the environment is not to be taken for granted.

In all good tales, there is always a talisman of hope and here the good news is skills. Lantra, as one of the most effective of the Sector Skills Councils, is working increasingly closely with the UK’s environmental and land-based industries to support the development of skills and business practice that will be essential for them to adapt to and benefit from future change.

Global population has now reached seven billion, an increase of three billion in the last 50 years and by 2050 there will be another three billion consumers. Most of us now live in towns and cities, and urban consumers expect a more protein-rich diet than subsistence rural communities. The result is an increasing demand for crop production that is growing even faster than the number of people.

The UK’s farmers are being asked to contribute to the nation’s food and fuel security by aiming to double their productivity in future – a difficult task requiring great skill to boost production without increasing pressure on fragile and fragmented land, freshwater and marine wildlife communities. Lantra is uniquely placed to maintain a UK overview of the many integrated industries that are responsible for managing our crops, biofuels, forestry, game and biodiversity.

Potentially the darkest of today’s horsemen is climate change. Despite our recent winter weather the underlying global climate continues to warm inexorably. Worryingly, the lack of progress at the Copenhagen summit means that the UK may have a temperature rise of 3ºc by 2050. This is perilously close to the point at which Southern Europe begins to see its agriculture and horticulture decline significantly, making food security an even greater need.

These four negative forces mean that Lantra has a critically important role in this changing nation. We must all learn to develop and deploy new skills to enable our environment and land-based industries to adapt, and Lantra is uniquely placed to ensure that the right skills are developed in the right way. The prize for future investment in skills and business practice is to maintain our fertile islands and their inshore marine ecosystems as the world class assets we sometimes take for granted.