A Capital Success
. . . that’s the only way to describe the Capital Woodlands Project when you look at the facts and figures.
Working with Trees for Cities and the Heritage Lottery Fund, BTCV embarked on a three-year programme to promote London’s woodlands - helping people understand their history, importance and how to manage them, and highlighting them as places for recreation as well as wildlife!
And the results?
During the span of practical events (June 2006 to December 2008) we recorded:
- 512 woodland volunteer sessions (one every other day!)
- With 1,576 volunteers completing
- 5,698 volunteer workdays
- At 110 different woodland sites in London
In addition BTCV delivered 56 training events with a total of 366 volunteer learning days. Among the courses offered were: Leading guided walks, tree ID (for all seasons), coppicing, tool safety and maintenance, introduction to woodland management, hedge laying, foot path construction and woodland marsh management.
There have also been guided walks, sessions to learn about traditional crafts and skills such as charcoal burning, opportunities to get involved in nature based art-projects and even straight forward woodland-based fun and games events.
Protecting nature from nature
Volunteers turned to defensive hedgelaying at a historical woodland site as a means of keeping local residents out!
Horses, grazed on grassland at the Selbourne Society's Perivale Wood site are not so welcome in the bluebell-carpeted woodlands, so BTCV were called in to create a living hawthorn barrier to replace the gradually deteriorating existing fence.
Path to success
TV presenter Ellie Harrison stepped up to the BTCV challenge literally – helping volunteers improve access to the wildlife area at Alexandra Palace.
The BBC One Show wildlife and ecology commentator joined The Biodiversity Action Team step-building and installing post and rail fencing.
The team regularly visit the 196-acre park and in the longer term it is hoped some of the local residents, who usually comprise over half the volunteer task team on work days here, will form a self-sustaining group to arrange regular care of the site with support from the BTCV as required.
Park Manager Mark Evison explained the Alexandra Park and Palace Charitable Trust had been able to rejuvenate the site with the help of a £3.6m Heritage Lottery grant. “Working with BTCV is important as it provides a way for people to help maintain habitats and feel part of the management and ecology of this important site” he concluded.
Hanover Makeover
spring 2008
London volunteers went back to school in Islington, in a bid to increase diversity in the playground - but the new intake they are hoping to encourage are of the four to eight-legged variety.
The Biodiversity Action Team (north) swapped satchels for spades and pens for pond materials ready to transform a disused ‘flower’ bed into a fun-packed wildlife garden – with a winding log path, decking and wooden benches, a raised pond and appropriate plants.
