CASE STUDIES
Teen rangers
Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust
Award: £20,700

A frequent comment Tracy Hayes, Wildlife Watch and Youth Officer at the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, was faced with in her work was that there were no opportunities for older children and youths in the two counties to get involved in natural heritage projects. Children, youths, parents, teachers and environmental educators were consulted about the best way to tackle this void. The result is ‘Teen Rangers’ – a project designed to show 13-19-year-olds what it takes to be a countryside ranger and help them to develop conservation and other skills.

Thirty young people have taken charge of project activities and are investigating two conserved-nature areas – Shenton Railway cuttings, a former railway siding, and Watermead County Park. They are finding out how wildlife habitats can be protected and trying their hand at practical nature conservation, from repairing fences and improving ponds to willow weaving. The young participants are also learning how to interpret natural heritage, survey, investigate and record it and how to guide people around the two sites.

Nature is benefiting from this project too as the conservation work carried out by the project participants will have long-term positive effects. It is also hoped that the young people will be inspired to volunteer in other conservation and natural heritage projects in the future.

But it isn’t just heritage-related skills the teenage rangers are developing. They are getting an insight into marketing work, developing technical and interpersonal skills, and they are also set to receive certificates in first aid, risk assessment and media training at the end of the project.

Grasping the nettle
Plantlife
Award: £308,000

Climate change is happening, and the first species to register the changes are often plants. In parts of the UK, once-common species are in steep decline and distribution patterns are shifting. To help understand the situation more clearly, we funded the biggest ever survey of the UK’s plant life.

Most of the work was done by volunteers, who were given training in a range of recording techniques. More than 5,500 people searched for crane’s-bills, poppies, harebells and common plants over the course of the six-year ‘Making It Count for People and Plants’ project. The approach was to select a single square kilometre at random, then look through a checklist of 65 plant species. The survey revealed that stinging nettle populations are on the increase, while the poppy is using roadsides and other unusual habitats to survive and Spanish bluebells are threatening the native species with hybridisation.

Research commissioned by Plantlife suggests that we are losing one species of native wildflower from every county, every year. The results of the survey will help us understand better what is happening to plant populations and encourage wildlife conservation.

http://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk/plantlife-get-involved-plants-survey.html

Top of the class
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Award: £402,000

The Dearne Valley wetlands near Barnsley are teeming with wildlife. Following our grant of £1 million for conservation work and a new visitor centre at Old Moor reserve, we are helping the RSPB to turn the whole valley into a ‘living classroom’. Led by trained ‘field teachers’, school groups are exploring the valley’s different habitats – including open water and floodplain grasslands, UK BAP priority habitats. Teachers find the carefully tailored links to the National Curriculum ‘really valuable’, says RSPB education officer Kevin Moore. ‘We’ve had a great take-up. Our first-year target was 1,500 kids, but we soon doubled that.’

As part of the project, local people are also being encouraged to find out more about their natural heritage and develop the skills and confidence to take part in managing it. It is hoped that this will help to secure the future of the valley’s threatened habitats and declining species such as lapwing, snipe and redshank.