Rewilding Lockleaze with flowers and trees
Lockleaze Neighbourhood Trust are developing a rewilding project for their three-year National Lottery funded community climate action demonstrator project. Learn more from their Chief Executive Suzanne Wilson.
Really Wild Lockleaze is the Lockleaze Community Climate project that successfully got funding after we published our community climate action plan earlier this year. This project is part of the wider Community Climate Action Project across Bristol, led by Bristol Green Capital Partnership. It focuses on how we can create space for nature to support pollinators essential for life.
Managing green space for nature
We all know that we are in an ecological and climate crisis. A United Nations (UN) report has said that up to one million species are at risk of extinction. In the UK alone, 41% of species are declining and 1 in 10 is threatened with extinction.
Rewilding is supporting restoration of ecosystems, taking inspiration from past habitats, restoring and supporting the resilience of nature, and engaging people in rewilding to support connection to nature, wellbeing and climate and ecological positive action. Our project will support managing 30% of our public green space for nature, helping individuals to take action at home, and in their communities.
Creating community connection
We’ve had an exciting start to our Really Wild Lockleaze project with over 180 residents attending the Lockleaze community feast! We raised awareness of the project and learnt together about practical ways to take action against food waste, whilst having a lot of fun-creating community connection through play and social interaction.
We’ve also delivered a series of practical sessions, the first of which was planting native bulbs and learning together about shade or sun loving plants. We were joined by Green Gym and met up with the Stoke Park ranger and volunteers carrying out woodland management.
During the second session we learnt about tree identification and stratification and gathered tree seeds so we can begin to grow our own trees from seed.
We had a lot of fun and enjoyed getting to know each other, sharing and more about the Really Wild Lockleaze project and discovering just how hard it can be to locate one particular tree amongst hundreds. For our next session we will be completing our winter seed storage and creating a bug hotel and hedgehog hideaway.
Feedback has been 100% positive from attendees with everyone feeling welcomed and more connected to the community and nature.
We schedule activities in school holidays and weekends to ensure everyone has an opportunity to join us.
If you would like to know more or get involved please get in touch. Together we can make a difference and make the most of our neighbourhood.
Watch this short video to hear why Suzanne and her colleague Maria Perrett think community-led climate action is important, and what they are most excited about phase 2 of the Community Climate Action Project.
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