Abundant Life
Pollinators and healthy soil, critical to all life are in decline because of human activity. Reaching into and combining communities; people on a low income, farmers (conventional and organic) and urban dwellers, including refugees and asylum seekers we are helping people learn to love nature in all its glory year round and together.
We develop ideas in collaboration with our Advisory Panel made up of Nature Friendly Farming Network and Devon Wildlife Trust, a representative local farmer and citizen scientist from a low income background.
EVALUATION NOW AVAILABLE PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR THE SUMMARY
Using methods routed in asset based community development activities include:
Citizen science via ecosurveys and soil microscopy as baselines (with expert help courtesy of Sustainable South Brent). People from different backgrounds will come together in green spaces local to them and on the edges of farmers fields and learn to love nature through simple nature based ecological activities; wild flower seed planting and farm walks. Also hedgerow, insect, soil, fungi, butterfly, bat and bird surveys, using recording apps. Plus good food at each event.
Human changes We measure:
- Nature Relatedness Scale: robust, well recognized and standardized
- Warwick and Edinburgh Wellbeing Scale: robust, well recognized and standardized
Qualitative data from transcripts of interviews with people. Char is from Zimbabwe and witnessed the horrors of civil war, droughts in her home country and suffered domestic abuse in UK. Char has a deep appreciation for outdoors which is why she wanted to become a Citizen Scientist and has created a wildlife nature retreat. Char has been to most of our events emphasising the importance of this for her mental well being and has also started going to the local botany group which meets monthly.
Char sharing her thoughts on how we need to change:
I think it's good that people should spend time with nature. Everything is about work. Pressurized, but there's no time. And it's amazing, even if you have to spend half an hour to an hour, what it does for you mentally.
People need to appreciate nature and invite it more and bring their children, let them grow up in their nature. It's very important for us, ecosystems and everything else.
When we spoke again after a year of the project Char reported ‘120%’ improvement in her appreciation of the natural world and told us she had started to talk more with her neighbours and passersby who appreciate her garden and feels more strongly than ever that we should be promoting more respect for nature to children and the broader community.
Land and nature impacts
- hectares of land transitioned to pollinator friendly practise
- Increases in biodiversity over time
A farmer told us:
Well, I just think it's really important for children to understand more about their environment. And, you know, I think a lot of children don't have a connection to nature anymore. They don't know where their food comes from. So to get down on their hands and knees and be rummaging around in the soil and worms and all that sort of thing is always good. Yeah. And being outside is good for them.
You can hear our Podcast of farmers and citizen scientists stories here
Use this link to connect to our projects on iNaturalist
Please use this link for our easy to use Mental Wellbeing guide for farmers and landworkers
For more information please contact Jane Acton on mail@commonflora.co.uk or 07716588749
