Community reflections

Laura shares some highlights from the community elements of the project...

When Worcestershire Wildlife Trust embarked on this project, people and communities were integral to the long-term vision for the site. We wanted to encourage a variety of people to use and engage with wildlife so we invited community members to take part in opportunities at both Monkwood and Green Farm as well as encouraging people to take action in their local greenspaces. We’ve reached schools, parish councils, churchyards and scout groups in surrounding villages (and beyond). All this has allowed the impact of the project to radiate far beyond just the nature reserve itself.

So, with the project drawing to a close I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some of my favourite community engagement moments from the project:

A group of people looking at egg cartons that have moths hiding inside, they're in a woodland and it's a sunny day

Discover Monkwood bioblitz

In May 2024 Julie and Dom organised and ran a Discover Monkwood bioblitz event. This ran from early morning to late evening and covered things such as moth and butterfly identifying in the morning to bat walks in the evening. Over 70 people attended and it was a great opportunity for the local community to explore the wildlife that lives at Monkwood under the guidance of experts from the Worcestershire Recorders.

WildGoose Rural Training

Okay so I’m cheating slightly and bundling a few activities into one highlight! Throughout the project both Julie, Yasmina and I have supported Wildgoose Rural Training (a care farm for adults and young people) to undertake orchard planting, coppicing, dormouse footprint surveys, hurdle making and dead hedging. These activities have taken place across Monkwood, Green Farm and on Wildgoose’s own reserve too. We’ve loved getting to know the groups and supporting them in building their woodland skills. The sessions have been well received by participants with one of them sharing “I have really enjoyed today…the digging was hard work…but I felt really good when the tree was planted”.

Three children planting a tree in a field

Community tree planting

An outstanding 5721 trees have been planted at Green Farm over the course of the project and the local community played a huge part in achieving this. Our four partner primary schools (Hallow, Martley, Lower Broadheath and Grimley and Holt) helped us plant hedgerow and woodland trees. Hallow Scouts also came out to help tree plant (and got very muddy!). Oh, there were lots of trees planted by our volunteer groups too. It’s been a real team effort, and we can’t wait to watch the site turn into a wildlife-rich woodland habitat.

Two children with one putting a bug pot on the others head. Both are smiling at the camera.

Community bug hunts

Both Yasmina and I supported bug hunts across the community, giving people the opportunity to identify which critters are inhabiting their green spaces. Yasmina visited Lower Broadheath churchyard to run a family bug hunt day with the aim of establishing a baseline record of invertebrates that the churchyard could continue to build on in following years.

I recently supported Hallow Parish Council to run a bug hunt in which children from Hallow CE Primary School visited the old churchyard where they were met by community volunteers who helped pupils to identify minibeasts. Prior to the event we'd helped children at the primary school to build insect homes to put up around the churchyard; so the bug hunt was a brilliant opportunity for the pupils to see these being inhabited!

Wild spaces workshop

Yasmina’s community wild spaces workshop saw 19 attendees from local villages gather to learn about habitat creation and management. The workshop focussed on grasslands, woodlands, wetlands and orchards and gave attendees the knowledge and skills to implement wildlife friendly management into their local greenspaces and gardens.