Introduction – it’s good to talk and then even better to take action. So, with that in mind, my colleague, Adrian Southern, helped to develop a Change Conversations workshop with our friends and partners Shlomo, Lorraine and Josh Dowen and Andy Hollis. A 'change conversation' is a conversation with stakeholders framed around changes that are occurring. The Change Conversation brought together people living in the area and people working on different initiatives, e.g. heritage, nature conservation, campaigning and business, in the wider Clipstone Park landscape (part of Sherwood Forest wider landscape).
I was delighted to be invited to the Sherwood Change conversation, not least because I was asked to facilitate one of the morning workshops. The concept of a change conversation is relatively new, to me anyway, and it felt that this was a real cutting edge approach to identifying, discussing and resolving some of the changes that are currently happening within the Sherwood area. The first thing that sprang to my mind was the fact that I realised how unsure I was of the changes taking place. If I needed to find out, where would I go? Who would I contact? Is the information easily accessible? Is there a central, co-ordinated information point, where all impacts on the habitats and communities of Sherwood are identified and the information is available to members of the communities within Sherwood? This was my initial thought before the morning session.
Before the morning session started I was aware that people may have had burning issues with the changes taking place and wanted to ensure that we met the outcomes of the session, namely that we would document the changes taking place and identify whether these where deemed as positive, negative or indifferent. This would then enable us to develop actions to deal with the changes if necessary. The session, I thought, flowed quite well, even though at times it felt that people were just getting issues off their chests. I reflected upon my earlier uncertainty about the changes taking place and realised that the issues raised were probably issues facing all communities across the country, i.e. the destruction of green space, uncertainty over the reporting of wildlife crime and a lack of resources to deal with any issues, bad planning and a system that supports development irrespective of what it destroys, lack of support and resources from Local authorities, litter, apathy and a lack of education and understanding. No mean feat to tackle all of these issues, but we have to start somewhere.
For the afternoon session, using Ecosystems Services as a landscape tool to identify positive, negative or neutral activities, I felt a little out of my depth. At first that is. After discussing my project proposal with Adrian and then working with Lorraine, I felt confident that I was able to identify a range of positives for my idea. This I felt was an excellent way of promoting the good that a project can achieve and demonstrating this to others i.e. funders, decision makers.
After what felt like a long day, I am not used to working indoors for that long, I was confident that I had grasped the fundamentals of what the day was about and felt a genuine desire to continue with this approach. However, I was aware that this was just a beginning. In order to help create a positive environment within Sherwood and indeed throughout the rest of the country many more discussions need to take place. After the discussions, action plans need to be made and implemented. If we want to stop the negative impacts that we are having on the surrounding countryside we need to create the mechanisms that enable us to work together, but first we must have the desire to want to work together. We need to take responsibility for our own actions and make the necessary changes to our lifestyles and we need to have a clear, cohesive voice and an army of support, in order that we may lobby those who have the influence to make changes at the appropriate level.
Electronic copies of the Report of that day are available from shlomo.dowen@gmail.com
The change workshop was funded by EU Life + Communications programme and the RSPB working with Sherwood partners.