In honour of the Olympics, I have invited our London team to provide an insight into the wildlife and our work in our capital city. So, if you need a break from watching rowing, running or rhythmic gymnastics, here's a glimpse of what will still be there long after the Games moves on to Rio...
East London, the focus of global sporting coverage right now, includes some of the UK’s most deprived boroughs. Hackney, Newham and Tower Hamlets are ranked as the poorest in the south of England.
All too often, this goes hand-in-hand with poor environmental standards, but the legacy of the 2012 games should change that once and for all. The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, as the site will be called after the games caravan has rocked on, will form a network of green public spaces, weaving through the new residential, business and leisure facilities which presently make-up the athletes village, sporting venues and supporting infrastructure.
A member of the youth group we worked with. Photo credit: Christopher Cavalier
Providing the spaces is a huge leap forward, but encouraging people to explore and care for them is another challenge. London’s boroughs are a melting pot of people, cultures, politics and religions. Many of these communities say they either don’t feel ‘allowed’ in to public spaces or don’t feel the spaces have anything to offer them.
Step up Wild Place Your Space, a partnership project between the RSPB and the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority. They’re about to meet one of their main targets of bringing 35,000 people in to the Lee Valley’s green spaces.
It has involved going out to meet and talk with the very many groups and communities, then organising activities specifically for them. The impact is life changing. From the wary and hostile teenagers slipping though the social safety nets that are transformed into smiling, chatty individuals, excited about planting trees; to the scared refugees escaping violence who discover they can walk unchallenged and unmolested through a nature reserve or a park. It’s equally rewarding seeing the increased range and diversity of visitors now regularly seen mingling in the Lee Valley.
At the Red Cross Women’s Refugee workshop. Photo credit: Christopher Cavalier
The importance of all this social knitting for nature is not immediately apparent. You may well ask, what is the RSPB, a conservation charity, doing creating events for refugees, faith groups or excluded kids?
The answer is simple. Right now, nature is struggling. We can’t save nature by ourselves, so showing people the links that make up a food chain; from the earthworms to the potatoes that make French fries, or the water cycle with rain captured on tree canopies to underground aquifers and eventually to bottled water ... helps save house sparrows or bees.
Sharing the tools and the reasons for saving nature with others reaps greater rewards than trying to do it single-handed. It’s an Olympian task and we’re aiming for gold.
Thanks for this feedback, Bob. Across the RSPB there are further examples of our working getting closer to communities. I'll try and dig out of more these to profile over the coming months.
Now this is what I have always hoped to see Martin; linking the environment firmly with a community awareness initiative. We talk about it but rarely do it. The RSPB does have a bit of an image of being a white, middle class organisation but nature doesn't work that way and needs to be regarded as inclusive. One small way forward is to make sure reserve leaflets are available in local languages and opportunities are available for those less well educated.