Meet the Wildlife Champions

Amrish & Priya (The Bristol Rainforest) – BS2

Amrish & Priya have been involved in the Bristol Rainforest Project, which aims to improve the classroom environment and children’s self-esteem by planting rainforest trees in schools and raising awareness about the importance of rainforests globally. They have also designed vertical vegetable growing systems, which they are using to grow food for the community in urban areas. This is tackling challenges including water scarcity, soil degradation, nutrition, food security, mental and physical health, connection to nature and food and unavailability of growing space. Priya has also been engaging adults from global majority backgrounds, specifically the Somali community, with food growing and cooking. This is helping to combat social isolation and is celebrating their culture and cuisine at the same time.

Find out more:

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Sacha, Roots 'n' Fruits Community Garden

Sasha (Roots n’ Fruits Community Garden)- BS2

Sasha was a Wildlife Champion based in St. Pauls, BS2, who set up a weekly community gardening group (Roots n’ Fruits). This is a community-focused therapeutic horticulture project which welcomes everyone, offering a weekly safe space for people to improve their mental and physical wellbeing through gardening and connectedness to nature. Sasha has now moved out of Bristol, but the gardening sessions continue to be run by Luka, Barbara and Tristan. The group also run workshops and activities, including woodworking, apple pressing and tree pruning. They are looking to partner with other organisations to make the garden as accessible as possible.

Find out more:

@roots_n_fruits (Instagram)
Community | SPLC

Address: St. Pauls Learning Centre, 94 Grosvenor Rd, St Paul's, Bristol BS2 8XJ

Time and date of regular sessions: Every Tuesday | 1-3:30pm | All tools and materials are provided.

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Hemlata & Sakeriya (Newtown Nature Club)- BS2

Hemlata attended webinars hosted by Action for Conservation during lockdown, and was inspired to do something positive about the climate crisis. She was successful in applying for a £500 grant (The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew Grow Wild Youth Grant), which allowed her to set up Newtown Nature Club- a weekly gardening group for families and young people in her local park.

Newtown Nature Club allowed Hemlata to form connections in her local community as lockdown restrictions eased, as well as share her passion for gardening and the natural world. Hemlata’s friend Sakeriya helped her at some events and was keen to develop his knowledge of how to support nature locally.

Group aims:

Foster a good environment to continue climate action
Involve people locally (not teach)
Play organically (not forced agenda)
Celebrate and reward positive actions for the climate

Hemlata is now a full-time student, but continues to network and share advice with others. She has spoken at an online Team Wilder Campfire, and has given a talk to other Wildlife Champions about how to engage children and young people.

Find out more:

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Ed (Pollinator Project, Redcatch Community Garden) - BS4

Ed has been a key driver of the Pollinator Project at Redcatch Community Garden. This Project was funded by the WECA Community Pollinator Fund, and it’s aim was to increase pollinator habitats and spread the word about how important they are to biodiversity and sustainability.

Project Initiatives: Habitat enhancement, education of schoolchildren, raising awareness amongst Redcatch Community Garden staff, volunteers and the general public at large.

Ed has been conducting pollinator surveys within Redcatch Community Garden and Redcatch Park, as well as working with volunteers to plant native hedgerows, wildflower meadows and pollinator friendly plants. Ed has also been going into schools dressed as a bumblebee, delivering talks about the importance of pollinators to inspire the next generation to care about the natural world. The team at Redcatch Community Garden have embedded habitats for pollinators across the site, including a ‘moon garden’ for night pollinators such as moths. Ed has created a mini pollinator hub and library at Redcatch Community garden, which includes books, resources and guides for the general public to find out more about the wonderful world of insects.

Find out more:

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Ruth, Recycle City & Alive Gardening Group

Ruth (Recycle City and Alive Gardening Group) – BS5

Ruth is a well-known and loved member of her local community in BS5, where she regularly attends wellbeing sessions with the Alive Gardening group. The group have helped to create a vibrant, thriving garden in the heart of the city, which supports both people and wildlife. Food from the garden is incorporated into meals made at the adjacent community centre, helping tackle food security and provide nutritious, healthy meals to the community.

Ruth is always full of ideas, and her passion for re-purposing waste and recycling led her to found ‘Recycle City’ – a group with a shared vision of creating a city based on the values of creativity, community and opportunity. This speculative new city would embrace animal welfare, healing, connection, conservation, joy, love and celebration. It would be a place where all ages and species can be together. Ruth and the Recycle City team run creative workshops combining hands on craft techniques with cutting edge AI technology, inviting people to explore their hopes and dreams for a speculative new city.

Ruth has also engaged the local community by taking part in The Festival of Nature, running creative activities with families to re-purpose waste into art. This included making an archway out of waste-materials, using plastic bags and netting to make hanging strawberries and jellyfish! Ruth was also part of a team working on a pollinator project, with an aim to combine their love for gardening and woodwork to create insect hotels and bird boxes, as well as planting flowers to attract pollinators to the garden.

Find out more:

Time and date of regular sessions: Every Thursday at the Wellspring Settlement, Barton Hill | 1.30-3.30 pm | The sessions are free and accessible, with all tools and resources provided.

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Krystian and Karol (Boys in Bristol/Bristol Parks Project) - BS5

Karol and Krystian are photographers who are passionate about storytelling, keen to promote the people, wildlife and urban spaces of Bristol. Karol and Krystian run a photography business called ‘Boys in Bristol’, which focuses on their commercial work, catering for events, businesses and professional headshots.

Karol and Krystian both came from a background in care work, where they realized the importance of people being able to access nature virtually, through photos and videos of natural spaces. Combining their passion for photography with their desire to make sure nature was accessible to everyone, they founded The Bristol Parks Project. This was a centralized hub for information on all the Bristol Parks, Nature Reserves and Community Gardens. They envisioned creating a webpage for each green space, which would contain all the essential information about each location including local wildlife, facilities, accessibility, nearby businesses and friends of groups.

Karol and Krystian also ran a series of nature photography workshops in the local community, supporting people at all experience levels to notice and capture photos of wildlife on their doorstep. They formed networks with other Bristol-based photographers, platforming their work on their website and running joint photography exhibitions together.

Unfortunately, they are no longer involved in the Bristol Parks Project, but are continuing with their commercial Boys in Bristol photography work. The Bristol Parks Project website is still available to view as a legacy of the fantastic work that they started.

Find out more:

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Rikki (Herbal medicine and Nature, Youth, Connection, Education) – BS5

Rikki was involved in youth work with the Nature, Youth, Connection and Education (NYCE) organisation. NYCE run skill-building workshops, walking trips, summer residentials and nature education for young, minoritised people and their families. Rikki has a keen interest in herbal medicine, and would love to retrain to become a professional herbalist. She would like to develop her skills and knowledge to get young people and kids involved in food-growing, foraging and herbal medicine.

Find out more:

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Grenville (St. George in Bloom) – BS5

Grenville has been a keen gardener for most of his life, and he founded St. George in Bloom to celebrate and showcase front and rear gardens, local allotment plots, enhanced streets etc. He helped mobilise his local community in BS5 to transform small urbans gardens and streets into havens for wildlife, as well as areas of peace and tranquillity for residents.

Grenville’s views (in his words) about gardening, horticulture and looking after nature are:

We as humans are part of nature’s cyclic and recurring patterns. We need to remind ourselves of this important factor in order to try to live in harmony with nature.
Take the opportunity to watch nature at work and learn about its patterns and cycles.
Gardens and wild or natural spaces should be places of beauty and tranquility.
There is no reason why streets in built up urban areas should also be part of this important value.
Gardens and spaces should capture the imagination, raise spirits and feed the soul.
These spaces have tremendous capacity to assist our health, wellbeing and recovery.
The main elements of planting should encompass colour, pattern, texture and form. Nature has these capacities in huge abundance.
Use the elements of site and sounds to learn about natures patterns.
Be prepared to take risks within gardens and learn from them.

Grenville has acted as a mentor to the 2023-2025 cohort of Wildlife Champions, sharing his knowledge and expertise, delivering webinars and hosting a visit to his garden. Grenville also holds open days in the summer, where he welcomes the public into his garden. More information about Grenville’s garden, awards and advice can be found on the websites listed below.

Find out more:

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Hannah (Lockleaze resident) – BS7

Hannah is a Lockleaze resident who’s passionate about greening up her local neighbourhood. Hannah, along with other residents of the community-led housing scheme, have been planting native trees and flowers, and have put in street planters with integrated benches to create a safe, green space for the residents to enjoy. Hannah and another resident also helped organise a community gardening day, and a gardening club for children. Throughout the process, both the resident and housing association were consulted, ensuring that everyone was on the same page and on board with proposed plans. The idea for building these planters emerged from residents being concerned that many areas meant to be dedicated to planting had been paved over and weren’t usable. They collectively decided on installing raised planters as a solution, with a local resident having the design and installation skills to create these integrated beds/benches. The planters have now been built, lined and filled with growing medium ready for planting. They are already being used as a community meeting point, and the hope is that they will be planted up and looked after by the households surrounding the planters. The 6 planters that have been built so far have acted as a pilot, and Hannah is working with other residents, friends and an urban designer to see where else planters could be built.

Hannah is also passionate about campaigning against herbicide use and river pollution. She managed to convince local landscape maintenance contractors not to use herbicides where she lives, and is working with Really Wild Lockleaze to re-surface and reduce pollution of the Horfield Brook. Hannah has attended several talks and walks led by Really Wild Lockleaze, and has enrolled on Avon Wildlife Trust’s Grow Leader Course.

Find out more:

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Kai (Sea Mills resident) - BS9

Kai has a keen interest in rivers, insects and wildlife on his doorstep. Since moving back to Sea Mills, Kai has been impressed by the strong sense of community and respect for nature that has developed there. Kai used to see lots of rubbish and fly tipping along the river, but since lockdown has noticed that the area is much cleaner. There are several wildlife and climate-related groups in Sea Mills that regularly conduct litter picks and help to manage the green spaces in a wildlife friendly way.

“For me the time is now, there is no better time to be getting involved. I love it, I’m so passionate about it. I think there’s so much beauty in the natural world.” - Kai

Kai has been enjoying tapping into these local groups, getting to meet and learn from other like-minded people who also have a passion for nature. Kai would love to set up a community garden based around knowledge sharing, food growing and supporting wildlife. Kai envisages the community garden being a welcoming space, where the community can come together and pass on knowledge and skills in an accessible way.

Kai has undertaken training with Bristol Avon Rivers Trust (BART) to become a riverfly monitor, which involves regular sampling of aquatic invertebrates to assess river health and species diversity. If invertebrate diversity is low, this could be an indication of poor water quality and pollution. Regular monitoring allows these sorts of trends to be picked up over time, and if there are any concerns, this is escalated and investigated. Kai has also been camera trapping along the river, hoping to capture footage of species like otters and water voles!

Find out more:

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Luke (Hartcliffe and Withywood resident) – BS13

Luke is an active member of his community, and he enjoys volunteering and networking with lots of local organisations to enact change for wildlife and people where he lives. Luke is passionate about improving and maintaining green spaces to boost mental and physical wellbeing as well as creating green and blue corridors to support biological connectivity. Luke received recognition for his volunteering efforts and won ‘Volunteer of the Year’ in the Love Your Park Bristol Awards 2025.

Luke’s networks are extensive and he has been linking up with groups, charities and organisations including: Friends of Willmott Park, Friends of Valley Walk, Friends of Hartcliffe Millennium Green, Friends of Redcatch Gardens, Friends of Manor Woods Valley, Friends of Stockwood Open Space, Willmott Park Bowls Club, Whitchurch Wombles, BS13 Wildlife Group, BS3 Wildlife Group, BS14 Wildlife Group, BS13 Hedgehog Project, BS3 Hedgehog Project, Hartcliffe & Withywood Community Project, Hartcliffe Club for Young People, Hartcliffe BMX, Campus Pool, Grass Roots, Your Park, Parks Forum, Heart of BS13, Hartcliffe City Farm, Local PCSO Team, Avon Wildlife Trust, Bristol Avon Rivers Trust, Avon Bat Group, Sommerset Bat Group, Bristol Waste, Bristol City Council.

Good working relationships have developed between these groups, and they now have “South Bristol” (Hartcliffe and Withywood) Parks Meetings once every 8 weeks with Friends of Withywood Park, Willmott Park, Valley Walk and Hartcliffe Millenium Green, where they have agreements to share facilities and equipment with all of these groups and also Manor Woods Valley and their Forest School. These collaborations led to a Hartcliffe and Withywood Community Development Plan Group, a community survey and the formation of a local strategic group between larger community charities and organisations. Hartcliffe & Withywood Community Project, Gatehouse Centre, Withywood Centre, Heart BS13, Hartcliffe City Farm, Hartcliffe Club for Young People, Hartcliffe BMX, & Brave Bold Drama are now working and communicating with each other, having regular monthly meetings around how to support and meet the needs of the community.

A lot of Luke’s work is centred around Withywood Park, where they’ve been successful in securing funding to instal and plant up 3 steel planters with herbs for the community. A group of local young people are helping to plant them up and look after them. The group has also applied and received funding for new fitness equipment, disabled friendly picnic benches and trees. Both the Friends of Withywood Park and Friends of Willmott Park groups that Luke is involved with applied and were accepted for the Your Parks South Bristol Grant Fund £750 per park to help improve the parks for nature and the community.

The Friends of Withywood Park group hold monthly events in the park, including litter picking, tidying up community spaces like the skate park, tree, hedge & wildflower meadow planting, scything, wildlife walks, nature crafting and bat, bird and hedgehog box making. The aim of these events is to engage local residents, neighbours, families, kids and the community at large. This is fostering a sense of community pride and autonomy over these spaces, which they are hoping will help reduce antisocial behaviour in these green spaces.

Find out more:

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Sam (Friends of Stockwood Nature) - BS14

Sam grew up in Stockwood, and is passionate about greening up his local neighbourhood and inspiring others to get out and enjoy Stockwood Open Space Nature Reserve. Litter picking was a gateway for Sam’s interest in nature, as it was on a little pick that he encountered his first muntjac deer, as well as foxes, butterflies, birds and fungi. He felt mobilized to want to give nature a helping hand, and improve green spaces for future generations of both wildlife and people.

Sam was keen to involve others in his vision for a cleaner, greener Stockwood, and began to network and learn from people who were also passionate about animals and the environment. He invited people to join him as he began looking after planters in the square, removing litter and planting them up with colourful flowers for the community to enjoy.

Nature offers inspiration and peace to Sam, and he wanted to encourage others to experience the wonders and benefits of being out in nature. He set up a Facebook group and starting hosting litter picks, wildlife walks and nature wellbeing session in the Open Space. Sam encourages people to do what they can for nature, as even small actions can make an overall difference to nature and the community.

Find out more:

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Bernie (Herbs Yourself Community Garden) - BS16

Bernie is a Wildlife Champion based in Fishponds, who has been the glue in bringing the local community together to set up ‘Herbs Yourself’- a culinary and medicinal herb garden, led for and by the community. The garden used to be an abandoned, un-loved patch of land at the edge of Eastville park, used predominantly as a fly tipping site. Local residents had been attempting to look after the site, but worked in isolation, without being part of a group or community. Bernie moved to the area, and was motivated by wanting to create a supportive community around herself and her family. She reached out to and built up friendships with local residents, fostering trust and building the foundations for collectively transforming the land into something wonderful.

The community garden has now become an oasis both for people and wildlife. Painted chairs and tables draw people in at the site entrance, while meandering paths and leaning trees guide you into a secret, wild area filled with bird song, fruit trees and wildlife. Fallen trees have claw marks etched into them- signs that larger mammals like badgers and foxes might also call this place home. Reptile mats conceal small rodents, invertebrates and slow worms and the group are in the process of building a wildlife pond.

Bernie and the Herbs Yourself group meet every Saturday morning 10:30-12:30 at the garden, and they have hosted foraging and herbal medicine workshops, as well as social events and seasonal gatherings to bring people together. Bernie has recently written a book- ‘Herbs Yourself: a year at the community garden’. “The book aims to document the process and inspire anyone interested in wildlife, communities, herbs, gardens, immigration and belonging. It brings together diary entries documenting the process, with readings that have inspired the development of the community garden. The result is a non-fiction memoir documenting a years’ journey organised in four chapters building the community garden and meeting their inhabitants: Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. The book is also about how to create a community around herbs: what happens when we pin a flyer in the notice board, talk to strangers, come to the sessions, apply for funding, tell stories over and over until shared identities are created; even more importantly, what happens when we slow down and pay attention to nature.”-Bernie

“I don’t feel like I’m alone anymore. I feel like I’m part of this community, I belong here and that’s a superpower.” – Bernie

Find out more:

Time and date of regular sessions: Every Saturday Lower Grove Rd, Bristol BS16 2BS | 10:30-12:30pm | All ages welcome!

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Sue (Pill and Easton in Gordano Wildlife Group) – BS20

Sue has always loved being in nature, with much of her childhood spent in Canada at her mum’s animal rescue centre, taking in stray animals and horse riding with her rescue raccoon called Rascal! Sue now lives in Pill and is involved with a number of different wildlife groups, working to engage people of all ages with the natural world.

“Why do I do it? Just because I love it, I just love being in nature…and hopefully inspiring others for the future so that we can protect our planet!” – Sue

Sue has been helping to run the Pill and Easton in Gordano Wildlife Group (PIEG) for several years, which involves managing Parish Council Green Spaces for nature and the community. Sue also volunteers with the Ham Green Wildlife Group, Penny Brohn (cancer health and wellbeing charity), local youth groups and schools, Sustainable Pill and District (SPAD) community allotments, as well as partnering with groups like Abbots Leigh Wildlife Group to run joint events. In all of the volunteering that Sue does, she strives to put nature at its centre, including running nature craft activities with young people and engaging the patients at Penny Brohn with bird song and wildlife friendly gardening.

One of PIEG’s main sites that they look after is Pill Paddock, which used to be managed by Avon Wildlife Trust, but has now been taken on by Pill Parish Council. Sue puts up signs in the paddock every month, which include engaging information about local wildlife, how the site is being managed for nature and any upcoming community events. She has had feedback that local residents choose to visit the paddock just to look at the signs with their grandchildren. The group received a visit from Avon Wildlife Trust’s Team Wilder Community Ecologist, and they have been using the follow up report to help manage the site. They have coppiced the hazels, built a dead hedge, ran a hibernaculum building workshop and hosted a scything course there.

Snail racing and monthly ‘flappy hour’ sunset bat walks have become particularly popular events run by the group. One of the children who attended a flappy hour walk loved it so much that he asked for his own heterodyne bat detector for Christmas. This shows the wonderful impact of providing inspiration and sparking curiosity about protecting local wildlife from a young age. The data from ‘flappy hour’ is uploaded to the Bristol Regional Environmental Records Centre (BRERC), as well as submitting data to the North Somerset Bat Survey. So far, they have spotted 13 out of the 18 UK bat species!

There is a strong sense of community in Pill, with local residents wanting to support and help each other. Sue has shared that the community draw inspiration from each other, working together to make Pill a better place for both people and wildlife. Sue has also draw support from the other Wildlife Champions, and has enjoyed learning from and visiting their sites.

“I’d like to say thank you to Avon Wildlife Trust and all the other different Wildlife Champions for sharing everything and making me feel so welcome and involved.” – Sue

Find out more:

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Emma (Thornbury Community Permaculture Project) – BS35

Emma is an active member of her community, and is involved in a number of local organisations and groups including Sustainable Thornbury, Plastic Free Thornbury and the Thornbury Community Permaculture Project (TCPP). Emma has developed a keen interest in permaculture over the years, and embeds permaculture principles into her gardening and everyday life. The TCPP operates within the grounds of a local care home, and has been designed to benefit both the residents of the care home and the wildlife in the area. Emma has written a blog about the permaculture project, which you can read below:

“The Thornbury Community Permaculture Project (TCPP) was set up in 2022 by a local resident wanting to practise permaculture principles after taking a course about it.  Permaculture is a design process using knowledge given by native tribes across the world including how to look after the earth (Earth Care), yourself (People Care) and the community (Fair Share). It translates very well into gardening with nature at the forefront.

TCPP began with seeking a place for a permaculture garden and was fortunate to be given permission by South Gloucestershire council to use part of the site at Alexandra Care Home in Thornbury.  A grant from South Gloucestershire council was given and to start with 5 'no dig' beds were created.  No dig beds is a process of placing cardboard over the ground directly on top of grass or other plants and then putting compost directly on top.  Planting can begin immediately but it is normally good to wait for a few months to allow the grass or plants under the cardboard to die back and for the cardboard to disintegrate.  

In each of the 5 'no dig' beds different edible plants were planted or seeds sown.

In 2023 and 2024 grants were received from Thornbury Town Council and the Thornbury and District League of Friends that helped buy gardening tools, build a sensory garden, plant a native hedge, plant some fruit trees and create some signs to publicise the site.

The plants chosen by the volunteers are nearly all perennial and native. They are also drought tolerant as much as possible to take into account our changing climate and the lack of water during the summer. Plants in the border are only watered when they are newly planted. After this they are on their own.

Volunteers visit every Friday morning for a few hours to maintain the garden and residents are encouraged to come and join them. In 2023 a gardening club was started and it is hoped this will start again this year now that it is warmer.

The garden has been lucky to receive an ecological report from Avon Wildlife Trust’s Team Wilder Community Ecologist. This report helped decide which native plants to buy to attract pollinators and increase wildlife in the garden. We have created wildlife corridors using the natural plants along one border and incorporated insect houses, a bird feeder and a bird bath. For 2 years running, the garden has received an award in the Its Your Neighbourhood competition.

Thornbury Community Permaculture Project also entered a Climate Change competition run by South Gloucestershire council. It won a prize for its wildlife friendly gardening and drought tolerant planting. As part of the prize, a video was made by the council, showcasing what has been done at the garden. The video can be watched on the Sustainable Thornbury website.

Like any new garden it has taken time and effort to transform a lawned area into a garden that residents would like to come out to filled with colour, small and texture. It is getting there but we welcome new volunteers on a Friday morning - no experience needed.”

If you would like to join us please contact tcpp@sustainablethornbury.org or look at what we have been doing on the TCPP page of the Sustainable Thornbury website www.sustainablethornbury.org

Find out more:

Time and date of regular sessions: Every Friday at Alexandra Road Care Home BS35 1LA| 9:30-11:00pm | Tools and guidance will be provided but please wear suitable clothing for gardening and the weather.

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Kate (Frome Valley Growing Project) - BS36

Kate is a key founder of the Frome Valley Growing Project in Winterbourne – “a project that exists for the land and for the people. It is an intergenerational community that was founded on Permaculture Design Principles and developed as a response to the climate crisis. The project aims to teach best practices for growing food, improving soil health, increasing biodiversity, promoting seed sovereignty and protecting heritage varieties of food.  

They provide access to plants, green spaces and gardening activities, which research supports are important for improving physical health and mental wellbeing. They offer opportunities to volunteers, schools, electively home educated children, local families and corporate groups. 

On their site in Winterbourne they produce locally grown, nutrient dense, chemical free fresh food with low food miles to the local community, including to food banks and community cafes. In addition to growing annual vegetables, they have a food forest, wetland meadow, children’s play equipment, poly tunnel, herb garden, bee hives and rewilding area.  

They have an irrigation system to use and conserve water on the site, the source compost, manure and woodchip locally, and they aim to recycle and reuse as many resources and materials as possible.

They also act as a hub for the Frome Valley Pollinator Pathway which is a partnership project that aims to link people and land along the Frome Valley in Winterbourne, South Gloucestershire. The Pollinator Pathway aims to create a biodiversity corridor by developing five new wildflower sites and encouraging community garden activity. 

The project’s mission is to create and enhance pollinator biodiversity in other local areas and connect local people to nature. They are developing this project in line with the West of England Nature Recovery Network objectives to create wildlife corridors and improve the landscape’s resilience, and the methods are informed by Dave Goulson’s book ‘Silent Earth, Averting the Insect Apocalypse’.

Find out more:

Time and date of regular sessions: Every Wednesday BS36 1RH | 10:30-2:30pm | All ages welcome, wellies needed after it’s rained!

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David (Frampton Cotterell Community Nature Trail) – BS36

David is the chair of the Frampton Cotterell Nature group, which was set up in 2021 to help connect people with nature. The group organise regular nature walks, surveys, practical conservation work, seed swaps, quizzes and a moth club. They have worked with local schools, churches and the parish council to manage green spaces for wildlife and inspire the next generation to care about the natural world. In October 2024, the group helped run ‘Nature Fest: Making Space for Nature 2024’: a family-friendly event aiming to celebrate wildlife and the environment. As well as running nature-based crafts on the day, the event also encouraged families to share their at-home nature projects, from hedgehog highways to bug hotels, to celebrate these actions and inspire the community!

In 2024 the group launched a Community Nature Reserve Project to support people to manage their gardens for wildlife, and help build their volunteering base for managing community spaces. David has also been liaising with various stakeholders to try and get large areas of land in Frampton Cotterell set up as an official nature reserve. David has now started working with the Parish Council as a community nature officer, which involves leading volunteer groups to manage and create habitats and building community partnerships. David is a keen photographer, and has captured some wonderful photos of local flora and fauna. He has also been collating a species list for Frampton Cotterell, and has recorded over 1,300 species!!

Find out more:

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Alison & Steve (Grow Batheaston) – BA1

Alison and Steve are key members of the Grow Batheaston group- a local organisation that encourages residents to live more sustainably. They run a forest garden, and have planted fruit trees, wildflowers, plants and seeds.

In 2024, they organised a Beaver Festival – ‘The River, the Willow and the Beaver’s Tail (Tale)’. This festival came about as a result of realising that there were beavers living alongside them on the River Avon, and wanting to celebrate them. The festival drew together artists and illustrators, makers and weavers, performers and storytellers in order to tell the story of the connectivity with and the dependence between the river, the willow trees that stand guard beside it and the beavers, newly returned to a waterway they would have inhabited centuries ago.

The festival consisted of a series of workshops run by Marian Hill (wildlife collage artist) and Julie Starks (willow artist) in the village primary school. The children created beautiful beaver collages and willow sculptures, which were displayed in the village hall. They also hosted an evening of beaver and river themed talks, including speakers from Surfers Against Sewage, The Beaver Trust and Avon Wildlife Trust. The event was packed out, with over 120 people attending! Local filmmaker Aleks Domanski regularly goes out on his kayak to film the beavers, and he created a beautiful film capturing their river world, which was shown at the event. Aleks also filmed the collage and willow workshops in the local primary school, capturing the joy and engagement of the children as they learned about the beavers and other river creatures living alongside them.

Inspired by the successes and enthusiasm of the beaver festival, they decided to run a similar project in 2025, focussing more broadly on rivers and the diversity of creatures large and small that call this aquatic habitat home. This project (called Co-Existence) will be focused around art and education, and will tie into both the Wild Waters River Festival and the Festival of Nature. Environmental workshops have already been run in the local primary school, with Marian Hill teaching the children how to make collages of a variety of aquatic species.

This project aims to highlight the necessity of allowing ALL species to thrive - even the ones that are not visible to the naked eye. It focuses on the health of the river - how we can nurture it and allow it to thrive, providing a home and a habitat for many different forms of life. They want to look more closely at the species living in the river - not only the kingfishers, the beavers and the otters but also the microscopic life perhaps at the bottom of the food chain, forms of life that, when studied, are sensitive enough to ‘shift’ their behaviour in response to pollution.

The project explores 3 main questions:

Do we need to change the way we co-exist with the river and the natural world ?

How has human activity impacted the river, and how can we alleviate the impact of climate change, sewage, road runoff, agricultural and chemical pollution and ever increasing flood events ?

Is it time for the river to have rights of its own?

The project will culminate in the summer, with an evening of films and talks on the evening of Friday 6th June 2025.

Find out more:

Sandra (Broadmoor Lane Community Orchard- group now dissolved) – BA1

Sandra has spent much of her life working as a volunteer on a range of conservation projects, and loves spending time in wild places. She spent 6 years leading on the implementation of the Landscape and Ecological Management Plan for the Friends of the Orchard at Broadmoor Lane group. Sandra and the other volunteers of the orchard group organised regular community events, including yearly wassails and apple pressing. The group aimed to encourage community participation and environmental sustainability. Over several years, the Royal Horticultural Society awarded the work in the orchard as ‘Outstanding’, putting it amongst the best-attended community spaces nationwide. After 6 years, the Friends of the Orchard group was dissolved, but the orchard remains a cherished community asset, enjoyed for its beauty, wildlife, local history and recreational value, thanks in considerable part to the group’s community efforts.

Sandra also played an instrumental role while working at More Trees BANES, where she helped to get the organisation set up as a charity, developing 17 new community-based tree nurseries, growing 15,000 trees per year from locally collected seed. Sandra was successful in obtaining planning permission for a new central nursery Hub in Twerton, and led on the planting of approximately 3,000 trees over 2 winters in publicly accessible spaces.

Find out more:

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Alex Dommett