This summer, I was fortunate enough to be invited to team up with Woodbridge Town Council’s Climate and Ecological Emergency Committee (CEEC), to run free, family sessions for Woodbridge residents all through the holidays in local parks, Elmhurst Park and Fen Meadow. 

Woodbridge recognises the need for urgent action to help our struggling wildlife. The council is addressing the management of these parks including using less pesticides, reducing mowing and pruning frequencies, planting pollinator friendly flowers and introducing wild-flower areas. It is also important to them that local residents understand why they are undertaking these changes, and also to encourage residents to undertake similar actions in their own gardens, hence Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s Learning Team were asked to help. 

Eamonn O’Nolan at Woodbridge Town Council said “This has been a fantastic programme. Taking action in the way local parks are managed for wildlife, alongside working with the community to help increase biodiversity in local gardens, is a great way to tackle the Climate Emergency locally. The free sessions with Suffolk Wildlife Trust have helped families to learn about the importance of trees, pollinators and insects, amongst other things, and what we can do to help them, either through direct actions such as creating a bee hotel, or indirect actions, like walking to town instead of using the car." 

All sessions were small and Covid conscious, but this provided the ideal opportunity for families to get really stuck in and engage in powerful conversations regarding wildlife conservation, while we worked. In total 98 families attended and between us we built 2 large Minibeast Mansions, 4 stag beetle log piles (renamed as ‘stag beetle stadiums’ by the kids), and 6 solitary bee homes. We also explored what we have in our own gardens, what changes we could make to help wildlife, and the power of making our gardens a little more wild and creating links and corridors between the parks. Importantly, we proved that if we all make changes for wildlife and add them all up, we can make a big difference as a community. And, we also had fun! 

If you’re interested in helping your local community take action for wildlife, email our Wilder Support Team.