One of our key objectives in order to achieve our five year vision for the Trust is that we will inspire more people to love and take action for nature. This is absolutely my favourite part of the job!

For our impact report I was asked to make this short video highlighting some of the work our team has done over the past year to engage schools and communities as part of the Lottery-funded Peatland Progress project. It was so enjoyable to look back on an incredibly varied year. Our hope for Peatland Progress is that it brings people closer to nature to reap its benefits for health and wellbeing, and I believe it's clear we're achieving that already.

Last year we hosted our first community 'Apple Day' event which included storytellers, sustainable sellers, a ceilidh, Pig Dyke Molly dancers, artists, face-painting and much more. Being able to offer this event for free was thanks to the generous support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. We were thrilled with its success and welcomed over 300 visitors to our small Ramsey Heights nature reserve. This year the event will be an Apple and Harvest Fair - even bigger and better and held at the Ramsey Rural Museum and Ramsey Walled Garden on Sunday 12^th October. We are very excited!

We've had over 300 students from local schools and colleges visit to explore the nature reserve and learn about the project. They've been able to try surveying tools and techniques such as sweep nets and pond dipping, discover new wildlife they've not encountered before, learn the names of the trees and plants around them and the importance of protecting our peatlands and environment. The feedback we’ve received has been amazing. 

We've delivered Forest School sessions both here at the nature reserve and off-site for local primary schools and Peterborough City College. We're providing these students with an environment where they can develop skills and tap into their own interests and skillsets - such as engineering pulley systems, raft designs, den building, traditional crafts, and creativity with collages or painting. They're also learning to use hand tools safely to achieve their goals. This is particularly important to offer to older students, for whom access to nature has rapidly declined. It's why ages 16-24 are a key focus of Peatland Progress. At one session I heard a young person, who until then with us had been non-verbal, declare that his den was 'the most splendid thing he had ever built'! From then on his confidence during the weekly sessions just continued to improve.

It's been an honour to be invited to participate in some local events, to spread the word of the opportunities and locations available to families. Maybe you saw us at the Skylark Garden Centre, the Huntingdon Eco Fair, Ely Folk Festival, Wild About Huntingdonshire festival or the library's Story Garden events? 

I also joined my colleague Lorna in my first podcast interview for 'In Conservation', the Wildlife Trust's new podcast series. I was nervous and hoped it wouldn't show but really wanted to share and showcase the important work we’re doing and why it is so important for both people and wildlife.

Our engagement has no minimum or maximum age, because nature is valuable for everyone. At the younger end, our Little Bugs pre-school group (often with accompanying baby siblings) have constructed a giant mud hedgehog, made butterfly feeders and bird nests and planted trees. My highlight of the year was on the large pond bridge when one of the Little Bugs turned to me and asked 'where are the whirligigs today?' They are always listening and learning!

With our young-at-heart community, local artist Syrah Arnold has been working at local care homes to explore memories of the Fen as part of our Science into Stories project. We are working on an exhibition to present this so please join us at the Apple and Harvest Fair to learn more. Some fascinating and emotional stories have come to light through triggered memories which have all been captured. This has also linked to a poetry competition which provided intergenerational opportunities between care home residents and students from Wisbech Grammar School which has been so amazing. We are also working with Peterborough College on a photography project focusing on paludiculture in the Autumn, to further develop our Science into Stories delivery. 

Youth Week has highlighted how passionate our Young People's Forum and Youth Rangers are. Members took the lead role on nature walks at our reserves, with many other young people all keen to learn with like-minded souls. Our Intro to Ecology and Invertebrates workshops also demonstrated this passion with young people all keen to learn how to study and learn about wildlife whilst identifying wildlife found at Ramsey Heights. These workshops also give an insight into the methodologies used by our own conservation teams in deciding how to manage the landscape we are restoring. As we're only 25 years into a 100 year vision, it's likely some of these young people could become the future caretakers of this land. 

And of course, our programme of family events throughout the holidays are a highlight. From mixing fizzing nature potions at Halloween and making edible peat pots for World Peatlands Day, to bows and arrows and lighting fires at day camps, from building bird boxes to listening for bats at night, we hope our visitors have all left learning something new about nature, knowing they can come back to explore our sites for free anytime, and feeling more connected to the environment and our role in protecting it. 

The work we are undertaking through Peatland Progress will change landscapes, but also hopefully attitudes and opinions about our wonderful fen wildlife and the value of nature.

Thank you for reading our updates and, by the way, I'm not sure if you can tell, but I LOVE my job and the work we are doing but I couldn't do it without my super team and Wildlife Trust colleagues, so thank you all for just being you!