The Natural History Consortium were awarded £99,959 through the Community Pollinator Fund in 2022 for their ‘People for pollinators’ project. This 1-year project worked across the West of England to support and inspire residents to create and care for wildlife-friendly pollinator habitats.
The People for pollinators project involved:
Five demonstration gardens were created across different sites to showcase how any space can become pollinator friendly. The gardens were created at the Wild Place Project, the University of the West of England, Grow Wilder, Bristol City Council’s Stapleton Allotment, and the University of Bath. All the gardens featured pollinator-friendly planting and signage to inspire and educate visitors.
To inspire residents across the West of England to reduce their reliance on pesticides, the Natural History Consortium ran a communications campaign raising awareness about wildlife-friendly gardening. The short stories and advice collected through this campaign can be found on their free online resource page (opens in new tab). This campaign reached over 49,000 people across the region!
With support from local experts, the Avon Wildlife Trust and Your Park, free training sessions were offered to residents to develop their wildlife gardening skills. A diverse range of training sessions were made available including how to attract pollinators to urban spaces, scything, pollinator collages with local artist Marian Hill, making habitat piles, and how to make orchards more pollinator friendly.
Following pesticide reduction workshops for allotment holders, a new resource bank was created filled with free advice and guidance. This included pollinator spotter sheets which were shared at the City Nature Challenge and 4 new toolkits which can be found online (opens in new tab).
On the 11th June, a Family Nature Party took place in Bath City Centre with free activities for children and adults to learn about pollinators, wildlife, and how to care for nature. Attendees could also go home with their own wildflower seeds, pollinator guides, and plant pots to make their homes pollinator friendly.
Organised by the Avon Wildlife Trust, the wildlife garden competition celebrated the incredible green spaces across the West of England from community patches to balconies and everything in between. The winning entries can be found on the Avon Wildlife Trust website (opens in new tab).
The £1m Pollinator Fund builds on the Combined Authority’s ‘Bee Bold Awards’ and will help to deliver on the West of England’s objective to increase the abundance of wildlife by 30% by 2030.
The Fund has been created to support community-led ecology projects that enhance biodiversity and pollinator habitats across the West of England region. The objectives of the fund are to:
