Wildlife Trust

Forest garden workshops

Birmingham & Black Country Wildlife Trust have created EcoPark, a groundbreaking inner-city wildlife oasis.

What makes it groundbreaking is the integration of wildlife conservation and education with a productive forest garden, bringing people even closer to nature through tending the landscape for crops.

This means that Wildlife Trusts have begun to recognise that non-native crop plants can be integrated into native ecosystems. When we’re talking about nature, it’s not just native plants.

I was commissioned by their Senior Conservation Officer Francesca Jaris-Rouse to provide two custom built one day workshops. The workshops were delivered by Zoom, for staff and volunteers.

Rediscovering and rebuilding the relationships between humans and the nature of which they’re a part is fundamental, and something wildlife and food forest gardens are ideally placed to facilitate.

It is so exciting to see this taken forward by a Wildlife Trust, for the benefit of future generations.

Tending the Wild by Kat Anderson is a rich and engaging history of how indigenous Americans lived in, survived on and cared for their landscape. I recommended it for the Wildlife Trust workshops as it is so pertinent, and I can recommend it for anyone interested in sustainable living, forest gardens and ecology.