Within our local area, we will continue with our core activities of educating people about the vulnerabilities experienced by wildlife in the Felixstowe region, and what each of us can do to help. Second, we will continue to encourage local people to not simply talk about conservation, but to physically do the work involved in growing the right plants, and building wildlife ponds, hedgehog homes, insect lodges etc. Finally, we encourage local people to share our work with their family, friends and neighbours. Also on the home front, we will continue to work alongside our Artist in Residence, Charmaine McKissock as she interprets and shares our goals in a dazzling variety of fascinating ways.
We are never complacent about our success. For that reason, we are happy to work with a coalition of supportive groups from across Suffolk to learn from them, and to share our experiences. The first of those meetings was held last year in Saxmundham. It was hugely encouraging. More collaborations with those new partners will take place in 2024.
Across the UK, our work is shared by the National Biodiversity Network. Also on a national scale, we are pleased to see how the other community-based conservation groups who were inspired by Felixstowe’s ideas are developing.
Our European partners never cease to amaze us with their support and encouragement. During 2024, the work of Felixstowe’s Community Nature Reserve and Felixstowe’s Citizen Science Group will be discussed and adapted by other groups across the EU. Our new European colleagues have also shown a strong interest in the Climate Justice Agenda which developed from our Climate Justice march on 2 July 2022. For everyone who took part in that march, it is encouraging to think that that event led to ideas which are regularly shared across all 27 European Union nations. 2024 will see a continuation of those Climate Justice conversations.
To learn more about Felixstowe’s Community Nature Reserve, and Felixstowe’s Citizen Science Group, please visit their Facebook pages.
Dr Adrian Cooper