Introducing Jack

Wednesday 31 January 2024

Climate and wildlife

https://www.facebook.com/worcestershirewildlifetrust

With both ecological and climate crises unfolding before us, our climate and wildlife blog will explore aspects of this as well as the difference that organisations and individuals can achieve.

Autumn colours by Paul Lane

Our new climate change and wildlife officer, Jack, gets to grips with his role...

It’s been an exciting few months as I've been finding my feet, getting to know the Trust and working on all things sustainability and climate change. I thought it time to follow in the blog-steps of my predecessor, Sean, so here's a quick overview of my picking up where he left off and developing the next phase of our work to help wildlife in the face of climate change.

Wildlife Trusts across the country have an ambitious but crucial goal of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. This means that lots of us are sharing our findings and supporting each other as we focus on enhancing our own Trust's sustainability and lowering our carbon footprint. This is a vital practice that all organisations need to work on in order to reduce the UK's greenhouse gas emissions. Whilst it's important for the Trust to be more sustainable to help mitigate the effects of climate change, we also need to be a leading voice for in encouraging others to act more sustainably too. Our goal to maintain and create habitats to support wildlife, and to inspire others to do so, hasn't changed but encouraging climate-friendly action is essential in helping wildlife to bounce back.

Tiddesley Wood volunteers planting plum trees — Planting plums at Tiddesley Wood © Wendy Carter

A major step in reducing our carbon footprint is to first understand what we are actually emitting. Since 2019, we've been calculating our carbon emissions and the precision of this is being fine tuned each year. Only by knowing what we emit can we start to plan what steps we need to take to counteract this. At the same time, we're also calculating how much carbon we currently store in our nature reserves and how much more we will need to store in order to offset the emissions that we cannot help but emit. This work ties into the other key aspect of what I'll be working on, which is the concept of creating new woodlands that are not only a habitat rich in biodiversity but also great for future carbon storage. Keep an eye out for future blogs focused on these exciting projects!

Another key aspect of my role is helping our nature reserves to adapt to threats and changes posed by climate change. With several predictions of how wildlife and specific habitats will be affected by changes in our climate, it's crucial for our nature reserves to investigate potential risks and implement solutions to keep them thriving into the future. Many nature reserves in Worcestershire and beyond already experience damage from extreme weather such as wildfires, droughts and flooding, which can have a devastating effect on wildlife. As these weather events are predicted to increase in frequency and severity, it is vital we consider how to better protect the reserves and species to maintain both diversity and abundance of life.

I’m super excited to get stuck into writing blogs this year, covering some of these topics in more detail...how we are reducing our emissions, the effect and benefit of livestock for conservation grazing, planting new woodlands, assessing the carbon that can be stored in soils and considering the climate change risks and extreme weather events that will affect the nature reserves (and your own green spaces) that we all appreciate. Stay tuned!