Eynsham's Nature Recovery Network is a network of individuals, community groups, local businesses and councillors in Eynsham and the surrounding parishes dedicated to understanding, protecting and restoring our local nature in all its diversity. This bottom-up approach aims at connecting enthusiasts with experts and businesses and councillors all living in the same local area as a means of addressing issues of sustainability and scaleability in nature recovery, in the face of the climate and ecological crisis.
Initiated by Long Mead Local Wildlife Site in August 2019, the idea is something like ‘charity begins at home’. If we do our biodiversity volunteering in our own gardens or on our doorstep, using local expertise and bringing in outside expertise when we need it, we are suddenly dealing with a much larger land area. Also, we can reap the benefit of our efforts every time we step out of the door and so we might be encouraged to do more – and particularly if our neighbour is doing it as well and we can chat over the fence about how the patch of wildflowers that we planted on the verge is flourishing or whether the cuckoo that we documented last year has returned. The same goes for surveying and monitoring – we are creating a parish database so that everyone will be able to see what we have and how our wildlife is recovering (or declining) and then we can share it with others. Currently, it works the other way: if we take part in monitoring garden birds or butterflies or bees, our findings vanish into a national database and we are none-the-wiser about about what frequents our own neighbourhood. So, maybe this will encourage us to get out there more often and see what we have.
In the right-hand column, you will find a list of current activities. For current workshops, work parties and talks go to the Events page. If you are interested in getting involved in any of these groups or events please email us.
If you are up for helping to organise or lead any of these PLEASE email! To find out what everyone is doing for nature visit the NRN website and to receive regular updates join our mailing list.
Our Vision:
The Nature Recovery Network is bottom-up nature recovery initiative that connects individuals, community groups, businesses, environment experts and local government at the local level, enabling them pool physical, financial and knowledge resources for nature recovery.
The Network initiates and supports projects which bring together local communities at the parish level to:
- Generate community proposals for biodiversity gain
- Implement these proposals over time
- Facilitate community mapping of the biodiversity of the parish (water courses, hedgerows, veteran trees, woodland, species-rich verges)
- Facilitate community surveys of the habitats (plus air pollution surveys) to assess their quality, and as a basis for follow up professional surveys. The surveys will ensure that there are measurable outcomes of the interventions.
- Use the data gathered to create a baseline from which to set targets and monitor recovery of habitats and wildlife over time. Collate, store, analyse and disseminate data to create a local professional resource that can be used in discussion of development and planning (eg feeding into Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre) and for further research.