nature

A collection of 24 posts

meeting reports

Report of public meeting 17 July 2025

July's guest speaker was Ruth Rolls, WNC Nature Recovery Strategy Officer. Ruth gave us an excellent overview of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy for West Northamptonshire. The meeting was recorded and is available to watch on YouTube1, and Ruth's slides are available to download2. On Saturday

food & farming

Lieutenancy Climate and Sustainability Walk; Saturday 17 May, 2025

After a chilly start, it turned into a glorious day with hedges and ditches a froth of white, hawthorn and cow parsley, meadows with jewels, buttercups and campion, and dark woods carpeted in sinister garlic mustard.  Although we did not count, some thirty people set off shepherded by guides from

nature

The Riches of Uncut Grass

Eluned Nicholls, Parish Councillor in Kingsthorpe, shares her experience of No Mow May We are now in the third year of No Mow May1 and Kingsthorpe Village’s verges and greens are showing signs of a remarkable recovery from years of being cut to within inches of life. Take a

nature

A Journey Through Grass

Members of CA-WN are involved in a grassland project, which aims to draw attention to the nature recovery potential of areas of grassland from road-side verges to small meadows. As a member of this group I considered it worthwhile to explore the importance of grassland and its relationship to humans.

nature

Hedgehog Awareness Week

The 2025 national campaign to help hedgehogs runs from 4 –10 May. Do you have hedgehogs in your neighbourhood? Hedgehogs play a vital role in controlling insect populations and are an important part of our ecosystem, but they face growing threats from habitat loss and road traffic. What can we

nature

£110,000 grant unclaimed by West Northamptonshire schools

Eleven local schools have each been offered a £10,000 grant to improve biodiversity within their grounds. CA-WN has been asked to help the nominated schools make the most of this opportunity, which closes in March. The money is being offered as part of the National Education Nature Parks initiative,

nature

Understanding the Biodiversity Crisis

It is increasingly recognised that biodiversity loss or the loss of Nature is as existential a threat as the climate crisis. The relationship between Climate and Nature and the importance of the global biosphere in mitigating climate change impacts was first acknowledged at the Conference of the Parties (COP) 26

nature

West Northants Council: Local Nature Recovery Strategy

Roy Hawkesford from Hackleton reports on a Webinar for parish councillors, organised by Ruth Rolls, WNC's Nature Recovery Strategy Officer (Environment, Countryside & Parks, Assets & Environment. The purpose of the meeting was to outline the Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) which will go out for consultation soon1.

water

The Big River Watch May 4-6

The Big River Watch is back for another exciting weekend of citizen science Our rivers are in trouble. They're struggling under the weight of plastics, sewage, chemicals, and much more, with no river stretches in England or Northern Ireland classified as being in good overall health. But you

nature

St Katherine’s Garden Project

The Project - April 2024 There is a global biodiversity crisis resulting from the same human activity that is changing our climate and weather. At the Conference of the Parties (COP) 15 for Biodiversity held in Montreal, Canada, in 2023, nations pledged to increase biodiversity by 30% by 2030 in

nature

Biodiversity matters - popcawn April 2024

Save the bees! Save the whales! Save yourselves! We don’t often hear those phrases in quick succession – it’s difficult to see how the loss of sea creatures or insects can affect our lives. But whether we see it or not, we humans are animals and very much part

water

Nene Rivers Trust

Rickileigh Edwards, Project Support Officer at the Nene Rivers Trust, outlines their projects in our area. Introduction to the Nene Rivers Trust Nene Rivers Trust, formerly River Nene Regional Park, is part of the national Rivers Trusts movement across the UK and Ireland. Together we work to mitigate the impacts

nature

Tree Harvest gathered in

What a great morning at Martin Moore Wood harvesting trees! Over 30 people turned up, young and old – some to literally get stuck in and dig up some young trees, others from local Litter Wombles groups filled bags with old plastic tree guards. As well as the Wombles, and CA-WN

nature

Tinder for trees?

CA-WN was introduced to ‘tree harvesting’ at a recent event near Corby organised by a Dutch group, More Trees Now. One of the attendees was CA-WN’s newest Steering Committee member, Mick Lorkins. The idea is to collect – ‘harvest’ – young trees that under normal circumstances wouldn’t survive to adulthood

opinion

popcawn - November 2023

“Climate change and biodiversity loss together pose an existential threat to human survival that warrants an urgent response from everyone” was the opening line from October’s edition of popcawn – CA-WN’s opinion on current events. In that edition we focussed on climate change and the government’s woeful climate

nature

Claim Back Your Space

Any space can be rewilded by just standing back and letting nature get on with it, and many of our richest wild places were shaped this way. If the soil is nutrient poor this may be a good idea but all too often what you end up with are nettles,

nature

GBGW 2023: Why Measuring Matters and How You Can Help

We now know that wildlife and biodiversity in the UK is in a great deal of trouble – Clare Slater wrote about this in a recent editorial for CA-WN Exchange, and the BBC Wild Isles series spelled out the scale of the problem in beautifully filmed colour. A point made in

nature

The latest from CA-WN Exchange - June 2023

Often when I speak to people about the environment, the primary concern seems to be around greenhouse gas emissions and global heating. Indeed, the headlines that the 1.5-degree barrier will be breached soon (albeit temporarily for now) really do hook you into the media articles; it doesn’t take

nature

Watching Plants Creeping Northwards

Brian Laney, one of the Northamptonshire County Recorders of plants, talks of four species that are making their way north due to climate change. In recent years several wild plant species have appeared in the vice county of Northamptonshire which have never been seen in the county before ('vice

bookshelf

The Garden Jungle by Dave Goulson

The Garden Jungle or Gardening to Save The Planet: Professor Goulson is a mine of information about the natural world and a great communicator. There’s a lot of science in this book, but it’s clearly conveyed and easy to absorb. The science sits alongside a lot of practical

nature

Report from the 2022 AGM of the Wildlife Trust BCN

Jane Wood, Chair of CA-WN, has been a member of the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire for a few years, and as the Trust was holding its 2022 AGM in Northampton, it was a great opportunity to find out more about what the Trust is doing – “which turned

nature

Creating a meadow area from neglected grassland

Advice from Dave Musson, based on many years' practical experience. Many UK public amenity areas have suffered over the years from cheap, fast grass cutting, which leaves all cuttings on the ground. These cuttings rot down to benefit existing fast growing grass species to the detriment of weaker grasses

food & farming

Apples and Orchards, wild and domesticated

By Clare Robertson-Marriott To understand current human dependency on globalisation it might be useful to consider the provenance or origin of the things we buy: food items, textiles, cars and so on, and to accelerate the development of endeavours with a local or circular economic focus. We could begin with

nature

Gardening for Butterflies

David James, County Butterfly Recorder, looks at what to plant to attract butterflies and moths into our gardens A lot is quite rightly made of our fantastic butterfly sites here in Northamptonshire, and many people come from all over the country to visit our localised butterflies in places such as