Introduction

Welcome to your spring Wild Avon magazine, helping you to make the most of these bluer skies and greener surroundings we’re starting to see. Thanks to your continued support and donations to our Ash Dieback Appeal, we’ve spent the colder months undertaking a huge amount of work to mitigate the impact of this devastating disease on our reserves. You’ll be able to read more about this work and the difference you’ve made on page 27.

You might notice that this edition of your magazine is a little different from past issues – it’s a Team Wilder special. Some of you may already be familiar with our Team Wilder approach, for example if you attended our members’ talk and met some community members online last year, if you came to our AGM or are signed up to receive our email newsletters. For the uninitiated, we hope this magazine will bring it to life and inspire you to join this movement for a wilder future.

So, what is Team Wilder? In short, Team Wilder is a new way of working which aims to inspire and celebrate actions for wildlife, no matter how big or small they are. Anyone can be a part of Team Wilder and improve their patch for the benefit of nature and their neighbours. This is our way of supporting individuals and groups throughout the region, by sharing resources that have been developed by Team Wilder members who are already championing wildlife in their everyday lives. It’s a real community, and we can’t wait for you to be a part of it.

Throughout these pages, you’ll see tips and advice from members of Team Wilder, as well as recommendations from communities and organisations outside of Avon Wildlife Trust. If we want 1 in 4 people to be taking action for nature by 2030 then we need to empower them to share their knowledge and skills, and lend our voice so that we can all speak up for wildlife.

If you’ve been inspired to join Team Wilder, you can add the actions you’ve been taking for nature to our Team Wilder map and sign up for motivating emails filled with real-life stories from across Avon. Just visit avonwildlifetrust.org.uk/team-wilder

Ian Barrett

Chief Executive of Avon Wildlife Trust

Follow me on Twitter

@IanBarrettSW