ENGAGING SPECIFIC AUDIENCES
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Picnickers Litter-free Picnic Challenge
Taking a picnic to one of the forest’s popular picnic sites is a must for families and tourists in warmer weather. Picnics often bring an abundance of food and drinks packaging which can be easily left behind or blown away. We aimed to engage with people who use the forest’s many many picnic sites. In 2017, we launched the litter-free picnic challenge, recruiting 20 families in the Forest of Dean to trial a ‘litter-free picnic kit’. These kits contained a variety of reusable items which aimed to make it easy for users to leave picnic litter at home before they ventured into the forest. 585 families applied to receive one of our reusable kits, highlighting the popularity of reusables and desire for these kinds of products. Based on the feedback of these products, we created a vlog and inspiration guide encouraging people to hold their own litter-free picnic using reusable items that are commonly found in the home or can be purchased easily online. In 2018, we promoted these during national picnic week with a social media campaign and competition, where we invited local residents to share tips on having a zero-waste or litter-free picnic and tell us where their favourite picnic destination was in the Forest of Dean. The inspiration vlog has 6,884 views (as of 10th November): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtzOxd-uRcY.
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Mountain Bikers Anti-litter posters and litter biker
The Forest of Dean is home to some of the best cycling terrains in the country. People visit from all across the UK to take on the forest’s variety of trails which challenge riders of all levels and abilities. The vast majority of cyclists clearly love their forest and take their litter home but discarded bike related items including sports drinks, energy gels, discarded inner tubes, and nitrous oxide cartridges can still be found across trails and after bike events. We know that mountain bikers are often highly active on social media and we knew there were certain areas in the Forest of Dean where mountain bikers congregate at the start and end of trails. Therefore, we decided to create a highly visual art installation which related the issue of littering directly to mountain bikers. We commissioned litterartist Michelle Reader to produce a bespoke piece of artwork using bike-related litter. Anti-litter posters were additionally created for mountain bike businesses to display and communicate the issue to customers. The art installation was popular and was shared widely on social media, particularly Twitter and Instagram. The café where we hosted the sculpture requested to keep the installation for a longer period of time due to positive feedback from visitors. The installation will be touring Forestry Commission sites over Autumn/Winter 2018.