17th September 2024
Find out how BCT works with communities through projects like NightWatch in this interview with Lucy Houliston, our Survey Assistant. Lucy explains BCT's approach to outreach, and why we're working to remove barriers to participation in conservation. And she talks about her love for the 'overlooked' wildlife in the UK's towns and cities, which offers amazing opportunities to connect with nature.
What does a Survey Assistant do?
My job is a fantastic mix of science, equipment management, data uploading, community outreach and some comms too. The focus for my role is supporting Project NightWatch and British Bat Survey (BBatS).
Currently, I’m working with NightWatch’s community group leaders on accessible bat walks and surveys. I’ve already done a couple of ‘How to Run a Bat Walk’ training sessions with the group leaders, which was fun!
I love outreach because you get to share what you’re into with a whole new audience. For me, good science communication is as important as doing the science. It can inspire people and drive real change.
Can you tell us more about NightWatch?
NightWatch is a mix of hard science and community engagement. It's great to have those knitted together, because so often it's one or the other. For 2024, we’re focusing on engaging more people who are disabled, new to nature, or from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Many NightWatch events are collaborations with other organisations who are relevant to and connected with our target audience, like Sustainably Muslim and Wanderers of Colour. And we also team up with other wildlife conservation organisations like Butterfly Conservation.
What sort of events happen as part of NightWatch?
Everything from bat surveys to creative writing sessions, and the writing sessions have led to some impactful moments. For instance, as part of one, attendees shared the joys and challenges they’ve experienced trying to navigate outdoor spaces as people of colour. It was powerful stuff.
Some might question how valuable these sorts of things are to conservation, compared to collecting raw data. But stories and the like can forge connections and make nature meaningful in a new way.
And hopefully there’s a of win-win exchange for people that get involved. It's not just us taking. And this fits in with BCT’s aim to create a world where bats and people thrive together.
Tell us about some of the best NightWatch events so far
Two really stand out to me, one in London and the other in Birmingham.
The London one was in a little community garden surrounded by flats, about a 20-minute walk away from London's Waterloo station. We saw so many bats, there were everywhere, right in the middle of the city.
And the other was in Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust's Moseley Bog. In contrast to the London one, we only saw two bats! But it was a lovely, happy atmosphere with a good turnout, all ages from little kids to older people. People said Moseley Bog was a wild but peaceful place at night, and because we were a big group we felt safe there in the dark.
We made time for evening prayer for our Muslim attendees, following a conversation with Nazia Sultana (founder of co-hosts Sustainably Muslim). It was a simple thing you probably don't think about if you're not Muslim yourself. By having discussions with our collaborators and co-designers, we're starting to make our events more accessible and meaningful for more people.
What is at the core of your approach to outreach?
For me, it’s not about trying to get every single person interested in nature or asking them to completely overhaul their lives to make them more 'environmentally friendly'. But for those who might be interested, it’s about doing the work so they can engage if they want. We want to remove the barriers that the more traditional approach to conservation might have created.
It's something I like about BCT: we know we haven't always got it right - just like the broader conservation sector. There's more work to be done and we can't afford to drag our heels when it comes to that work. BCT tackles issues head-on, in an open, transparent way. And the whole team is committed to examining their own biases. It is difficult but it should be difficult, right?
What have you learned from doing outreach?
I learned that to move in the right direction, you've got to risk making mistakes.
And that you must be willing to be innovative and creative about engaging people. For example, BCT wants to engage more people from marginalised backgrounds, specifically people of colour. But I am not a person of colour and so I’m not representing the people that we're talking to. Whilst that’s limited some of what I can personally do in some ways, it inspired me to connect with other organisations and people and to learn from them, such as co-hosting events with Wanderers of Colour and Sustainably Muslim.
Do you think more people in your generation care about the climate and biodiversity crises?
There are loads of talented, passionate young people doing vital, heartfelt work on these crises and we should all be listening to them. I do feel like there's real movement in this space, younger people see what's happening and think: surely someone's got to do something about this. There's this feeling of responsibility, especially given how every single 'environmentally aware' young person seems to be put on a pedestal these days. There's no doubt that that takes its toll.
However, I don't know what the level of interest is among the younger generation more broadly. When and where I grew up, being into nature was seen as a peculiarity.
You’re also working on a research project to do with orchards in London
I love the idea of overlooked wildlife, there’s so much on our doorstep we don't notice, like bats. And this research, which is for a master's degree, lets me combine my love of unnoticed wildlife, urban ecology and citizen science.
My research looks at community orchards in and around London, which we know provide all sorts of social benefits but are understudied. I'm investigating how the urban environment and orchard features - think age, size, and connectedness to other green spaces - influence insect communities and the amount of carbon orchards store in their soils.
Some people might be surprised there’s so much wildlife to study in London
Many people think the urban environment is removed from nature. But we know you can take a bat detector and spot a load of bats minutes away from central London!
And the reality is that the UK is a human-dominated, increasingly urbanised landscape. Plus, a lot of the countryside is equally as modified as a city. So, we need to figure out how we can live alongside nature and embrace the fact nature is already in our cities.
It is that overlooked life here in the UK that first sparked my interest in nature when I was a kid. And being able to do something for wildlife on my doorstep is what drew me to BCT.
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