Saving England's most threatened species from extinction
Archive:
1st August 2019
Brome, Interrupted! Trying to conserve a species of grass doesn’t seem like a job at the most glamorous end of conservation. Interrupted brome (Bromus interruptus - not the most inventive of names) is an unassuming plant – not especially tall, it is a pleasant, mid-green colour and somewhat hairy. Its flowers are the same: green...
Read more22nd July 2019
Mosey in the Margins at South Down Farm On the 11th July, I headed down to South Down Farm in Marlborough, Devon for a joint event with the National Trust. We were hosting a guided walk around the beautiful coastal farm with locals to see what we could find, as well as learn more about...
Read more21st May 2019
As an integrated project, Colour in the Margins aims to deliver conservation benefits across a range of species reliant on arable farmland. Whilst the work that the project is carrying out is specifically designed to address the needs of 13 key species (10 plants and three ground beetles), it was set up to ensure...
Read more15th May 2019
I’m not going to lie, before I applied for the job as Outreach Officer for Colour in the Margins, I’d never really considered arable fields as a habitat for plants and the species that depend on them. I’ve always been interested in conservation and looking after the environment we are fortunate to have in...
Read more18th March 2019
Conservation is all about partnership.Without the exchange of knowledge, experience and ideas, very little can be achieved in farmland conservation – particularly here in the Wessex region. It can be easy for conservation organisations to become insular and locked into their specific taxa group, be it birds or plants or invertebrates, but the reality of...
Read more26th February 2019
Over the last few months, I’ve been working with the Colour in the Margins project to create poems and stories about the plants and animals from arable landscapes which they are working to bring back from the brink of extinction. As the Back From The Brink artist for the North, I could choose any project...
Read more30th January 2019
Chris' sculptural workshops took place last week at a local school in Thetford which sits within the Brecklands area - home to our Shifting Sands project... So that was fun, hectic and very productive! The sessions at the school went really well and the young students were brilliant, very patient and persevered with tricky...
Read moreGiven the microscopic scale of many of these Breckland species, and the difficulty in finding high-resolution images of them, it has me thinking about the thorny issue of the different ways in which we accurately record the natural world. Photography offers a so-called 'realistic' view of particular examples whilst traditional botanical illustrations present the most...
Read more18th January 2019
I'm standing in a park with my hand on a tree that looks like the plant version of 93 year old - all lines, bumps and rolls - there's so much detail to be found when looking closely. I feel wiser just by looking at it?! It's 10 o'clock in the morning on a blustery...
Read more17th December 2018
On the 9th of December, Amanda - our Back from the Brink Community Artist for the South-East led a beautiful event for our Colour in the Margins project, set in Kent. Our Community Art project is all about informing people of the rare and threatened wildlife, right on their doorstep - through creative processes. With...
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