Climate change and the need on the one hand to limit it as much as possible and on the other hand to best adapt to the new conditions are among the main challenges of our society.  Therefore, related objectives have been agreed at international and European levels and nature and biodiversity are more and more present at the core of urban development policies. The EU Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy - launched in 2008 and gathering local governments voluntarily committed to achieving and exceeding the EU climate and energy targets - is explicitly promoting the use of green and blue systems the same as the EU Strategy on Green Infrastructure. Furthermore, the sustainable land use and nature-based solutions (NBS) is one of the 14 thematic areas of the Urban Agenda, while the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 sees NBS as a key element of sustainable urban development. Additionally, the Covid pandemic making people aware that access to nature is crucial for well-being, has rendered NBS approaches and projects like Green Minds more relevant than ever.

Plymouth is the biggest city in the South West peninsular with a population of 263,100 people, estimated to rise to 300,000 by 2034. It is a waterfront locality with more than 30% greenspace. However, managing green space in England is not a statutory function for local authorities. Moreover, increased pressure on municipal government budgets has reduced the amount of funding and investment into greenspace, which has led to a decline in green space quality. Currently, 50% of Plymouth’s greenspaces do not meet quality thresholds although residents in poorer areas use local green/blue spaces less frequently. In addition, Plymouth’s green/blue infrastructure is owned and managed by multiple organisations that have traditionally not worked in partnership.

Budget cuts have also resulted in a much reduced staff resource and loss of specialist knowledge within the city’s green estate management. Since 2012, 20% of the green estate workforce has been lost. With continued pressure on the public budget, the quality of local natural infrastructure could further decline, fewer people will use it and the cost of reinstatement will increase. Beyond the lost value and increased costs, and also the most important in this equation, it is the fact that the progressive deterioration of the urban environment negatively affects people’ health and wellbeing.

The official launch of “Green Minds” took place in October 2020 between 12th and 20th under the title “Green Minds – Making nature matter in Plymouth”. Given the particular context of the pandemic, the few in person events were complemented by numerous online activities that took the form of interactive webinars. Adapting to online events allowed the participation of a much larger number of people than in normal conditions and facilitated a very good promotion of Green Minds. These exchanges enabled the effective adaptation of the project vision and delivery depending on the feedback from participants. Furthermore, the launch engaged different organisations and individuals that were not usually among the traditional nature audience.

The roadmap of the project was summarised in a short clip uploaded on the project website and used for the promotion of the Green Minds vision and activities.

Since the beginning of the project there was a lot of engagement work done in terms of communities and other professionals, focused on the five key themes and corresponding investment sites chosen as innovation test beds: 

All the overarching challenges identified at the initiative level were already anticipated and addressed with agility so that not to affect the project success chances and ensure the best use of resources to achieve the highest overall impact in the given circumstances.

During the preparation phase of the project there were identified two overarching challenges, namely:

• Plymouth’s green/blue infrastructure is owned and managed by multiple organisations that have traditionally not worked in partnership and

• Budget cuts have also resulted in a much-reduced staff resource and loss of specialist knowledge within the city’s green estate management.

Since the beginning of the project, the challenges faced were mainly related to stewardship, ownership, data visibility and use, administrative competency and Covid pandemic generating the recruitment freeze and imposing the adaptation of the activities for online engagement. 

Pool Farm is a built-up area with a large green space in the middle where the beavers have been introduced, which is a unique endeavour. At the North of that city farm, there is a big housing development with a huge road project over the top of the site, both representing important challenges. They imply a huge loss of trees and efforts were made to save and protect this green space. Some 4-5 years ago, PCC has been able to negotiate with those developers, to support the wildlife improvement. The idea was to enhance the biodiversity through a development contribution negotiation system that exists in the UK. At the moment, the City Council is holding that land and that came with the exceptional opportunity to take this rewilding approach to a large greenspace (that wasn’t previously accessible to the public), but also reorganise it as an education and volunteering base. As the city council does not necessarily want to own huge pieces of land difficult to manage, in the long term the aim is to transform it into a form of community trust. The process related to the beaver release has taken about 3 years of negotiations to obtain the necessary national level approvals, but also to convince the other services and departments in the local administration, like the engineers that helped with the flood defence consent, to accept this approach.

As the Green Minds coordinator affirmed:

One of the big lessons about rewilding is about letting go, about not knowing  what the end solution would be, but trusting that nature will come up with a solution.  It is very hard when working with engineers say we do not know how these beavers are going to manage this water catchment, but we do know from all this evidence that they will, but we cannot model that exactly in the way we can model a concrete pipe.

However, unlike concrete pipes, beavers can adapt over night the flood management system, which is extremely beneficial when overflow events are more and more frequent and unpredictable.

Beavers cannot stand the sound of running water, so when it rains heavily, they immediately build more downs to slow the water down, which is a perfect example of nature-based solutions. But this challenges an engineer used to work  in a linear mode, to trust innovative approaches knowing we cannot predict how, when and where the beavers will build their dams. Another specific challenge was related to the beaver’s welfare as the reintroduction was done in an urban context with busy roads. Therefore, a big enclosure was built with a special fencing system allowing other animals already present in that urban area to move through, but stopping the beavers.

These were technical challenges, but Green Minds also had challenges related to the Covid pandemic such contractor/suppliers restrictions during the first lockdown. Therefore some of the City Council street staff were deployed to work on some of the green estate management. These were persons mainly from the grass cutting team, who enjoyed the process of delivery and learning about wider nature-based work. Staff learnt new skills, build relationships with the community park team and also became more connected to nature. The Streets staff are passionate and proud of being part of the beaver reintroduction – and have shared this widely with friends, family and through social media. This included being filmed as part of BBC national television series, WinterWatch. There was a huge emotional reaction related to the beaver release for those involved in the reintroduction, and the wider Plymouth community. An important social media upscaling was noticed on local government pages, an unexpectedly high enthusiasm replacing often negative debate and complains. Moreover, a lead politician attended the release as well as other senior managers.

A lot of groundwork was done at the beginning as part of a research project into social perceptions of the beaver release eg. talking with people about the reintroduction of the beaver, how that would feel, what were their reactions and their concerns. This contributed to the positive feedback together with the communication joining the release itself and follow up. There has been a large interest and uptake of beaver-related volunteering. Now the question is how all that excitement and passion around this charismatic species can be effectively capitalised to accept and connect with wider urban rewilding initiatives. For example, get people accept more weeds on the side of their roads or that things can be less tidy or less pesticides used in the streetscape so that to enable a richer environment. On the other side, a high level of interest in volunteering was manifested, people willing to help. Volunteering engagement and participation across other rewilding approaches are really important, allowing not rely just on paid staff.

An additional challenge is derived from the uncertainty of such an innovative approach regarding ecosystem regulation, as nobody can be 100% sure how this experiment is going to work out in a small urban area.  The hydrology, the ecology and the water quality are being now monitored as well over time and compared to another nearby water course very similar in conditions, but having more hard engineering approach to control experiments and see what learning will have over the next 3 years and beyond.

The Covid crisis is still a big challenge, but also provided some unexpected opportunities, like the development of the “Taking action for insects” operation. Over the past years, PCC has been constantly looking for solutions to increase the number of wildflowers across the city. Small scale campaigns were done to get people on board, but in 2020 this action really took off. This was partially because of Covid hindering regular grass cut actions that the Council does. The grass cutting schedule was produced, but it was obvious it could not be followed. Therefore, a strong public campaign was organised on the value of wildflowers and pollinating insects to the city life. Besides, staff on the ground was supported to understand why things were changing, so when public came spoke to them, they could actually give some information and explain why the grass wasn’t being cut as usual. A side effect was that by better understanding the process, when asked what they were doing, instead of answering “we are cutting grass”, local public workers said “we are habitat managers”. Similarly to the story of beavers, they started to have a sense of pride, talk about what types of insects they have noticed and gained enthusiasm.

This action also capitalised on a national campaign called NoMawMay, engaging schools and communities, taking photographs, competitions and fund raising campaigns. Normally people do not like give money to public authorities because they are already paying their taxes. But this time, they were willing to donate to create more wild meadows and lots of people came on board. This strong involvement was also encouraged through creative online sessions offering various motivating opportunities, when usual activities were very much restricted, and people were in need of engagement and community.

Webinars were delivered on how to take actions for insects as an individual either at own level player or in own garden, small scale actions people can take simply and at no cost. Additionally, a rewilding network was set up to help understand people priorities and the balance between cities and nature that rewilding can bring, build a shared vision and enable people to contribute in their own way when they aim to. There was a strong focus on how to support people collect data and share that, again engaging schools, but also families in informal learning. People showed enthusiast about getting involved in practical activities, like planting, seeding, including caring of local spaces.

There are further challenges especially related to perceptions about what public space should look like. Thus, efforts are being done to change opinions and support appreciation of wildflowers and more wild-scapes.  In order to bring forth wildlife and get a critical mass of involvement allowing a change of perception, new volunteering opportunities are being provided based on the needs and wishes expressed, also focusing on artistic approaches. In this sense an interesting work was done with the Rebel Botanists by chalking on pavement the names of plants they see on pavements and paths that people would normally not notice.

Building on this participative approach, the intention is to increase the wildflower areas also capitalising in between spaces, not just wide parks and large green spaces and stir a sense of collective responsibility as habitat managers, whether we are living, working or visiting places. Following requests from a community group who want to do their own weeding in their neighbourhood, pesticides-free streetscapes are going to be trailed in the coming period.

This Covid year has seen a change in how people are perceiving, connecting, and valuing their natural environments. Enjoying nature has often been the only thing one could do for much of this period.  Hence, people started valuing this experience much more highly and realising it is beneficial for their own health and own being. Furthermore, there is a kind of rediscovering, quite timely with Green Minds so we have got a pivotal point to capitalise on. The ecological crisis is gaining more recognition everywhere, and in the UK, there was a big review about the economics of uncertainty emphasising that the ecological crisis is fuelling an extreme risk on uncertainty for the economic situation and wellbeing. Therefore, the system approach taken with Green Minds (across different disciplines and elements of land in Plymouth) seems particularly appropriated in this challenging context. At an organisational level, this is translated through the efforts made to provide opportunities of connection to nature, but also to add different disciplines and groups so that to create a rewilding movement in Plymouth and kind of support that gives nature that voice. Attention has been given to how to make it easy for different stakeholders to participate whether this is taking place into their own space, professionals making a decision that is much more supportive of nature or whether this is how we respond to nature in our own policies and strategies. PCC tries to keep the right balance between enhanced opportunities and freedom and control, facilitating exciting rewilding creative opportunities, while not getting out of control. As an example, the action proposed by Rebel Botanists would not have been accepted some 5 years ago as technically, in the UK, to chalk on pavement is illegal. But actually, it is not something permanent, so given this particular context, PCC was more open and supportive to such initiative. Referring to this, Zoe Sydenham, Natural Infrastructure Projects and Partnerships Manager at PCC summarised the learning they had from this experience: “This is a small example, but I think it worth taking more of these approaches and that is important how we as a partnership remain open to new ways of working, we invite all this learning in, we become playful and creative. So, one of the things we are talking about is actually do we have the kind of our culture of collective action to look at all these new conversations across the city about what nature means, what does rewilding mean? Let’s look at creative, playful interventions and opportunities and kind of start some of those conversations to see what works […] We are really interested in how we work as a programme and how we not just increase the natural vibe, connection to nature in our city, but also how are supposed people to take more collective ownership of spaces, so we are talking about stewardship process for which themes are working across.” The rewilding network is one of the examples, as people are looking at nature corridors across the city, the network is supporting that as well as having more collective ownership over rewilding processes in Plymouth.

What has worked well until now was principally related to the connections developed between people that resulted into a strong resilient partnership and new relationships with different organisations. While imposing significant restrictions and adjustments, Covid came up with several opportunities such as the digital involvement and the positive shift in favour of rewilding practices, allowing the engagement of a wider audience. The adaptation of wildflower and grass management was easier accepted due to the broader shift about how much people value nature and relation with nature and pesticide free trials were possible to organise. Moreover, there were many people wanting to get involved in nature volunteering in Plymouth and a positive change has been noticed regarding the statute and attitude of local grass cutting staff.

Despite the challenges of each organization, change on the ground was still delivered, and it is really important that it is visible (like beaver reintroduction and urban trees campaign) and accompanied by the communication development and visual identity of the website.

Digital engagement was certainly a great opportunity, but, being the only approach possible over a longer period, a broader challenge raised about advancing relationships more in depth. In terms of communication, the main question that remained is how GM team builds on the attraction of the charismatic beaver reintroduction, to expand a wider perception of rewilding and rewild in-between spaces.

The systems approach taken for Green Minds also meant a challenge and an opportunity of allowing this creativity between space and the need to get things done. The main issue was how experiment can be done while allowing tangible change, making the most of the links across the partnership and building a cross-sectoral support.

Since the start of the project, the Covid pandemic was the key issue from which resulted most of the challenges. Things could not be done on site and long-time planning became difficult because nobody could be sure what situation and the government guidance would be. Some of the missing audiences for green space could not be reached as usual, so adaptations were needed. More digital tools were used, which came with their limitations as well. Furthermore, on-site events had to be condensed in a very short time, depending on the limited restrictions easing.  All missed actual physical connection with nature and the “real” world. Now the question is how to meet nature but also how to bring along wider stakeholders and audiences to have those real-world opportunities as well. GM partners are also concerned about the impact of the project, the long-term durability of the quantitative and qualitative changes and how this can be captured. In this sense, attention is paid not just to the results themselves, but also to the process of achieving them, that is considered equally important. 

Among the main learnings there are to be mentioned:

• the awareness regarding the role of nature and its connection with health and wellbeing ;

• the ability to gather all the different evidence and feedback the project quickly so that to be able to adapt deliveries, which is related to the action-research approach;

• the acquaintance with digital engagement that can be also capitalised for in person meetings.

Some changes became necessary, for instance an immersive film has to be produced looking at evidence from learning on relationship with nature instead of having a series of immersive experiences on the ground. Furthermore, preparation has to be done for the time when more shared site visits and knowledge sharing activities will be possible, so that to capitalise as much as possible on what has been already achieved in terms of knowledge, methodology, structures etc.

Connections with wider stakeholder group need to be continued and extended so that to increase the opportunities to put nature at the core of decision making. A leadership in nature programme has been put in place. In the coming period the partnership will extend the approach from the Central Park to the whole city and work on the knowledge sharing and scaling up also beyond Plymouth, in other urban areas, based on the audience segmentation and targeting that has been already started.

Capturing the impact on wellbeing and increased knowledge on nature remain essential for understanding people’s attitudes, connections with nature and changes over time.

To build a sense of collective responsibility to care for green/blue spaces, GM partners decided to focus on:

• Providing opportunities for connection to nature and others –independent, group and virtual

• Accessibility -making it easy for stakeholders to participate

• Responding to community opportunities as they arise -not being too prescriptive

• Being open to new ways of working –inviting learning, innovation and play!

For me as an expert, despite the fact that the pandemic prevented me from visiting the project site, it made me interact more directly with all project partners. I have assisted project meetings and participated in most events, keeping somehow closer to the project and its main stakeholders than in normal times and accompanying the quick shift from face-to-face events to online ones.

COMMUNICATION & SOCIAL CHANNELS

• Project website: https://greenmindsplymouth.com/

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NaturePlymouth

• Twitter: www.twitter.com/NaturePlymouth