Celebrating Nature Recovery, Five Years on...
Nature Recovery Network is five years old! Come and celebrate with your picnics and friends in our community meadows by Swinford Lock on Saturday June 21st.
It is remarkable what we have collectively achieved over the last five years – so many groups coming together to benefit nature and so much now flourishing in the ground. The Beavers, the Scouts, the Schools, Eynsham Society, GreenTEA, Peace Oak, our Parish Council and District and County Councils, Long Mead Foundation, Mill Street Arts, Eynsham Community Choir, the Rotary Club, the Garden Club and Allotments, Eynsham News and Eynsham Online, FarmAbility, Bridewell and all our NRNers in neighbouring villages. The list is long and beautifully demonstrates the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.
The evidence of our collective efforts to make nature whole again is all around us. Five flourishing wildflowers meadows in Eynsham as well as 3 more created by residents in private greens, as well as new meadows in neighbouring villages. As part of our Hedge in Time Project, we've planted 2.6 kilometres of hedge in 10 villages and schools, with one kilometre planted in the Neyotts meadows by Swinford Lock on a single cold January day.
Over 20,000 rare plants have been lovingly propagated by NRN's Meadow Group and planted out by everyone. Now, we have acquired leases on around 100 acres of land along the river for us all to help nature recover in a mosaic of different habitats.
'Our Wildlife Needs You!' ran posters we put up in January 2020. Over 755 of us have joined up so far, and the numbers grow every week. We have expert led, long-term, surveys running for plants, birds, bats, water quality, butterflies, moths and other invertebrates. Gradually, we are building up a picture of what is surviving in the landscape around us, while building a cadre of local people with the skills and knowledge to manage and protect it.
If some days, the national and international news on the environment might make us feel our efforts might be futile there is nothing like getting your hands in the soil and watching the plants you have grown flourishing in our local landscape to make you feel better.
We hope to see as many of the networks members and partners on Saturday 21st June. Come down to the Neyotts Meadow between the toll bridge and the lock from 12-4pm.
We'll be making wildflower crowns, painting faces with Devil's bit scabious, Great burnet, Crested dog's tail (some of the rare plants that our face-painters are busy preparing for the day). Join the Beavers in an insect hunt, talk to our local scientists, take a taster bird survey, study the art of botanical drawing or take a guided walk through the glorious beauty of Long Mead's ancient wildflower meadow.
These are some of the delights that we are planning for the day, as well as a winners' exhibition of our photographic competition – there is still time to enter for a place in the show!