The Executive offered £35,000 over 2001-04 to the
Scottish Borders Rural Partnership to employ an
Environmental Community Development Worker to inspire
communities to understand, value and care for their local
natural environment. There was support also from Scottish
Natural Heritage (SNH).
The Scottish Borders Rural Partnership was set up in
1996 and has 22 partners including Scottish Borders
Council. It works with rural communities to improve
services, the environment and the general quality of life
for all Borders communities.
Complementing other work with community groups, the main
aim was to have an employee with specialist environmental
knowledge who would be proactive in inspiring communities
to understand, value and care for their local natural
environment. The target outputs included: development of
community environment projects, recruitment of
environmental volunteers, recognition of areas of special
local environmental importance and interagency conservation
projects.
The Partnership promoted the project through the local
media and encouraged people in the Scottish Borders to
contact the Environmental Fieldworker. This brought
enquiries from Berwickshire, Jedburgh, Melrose, Tweedbank
and Hawick with a range of project ideas including the
creation of community wildlife gardens, a
community-composting scheme and nature trail enhancements.
An Environmental Project Board was set up to steer the work
of the Environmental Fieldworker and ensure that targets
were being met. The group met quarterly and consisted of
representatives of SNH, Scottish Borders Council, Scottish
Environment Protection Agency, Forestry Commission,
Scottish Borders Environment Partnership and Southern
Upland Partnership.
The work included an audit of organisations with an
environmental interest working in the Scottish Borders, to
obtain a clearer picture of environmental activities, the
relationships between organisations with environmental
objectives and the level of involvement of the wider
community. Fifteen organisations contributed to this
audit.
The project assisted 43 community-based projects. This
included funding advice, natural heritage advice, training
in writing management plans, bird box making workshops,
other training workshops, linking up similar projects,
helping groups to become constituted and making links
between the communities and relevant agencies. All projects
were checked against the "sustainability checklist" as
agreed with SNH.
The Partnership identifies 102 new environmental
volunteers directly linked to the work of the fieldworker
but believes the number is probably a lot higher.
Several groups recognised "areas of special local
environmental importance" including the Cuddy Action Group,
Newcastleton Community Council, Bowden Village Committee,
Langlee Woodland Group, Reston Community Council, Newtown
and Eildon Action Group, Gordon Community Woodland and the
West Peebles Wildlife and Conservation Group.
Interagency projects with communities were assisted
including the Eyecather project, Priorsford Day Unit,
Gunknowe Loch Management Group, Scottish Ornithological
Club, East Berwickshire Natural History Festival and
Langlee Woodland Group.
Several "farm best practice sites" were identified
through the Local Biodiversity Action Plan and by
communities. Projects undertaken included involvement of
the East Berwickshire Natural History Festival Committee
who linked into three farm projects, Coldingham Primary
School and East Borders Chest Heart and Stroke Group.
There was work endeavouring to interest community groups
in projects that linked natural heritage, recycling and
renewable energy. This proved difficult as communities were
put off undertaking projects of this scale. However two
groups were assisted to develop projects that did fit the
criteria. These were the Garvald project and the Tweed
Valley Eco-villages project.
Activities undertaken by the Environmental Fieldworker
included:
· Development of an Environmental Policy and
Action Plan for the Rural Resource Centre - communities
were urged to develop a similar policy and plan if they did
not have one.
· Attending meetings of the Local Biodiversity
Action Plan Partnership, and Convenorship of the LBAP Urban
Group. This included getting three communities, Eyemouth,
Hawick and Smailholm, to take part in a wildflower project
in 2004.
· Work on developing community involvement in
the Scottish Borders Biological Records Centre including
helping the Biological Recorders group become
constituted.
· Attending meetings and events such as the
Bridging the Border steering group, the Kelso Paths
consultation, CAP Reform consultation, Scottish Borders
Countryside Staff Liaison Day and a meeting between SNH,
Scottish Borders Council and the Scottish Golf Environment
Group.
· Two training seminars run at the Community
Woodlands Conference on funding and skills networking.
· Giving an environmental talk at the One World
Week service for the churches in and around Galashiels, and
environmental workshop at an Eco-Congregation event in
March 2004.
· Representation in the Countryside Section at
the Border Union Show in July 2003.
· Enviro-bus tour in July/August 2003 to 25
communities, aimed at informing them how they could improve
the quality of the Scottish Borders environment and take
some positive environmental action.
Contact
Scottish Borders Rural Partnership
Rural Resource Centre
Tweed Horizons
Newton St Boswells
TD6 0SG
Telephone: 01835 824125