Do you have a pesticide reduction story to tell?

Izzy Pulletz from The Natural History Consortium is looking for tips and stories from organisations, groups and community gardens introducing more wildlife-friendly methods into their gardening and planting. Find out how you can get involved in the campaign.

Throughout 2023, The Natural History Consortium is leading the People for Pollinators project across the West of England to support and inspire residents to create pollinator and wildlife-friendly habitats, funded by the West of England Combined Authority.

As part of this project, we are running an exciting collaborative comms campaign all about reducing pesticide use and introducing wildlife-friendly gardening into our planting and growing practices!

Are you an organisation, group or community garden committed to improving local wildlife? We’d love to showcase your practical stories of wildlife-friendly gardening and pesticide reduction as part of this comms campaign.

Do you have a pesticide reduction story to tell?

We’re seeking short stories and pieces of advice to share with the public on a free online resource page, aimed at people in the West of England who wish to reduce their reliance on pesticides and introduce more wildlife-friendly methods into their gardening and planting.

This could be:

· A real-life story / example of a positive change taken place to reduce pesticide use and/or integrate wildlife-friendly gardening alternatives.

· A more general tip or piece of advice for reducing reliance on chemicals and encouraging pollinators and/or other wildlife.

We’re particularly keen to put faces and names to stories, for example:

“I wanted to keep slugs and snails off my allotment plot but didn’t want to use chemicals to deter them. I knew that hedgehogs ate them, so decided to create a hedgehog house. I cut an entrance out of an old wooden crate put some dry leaves inside. I covered it with small logs and leaves to make it look natural.” Izzy, The Natural History Consortium

“Last summer, we noticed a lack of bees and butterflies in our community garden and wanted to do something to encourage them. We bought pollinator-friendly wildflower seeds and planted along the edges of the garden. We’re planning to record pollinator sightings from late spring to monitor the difference.” Ellie, The Natural History Consortium

We will be compiling these stories and tips into a free online resource bank hosted on our website. Users will be able to explore inspiring examples of where individuals, groups and organisations are reducing pesticide use and encouraging pollinators and other wildlife through nature-friendly gardening and planting.

We need your help to spread the message!

We’re also inviting local organisations and groups to be part of the dissemination stage of this campaign by sharing the resource page and their own stories from it on social media and/or newsletters. We would be thrilled if you were able to take part in sharing the collection of examples and advice to your online audiences.

Get in touch

We’d love to hear about the changes you’ve implemented to reduce pesticides and support pollinators and other wildlife and showcase it to our West of England audience. Please send your example, name, organisation/group and photos to izzy@bnhc.org.uk before 31 May.

We look forward to hearing from you!

This campaign is part of the Natural History Consortium-led People for Pollinators project, which has been funded by the West of England Combined Authority’s Community Pollinator Fund.

The Natural History Consortium (NHC) is a charitable collaboration of 14 organisations working together on a shared mission: to develop, test and disseminate best practice to engage everyone with the environment and natural world. NHC are organisers of the annual Festival of Nature and Communicate conference. Find out more on the NHC website.