Choose a gift with a difference this Christmas

Mistletoe, holly, robin and deer are all associated with Christmas, and all are reminders the season’s magic is tied in to the wonder of wintery wildlife. Show your appreciation for wildlife this festive season by following these simple suggestions from The Wildlife Trusts.
Gifts in the garden
When winter comes, the wildlife in your garden will suddenly find precious food sources are running low, and that conditions are less than comfortable.
With a little diet provision and some shelter, chances of survival suddenly become much improved. So, when allocating Christmas gifts, spare a thought for species outside and spend a little time making your garden more wildlife-friendly.
• Feed the birds. Put out high energy foods like fat balls and seeds, and provide fresh clean water. Remember, once you start feeding them, keep supplies topped up so they don’t burn energy coming to your garden only to be disappointed. For a fun family activity, why not make your own bird seed cake? To find out how, watch The Wildlife Trusts’ fun and simple instructional video at www.youtube.com/user/WildlifeWatchUK
• Let your garden go a bit wild. Immaculately tidy gardens with trimmed grass and no debris provide little shelter or food for wildlife. Unruly ivy and long grass provide countless nesting places for insects, beetles, spiders and more – also food for some garden visitors.
• Piles of leaves and other garden litter can provide shelter for small critters, such as voles and ladybirds, and you might even have a hedgehog move in.
• Provide somewhere for amphibians - they seek out crevices to squeeze into, so leaving piles of rocks or logs around the garden can help. Of course, muddy ponds appeal too, and winter can be a good time to dig out a pond in your garden, giving it time to establish before spring.
A resident robin singing in the depths of winter or the first sight of a brightly coloured butterfly, emerging in early spring, are great sources of pleasure. So, it’s not just plants and animals that benefit from a wildlife-friendly Christmas garden, but people too. For more information on how to make your garden wildlife-friendly in December, visit the Wild About Gardens website www.wildaboutgardens.org.
Gifts for wildlife lovers
Many of us may be mindful of waste this Christmas – perhaps wishing to avoid acres of wrapping paper, and unwanted gifts finding their way into landfill. The Wildlife Trusts offer a range of gifts with minimum packaging, and which help ensure the UK’s special landscapes and wildlife retain their beauty and vitality into the future. Choose from an extensive range of wildlife adoption and sponsorship schemes which help protect species, and habitats such as:
• Red squirrels
• Great crested newts
• Stag beetles
• Barn owls
• Konik ponies
• Wildflower meadows
• Ancient woodlands
For details of all available adoption schemes visit: www.wildlifetrusts.org/index.php?section=gifts:adoptions
Membership of an individual Wildlife Trust means free entry to all their reserves and events, and is absolutely vital to the work they do protecting and promoting wildlife on their local patch. So why not consider giving the gift of Wildlife Trust membership for Christmas? You can find out how here: www.wildlifetrusts.org/index.php?section=helping:membership.
Young people can join The Wildlife Trusts junior branch, Wildlife Watch, with a newly-designed membership pack, magazine and website for 2010 – visit: www.wildlifewatch.org.uk/Membership

Take a Bough

We did our bit!

Tees Valley Wildlife Trust and BBC Breathing Places would like to that everyone who helped in the attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the number of trees planted in one hour in multiple locations.
Over 80 members of the public, local cubs and scouts were joined my Councillor Paul Kirton the Mayor of Stockton on Preston Farm Nature reserve on Saturday and managed to plant a total of 1247 trees in 60 minutes.
The event was part of National Tree Week and was part of an attempt to plant a million trees across the country beating the current record of 653,143 trees.


The tree planting is part of the creation of a new nature reserve on 17 hectares of farmland, on the floodplain ad valley sides of the River Tees at Preston Farm in Stockton.

The trees planted through event contribute to the planned 12500 which will form a new woodland linking areas of ancient semi-natural woodland at Bassleton Woods and Preston Hall.

Decisive, deliberate, and dynamic action needed at Copenhagen

- The Wildlife Trusts to present PM with pledge

The Wildlife Trusts will send a direct message to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, urging him to deliver a positive and far-reaching agreement at the UN Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December.

The message, in the form of a large postcard signed by all 47 Wildlife Trusts, will be delivered by a representative of the leading conservation organisation.
The postcard reads:
Please secure a positive and far-reaching climate change agreement in Copenhagen – we, and our wildlife, depend upon it.

Our 47 Wildlife Trusts around the UK, have a combined membership of nearly 800,000. We all care deeply about the future of our natural environment, on land and at sea, especially in a changing climate.

The impact of climate change on people and the natural environment – upon which we all depend – is predicted to be dramatic. We need to take a positive step towards a legal agreement to reduce greenhouse gases by 40% by 2020. The Conference must recognise the role of natural ecosystems, such as forests and peatlands, in storing carbon. This is vital for us all.

“We are putting far too much pressure on our planet which is already having devastating impacts on both people and the natural world that we depend on,”

said Jeremy Garside, Chief Executive of Tees Valley Wildlife Trust, which has 12000 members.

“We know this is a global problem, but the UK Government is in a position to take a lead on this, and to show other nations what can be achieved.


“We would urge the Government to commit to a 40% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020. Decisive, deliberate, and dynamic action needs to be taken on this, before it’s too late for wildlife and for people.”


The Wildlife Trusts across the UK are raising awareness of the threat climate change poses to people and the natural environment, and working to help protect wildlife from the impacts of climate change. People can sometimes feel helpless in the face of such a huge challenge, but The Wildlife Trusts believe that by empowering communities and inspiring people to take action locally for their natural environment, they can help contribute to the global cause.
Gary Mantle is the Director of Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and will travel to Copenhagen to deliver the postcard on behalf of The Wildlife Trusts. He said:

“For the sake of both wildlife and people, we need tough decisions to be taken at Copenhagen. In showing the strong leadership that will be needed, it is important that the UK Government knows that it has strong support from the public. We must not forget that any agreement at Copenhagen is just the start, it must be followed by urgent action. Time is running out.”

Artistic pupils rock up to quarry

PUPILS from a primary school have been digging deep to explore a quarry site as part of a regional project.


A team of 28 youngsters from Year Five at Clavering Primary, in Clavering Road, Hartlepool, have been exploring the active quarry at Hart, owned by Sherburn Stone Company, with the help of a professional artist as part of a project titled Going Underground.

The Project, which is run by Tees Valley Arts and funded by Natural England, involved four different schools from the Tees Valley area and has enabled the children from these schools to explore and improve their knowledge and understanding of subjects such as geodiversity, biodiversity and local heritage.
One class from each school explored a quarry site through a number of exciting creative art forms with the help of a professional artist and local wildlife, history and geological specialists.
Joe Dunne, Tees Valley Arts' Heritage Officer said: "Through using the arts in this way, this project is providing an exciting and innovative means of interpreting unusual sites as a source of national curriculum learning."

Wild about Gardens

If you have an interest in wildlife gardening it is well worth visiting a new website which has been set up by The Wildlife Trusts in artnership with the Royal Horticultural Society it can be found at  http://www.wildaboutgardens.org.uk/

“The RHS and The Wildlife Trusts – encouraging wildlife into your garden”

Wildplaces

I have started to follow an excellent blog  Tees Valley Wildplaces - try it at http://wildplacesteesvalley.blogspot.com/
Some splendid video of urban mammals.

Tree O'Clock

Why not join us for Tree O'Clock and help the UK to set the Guinness World Record™ for the most trees planted in one hour! We are planning a mass tree-planting moment across the UK, with partners and the general public, between 11am and 12noon on Saturday 5 December.
For more details contact info@teeswildlife.org .
Or visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/breathingplaces/treeoclock/

Marine Bill at last

Riding the Wave - The Wildlife Trusts’ welcome a Marine and Coastal Access ACT!

It’s almost ten years since The Wildlife Trusts first pointed out that the seas around the UK, containing half our wildlife, were in dire trouble. Now, as a result of our combined effort (staff, members and volunteers) we have, after over ten years of campaigning secured a Marine and Coastal Access Act! During November, the Bill (which spent an incredible 6 months in the House of Lords - the second longest Bill in history!) received royal ascent and became an Act! So how did we get here?

• 1999 Devon Wildlife Trust reach an agreement with local scallop fishermen not to damage sensitive reefs
• 2000 The Wildlife Trusts first call for new marine legislation
• Jan 2002 500 common dolphins, drowned in high-speed seabass trawling nets, wash up on the beaches of England and north west France
• 2002 The Wildlife Trusts publish two reports showing the threats to UK marine ecosystems and how science-based planning could avoid them
• 2003 A record 100 basking sharks seen, but 265 dolphins found dead off the south west. Scientists estimate 67,500 have died as fishing bycatch in 15 years
• 2004 Mass breeding failures by UK seabirds. Wildlife-rich reefs in Ulster’s Strangford Lough wiped out by dredge trawlers
• 2005 Government commits to new marine legislation. Lyme Bay fishing agreement breaks down, exposing wildlife-rich reefs to total destruction. Seabirds suffer second year of breeding failure
• 2007 Government publishes Marine Bill white paper. The Wildlife Trusts deliver more than 170,000 ‘petition fish’ signatures to Downing Street in support of the Bill
• 2008 Only 18 bottlenose dolphins remain off Cornwall. Government bans scallop dredging in Lyme Bay. UK Marine and Coastal Access Bill enters Parliament
• May 2009 The Wildlife Trusts (along with WWF, RSPB and The Marine Conservation Society) participated in a lobby in Westminster to secure amendments within the Bill
• November 2009 UK Marine Bill becomes an Act!



The future of our marine life?
Now, the journey really begins. We have in place the necessary legislation to allow the creation of an ecologically coherent network of Marine Protected Areas. This network will be implemented through four regional Marine Conservation Zone projects – the North Sea project is called Net Gain. Our job is to ensure the MPA network is established with wildlife at the heart, protecting not only the rare and threatened but a range of marine species and habitats. Through input into the Net Gain project we will provide information and data supporting the establishment of Marine Conservation Zones. However, we cannot do this alone. We need your help to achieve our vision of Living Seas, ones in which wildlife thrives from the depths of the ocean to the coastal shallows, where wildlife recovers from past declines and adapts to climate change and where people feel inspired by marine wildlife and the value the sea has on their quality of life. Help us do this and join us on our journey towards Living Seas by:

• Getting outside and exploring your marine environment, visiting a local coastal nature reserve.
• Telling others what’s out there, helping us promote the marine environment
• Sending us underwater photographs, videos or your stories of the sea
• Or by attending events or helping volunteer to collect valuable information that will highlight areas of marine life in need of protection.

For more information or to download TWT Living Seas vision, a map of our coastal nature reserves or factsheets on Marine Protected Areas visit
http://www.northseawildlife.org.uk/

Tees Valley Wildlife Trust
• Despite just 38 miles of coastline, the Tees Valley has a lot to offer with respect to marine wildlife.
• The coastal cliffs of the Tees Valley are home to internationally important numbers of breeding kittiwakes, alongside other seabirds such as fulmars and cormorants, while the grassland clifftops are home to coastal wildflowers including Spiny Restharrow, Sea Plantain and Wild Carrot.
• The majority of the coastline however, consists of shingle beaches and sand and mud flats. Such areas are both important breeding areas for little terns and ringed plovers, and important feeding grounds for sanderling and oystercatchers.
• As a direct result of environmental improvements, common seals have returned to the Teesmouth after an absence of nearly 60 years, the only known estuary in Europe where seals have done so for this reason. Small but successful breeding populations have established themselves at Seal Sands, Greatham Creek and Billingham Beck, and now account for 2% of the English population.