Taking a CSR day in nature: a short story
By: Sophia Bell
Tags: Volunteering, Environment, Conservation, Csr

No better way to promote rewilding and conservation CSR days than by taking part in one myself. It’s off to Sydenham woods…

Our tools for the day

When I first started at DMW, I was delighted to find out we are able to take 2 CSR days a year for a charity or cause of our choice. I’ve been a member of the London Wildlife Trust for a number of years and regularly keep up with local volunteer opportunities near my home, so was looking forward to using one of my CSR days volunteering locally. This time I signed up for a day working at Sydenham woods, a unique mix of new and ancient woodland at the Trust’s oldest nature reserve.

It’s my aim with this post to promote taking a rewilding or environmental conservation CSR day to my colleagues and anyone else interested in giving a little time to their local conservation effort.

The day

Having read and re-read the ticket for the day, as well as pouring over the LWT website, I still managed to leave the house without suitable footwear or a packed lunch. My worry that I wouldn’t be able to find the group and/or be late seemingly managed to supersede my concerns of comfort, practicability and nourishment. Thankfully it was immediately obvious where we were meeting once I entered the wood and walked down the steps to the old abandoned railway entrance (which I’m reliably informed is home to an endangered species of bat).

spooky (and slightly blurry)

Sydenham wood volunteer days offer a variety of activities to take part in from coppicing and dead hedging to litter-picking and fencing. Our task today was to help widen a path and demarcate where it is suitable to walk. With the advent of Covid, Sydenham woods has seen a boom in visitors and maintenance tasks have increased as a result. The hope is that with a wider path, walkers will be less inclined to take short cuts and trample areas that will soon be home to insects, wild flowers and burgeoning plant life.

With a borrowed pair of steel-capped wellies, gardening gloves, a wheelbarrow full of tools and some new friends, we started creating our path. I knew from the offset that the day was likely to be intensive but wasn’t quite expecting a morning of digging up clay and smashing bricks (definitely going to feel it tomorrow). To make sure the path wouldn’t become a muddy trail and to provide grip, the path needed a base covering of smashed bricks, followed by a coating of hoggin (a mixture of clay, gravel and sand).

smash!

While the morning was spent expending pent-up lockdown energy, the afternoon was a reminder that we’ve all missed one too many gym sessions — transporting hoggin in wheelbarrows is absolute murder on the forearms. Having dumped the hoggin over our bricks, we then raked it into place and patted it down (simultaneously relocating a large number of worms who probably weren’t having the best day). Our path was complete!

Our final task of the day was to create a very basic fence using stakes and warning tape. Had there been more time, a sturdier structure would have been attempted, most likely via the method of dead hedging, where branches and twigs are arranged to form a barrier.

Not sure how long these will stay up

Overall I had a great day — met some wonderful people, got to be outside working in nature, managed to largely avoid the rain, learnt a lot about the local area, ate some homemade stollen, saw a woodland rat (better outside than in), and had a jolly good workout to boot! And I’m pretty sure I saw a wild Sandi Toksvig walking her dog just before we left.

Socially distanced lunchtime stollen

How you can get involved

Taking rewilding/conservation CSR days may have been trickier this year, but things are starting to look up. A number of organisations have started to accept volunteers again (albeit in limited numbers and with certain precautions in place) and you can receive regular updates via their volunteer newsletters. The various Wildlife Trusts around the country are a good place to start but you should also check out Rewilding Britain for local groups and projects.

To all my DMW colleagues — if you want to take a CSR day in nature then just get in touch and we will find opportunities for you in your area.

To everyone else — see you in the woods!