Due to the even better than expected success of ‘Wildlife Wardens’ – a grassroots community project that empowers local people to protect and restore wildlife habitat in their local area – DEF is delighted to support the team for a second year by contributing toward the cost of their excellent Co-ordinator.

In June 2021, we visited the project, met the inspirational project lead and co-ordinator, and some of the brilliant Wildlife Warden volunteers, and saw some of the  incredible impact they have had on the ground enhancing local wildlife habitat.

The Wildlife Wardens scheme encourages volunteers to get involved with helping wildlife on their patch, which benefits nature and also people by providing a meaningful way for them to get involved and feel needed, which is good for their mental health.

DEF’s funding will enable the part-time Coordinator to organise training, keep  records of new and on-going wildlife projects, and deal with day-to-day requests for information and advice from other parishes so that the impact can be replicated across Devon.

In the first year they trained over 80 Wildlife Wardens in over 36 different Parishes – each carrying out practical projects (such as pond management, tree-planting, hedge-planting, meadow management), making contact with farmers/landowners, and partaking in training days, and and communicating about the benefits of wildlife gardening via Parish magazines, green events, and even a very popular monthly podcast. Of particular value, many of the new Wildlife Wardens helped by responding to the Teignbridge Local Plan consultation on sites.