news & talk in the community

A new ‘natural environment’ toolkit has been produced which is aiming to provide advice to people living in Devon who want to get more involved in their surrounding natural and historic environment. To celebrate the launch Devon County Council are making a number of small grants available to help set up local groups, continue an existing project or get a new one underway.

The concept was to develop a ‘toolkit’ that would guide communities in engaging with the natural environment whilst putting them in control of the process. This type of approach is similar to that used in Community Led Planning (Parish Plans) where the community are the drivers; determining the objectives, method and content of their local plan. The community are signposted to those who might be able to support their endeavours, but the decision to engage is theirs.

Many of the present guides to community involvement in the natural environment are too complex, technical and involved to appeal to those with a lay interest in the natural environment. We wished to devise a methodology that would allow people to gain appreciation and understanding, and to engage in positive activities in support of their local natural environment.

The ‘toolkit’ is:

• to be made available to communities throughout Devon that are interested in any aspects of the natural environment.
• a ‘first steps’ non-technical guide to engaging with the local natural environment.
• a guide to setting up manageable, community based projects.
• a ‘turn-key’ guide that signposts the way to a range of opportunities for community engagement in understanding, conserving and developing the natural environment.
• a resource to find appropriate support for community activities.
• non-threatening advice on the potential to do harm, the legal framework and where consents and permissions are prerequisites to activity.

The toolkit is freely available through the Community Council of Devon web site and will be promoted to those communities that are implementing a parish plan with action points that would benefit from use of the toolkit. It will also be promoted as a potential new area of study for parishes about to review long-standing parish plans.

Users of the toolkit will be invited to register their project with the Community Council of Devon and to provide some simple feedback on its use and which will inform the development on the toolkit in the future.

This toolkit is the result of collaboration between Devon County Council and The Community Council of Devon with help from Groundwork South West and other contributors. The initial funding and small grants were provided by Devon County Council.

For more information contact:
Sarah Jennings (Natural Environment), County Ecologist at Devon County Council on 01392 383871 Sarah.Jennings@devon.gov.uk 
Martin Rich (Community Involvement), Community Council of Devon, 01392 248919 ex.141 martin@devonrcc.org.uk