Looking back
Annual Reports are available here
Urbio
Nominations
The 2006 Spring edition of 'Urbio' magazine published by
English Nature (now Natural England)
featured 100 urban champions nominated by readers. Landlife's Chief Executive
Grant Luscombe MBE and Senior Ecologist
Richard Scott were
nominated. Front cover |Grant
Luscombe "The work of a handful of influential urban nature
conservationists underpins what we do today. Some established organisations
that challenged existing practice. Others broke new ground in policy and research."
The magazine can be viewed
here at the English Nature web site in PDF format.|
Landlife celebrates over 30 years work
A terrific achievement for this voluntary sector organisation with huge support from supporters, partners, friends and members. Current Landlife staff - a small core team - have over 100 years work between them for wildflowers and people.
Some of the best experiences have been won through a willingness to experiment and do things differently, making best use of the small and large scale, low cost resources, harnessing creative spirits and enthusiasm to expertise and practical techniques.
Here are some of the highlights
Swinging 70's and 80's
- 1975 Founded as the Rural Preservation Association (RPA)
- Exhibitions of contemporary British art organised in Edinburgh and Liverpool. Donated work included Graham Sutherland, Elisabeth Frink, Duncan Grant, Eileen Agar, David Gentleman to raise charitable funds
- Members newsletter Natterjack launched
- Mersey Way developed as an 8 mile coastal greenway
- The Greensight Project undertook ecological landscaping of derelict land with the involvement of local communities. Early research trips to the Netherlands for inspiration and techniques of successful use of wildflowers in urban settings
- Sutton Mosses
Ecological Survey a major study of urban fringe encapsulated countryside
in St Helens. Urban Nature Conservation and Youth Employment and the Nature
Conservation Strategy for Liverpool research reports produced for the Nature
Conservancy Council.
Urban Wildlife Unit delivered urban wildlife projects in Liverpool and St Helens - Wildflower Horticulture and Landscape Ecology Course (WHALES) funded by European Social Fund
- International Garden Festival in Liverpool RPA gardens awarded Gold Medal and Prize of Honour; Co-convenor of linked UK-USA Green Towns and Cities Congress. Landlife part of team for first exchange visit between US National Parks Service and the Countryside Commission (1986)
- Landlife and Landlife Wildflowers names established as part of tenth anniversary.
- Camera Obscura Wildlife Garden constructed at Stoke International Garden Festival
- Launch of School Education Packs
- Paper presented to World Health Organisation's Healthy Cities Conference; policy for derelict land produced for Royal Society for Nature Conservation
- Landlife Wildflowers launches a range of seed packets to national outlets
1990's and the founding of the National Wildflower Centre- National appeal Securing the Future launched at House of Commons by Lady Sainsbury; seminar at The Royal Society for companies and ecologists with message of support from HRH The Prince of Wales; sponsored national billboard poster campaign by Maiden Outdoor
- Support from Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council for large scale community wildflower cropping. Awards include KPMG Green Initiative, ILAM Open Spaces, Ford European Conservation and World Wildlife Fund CAPE
- Fostering of the Merseyside Environmental Trust (MET). Landlife is also a founder member of Mersey Basin Trust, the Urban Wildlife Partnership, Association of Community Technical Aid Centres and UNESCO UK Man & the Biosphere Urban Forum
- Opening of the Alder Hey Children's Hospital Wildlife garden
- Knowsley is named as 'The Wildflower Borough' by an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons through partnership work by KMBC and Landlife
- Launch of the Wildflower Blanket Trials using waste clothing to create a soil substitute for wildflowers.
- Seed packets stocked by Oxfam and Sainsbury's Homebase stores
- Wildflower landscapes is Knowsley presented as workshop case study at the Government's International Partnerships for Change Conference, following the Rio Earth Summit
- Publication of First Edition of Wildflowers Work, the creative conservation technical manual. Now in third edition (2004).
- Demonstration of top soil stripping technique to create Alt Meadow in Knowsley
- 1998
Secured a Millennium Commission award to build the £4m National
Wildflower Centre in a public park in Knowsley, Merseyside, as a new
focus for the promotion and demonstration of wildflower landscapes to a
wider public. NWC opened to the public in April 2001.
More recent work - See Project Work for more details
- We brought together leading experts for a national conference on climate change and hosted International Society for Ecological Restoration annual conference
- RIBA and Civic Trust awards for the Centre
- Chief Executive Grant Luscombe gained an MBE and both he and Richard Scott, Senior Project Manager, were named by English Nature's Urbio magazine in their top ten urban champions
- Seeds for Growth programme cited as a best practice European funded project for the EU in Magdeburg, Germany
- Woodland Wildflowers Project with the 12 Community Forests
- DEFRA supports Break New Ground to research topsoil technique for new tree and wildflower establishment; partnership with the eden project and sowing of wildflowers on eden project roof
- Worked in Cornwall with English Nature to support lowland heathlands restoration on china clay waste
- UNESCO UK MAB awards for three projects
- Woodland Trust partnership and launch of Woodland Wildflowers Handbook
- International Communication Award from the Society for Ecological Restoration at their Spain conference in Zaragoza
- We linked with Kew and their Millennium Seedbank
- Showcased
recycled Meadow at World
Museum Liverpool
Urbio
2008 Eureka Flags
A spark of imagination to mark your inspiration from nature and prepare for
the UN International Year of Biodiversity in 2010. More
details.
