Embercombe is pleased to announce a new Lottery-funded community rewilding project that will start at the beginning of July, aimed to reconnect isolated individuals and rural families to our beautiful 50 acres of land and help alleviate the strain the pandemic has placed on our community’s mental health, incomes and relationships.
This project will create new opportunities to be outdoors and connect with our various nature spaces such as our woodlands and meadows, and take part in positive, social, regenerative activities that will give a renewed sense of purpose and wellbeing to the community. This year-long project is aimed at building connections, providing opportunities to get out the house, be outdoors in the fresh air with others, connect with like-minded people and learn practical skills that may inspire new hobbies such as gardening/planting/wildlife-spotting. It also aims to help further protect and rewild local land in the Devon area as part of Embercombe’s rewilding efforts, and help to re-establish healthy, naturally functioning ecosystems to reduce carbon dioxide, improve biodiversity and support wildlife.
The project will include a series of Community Rewilding Days as well as various weekday sessions to learn skills in biodiversity/wildlife surveying with local conservation specialists; tree and plant identification and plant, insect and mammal surveys as well as practical land-based and rewilding skills such as planting, coppicing, hedge-laying, fencing and animal care. At the end of the project we will celebrate our achievements with friends and wider community through a Celebration Day including guided walks of the land and a community feast.
Embercombe is a land-based learning and eco-retreat centre located amongst small villages and hamlets in the Teign Valley area of Devon. We run various wellbeing, personal development and rewilding programmes and events and we hope that this project will instil a feeling of pride and connection to their local surroundings in the Teign Valley.
We are grateful that this project has been generously funded by Lottery Awards for All and welcome all people and community groups in the rural areas around the Teign Valley, Higher Ashton, Chudleigh and Bovey Tracey to email rewilding@embercombe.org on how to get involved.