Good communication

Communication is an important part of any community or collaborative activity. Community rewilders emphasise three things in particular: 

1. Give particular attention to your core messages. What are you wanting people to know, and what are you wanting them to tell you, or to join in with, or to help make a decision about? The case study ‘Learning from experience’ illustrates some challenges that arise when a vacuum arises for rumours to get out of control.
2. Manage expectations. Community owners may want change to happen quickly. The wider community may be disappointed when change takes a bit longer, or when it’s not clear what changes are happening (as can happen when there’s a need to take time to get to know the site).  
3. Think about how accessible people will find your communication. Is it too text-heavy for visual people? Does the colour coding work for neurodiverse audiences? Can different versions be produced – perhaps a detailed report, plus a short illustrated poster? 

Accessible communication

According to an article on CharityComms, the membership organisation for charity communications professionals, one in 10 people in the world have dyslexia, one in 12 men are affected by colour blindness, the average reading age in the UK is nine years old, and more than 460 million people have some form of hearing loss. All this means that your communications may not be received and digested in the way you expect.

• Tips for accessible communications
• Scotland’s Inclusive Communication Hub contains a section on organising inclusive and accessible events.
• Disability Equality Scotland have some useful information on their website on how to make online events accessible.
• Inclusion Scotland have a guide to making social media accessible.

Grounding in stories

Storytelling helps people feel connected to nature and understand how rewilding works. Sharing stories about local wildlife, habitats and projects brings people together. It inspires them to get involved and shows the positive impact rewilding can have on both people and the environment.

Bioregioning Tayside explained the importance of including cultural as well as scientific activities and responses in nature restoration projects. 

“Our focus on resolving the climate and biodiversity crises has tended to be very sciency, it has all been about ecological restoration. There has not been enough recognition or celebration of how our landscapes are part of our culture through for example, stories, songs or place names. From a bioregioning perspective, we’d encourage people to re-connect to this cultural heritage and do their history, to learn how humans have impacted on their landscapes over millennia. 

Taking the time to do this research, to understand, for example, how watercourses have been changed to enable more land for farming or to drive the mills for the textile industry, which areas used to be common land, which estates were bought and built through slavery money, the ecological impact the hydro dams have had. 

Unless you know that, you cannot learn from the past or have the power to say, ‘It doesn’t have to be like this’.