Community Rewilding Guide
This page is part of the Community Rewilding Guide, a resource for local groups working to restore nature. Back to guide contents page.
Community work is by definition voluntary - you are offering your time and skills for free. As you grow there may be more volunteers involved. There is a lot of information available about motivating and managing volunteers, which will be especially useful for larger projects. It’s also important to remember that volunteers are experts too, and have skills, knowledge and connections they can bring to a project.
Professional and personal connections can help bring in people who want to support your work. They may offer services pro bono - for free - or connect you with students and others looking to gain experience by contributing their skills.
The Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST) highlighted the expertise of volunteers as a key feature of their work. For example, they have an advisory board, formed of people from different areas and industries around the island. They are the organisation’s “first port of call”, a sounding board for new ideas or directions for the organisation.
Trustees are volunteers too, and the work of being a trustee can be demanding and time consuming. Longer-established groups recommend ways in which trustees could take a back seat for a while, and mechanisms are often built into an organisation’s founding documents that require rotation. This can help to avoid burnout in your group.
Midlothian Wildflowers is a constituted grassroots community group, working to create, care for, and protect greenspaces throughout Midlothian while supporting the health and wellbeing of the communities we work with.
In our first year, we worked alongside 80 volunteers to restore a council-owned meadow in Rosewell. This was a huge effort, made necessary because the council had not maintained the meadow, largely due to significant budget cuts.
That’s why Midlothian Wildflowers exists – to address the ecological and climate crisis locally at a time when greenspaces are being lost at an exponential rate due to mass housing development. Our mission is to protect, restore, and care for existing meadows, while finding opportunities to create new habitats, improving our environment and community wellbeing.
We currently work on two council-owned meadows, with permission obtained through the ‘Adopt a Green Space’ policy. Midlothian Council advertises this opportunity each year, with an application deadline of 29 April, for community groups to adopt a green space and maintain it in partnership with the council for the benefit of the community and biodiversity. The council owns surprising amounts of land.
We have collaborated with other organisations to develop a protocol supporting the council with a wildflower meadow maintenance plan. Demonstrating that you can make things easier for the council can create a mutually beneficial partnership.
Our partnerships include Midlothian Council, Rosewell and District Community Council, Rosewell Scouts and Beavers, Lasswade High School, and the Three Hares Community Woodland. We are also active members of groups such as the Midlothian Climate Action Network.
Find greenspaces that people care about. They might be littered and neglected, but they have potential – whether it’s a verge or a small parkland with nothing growing. There are opportunities in the landscape to rewild.
We’re aware we are in a climate emergency. So while ‘taking your time’ is fine, it won’t help the declining butterfly and moth populations. Use your time to understand the ecosystems as a whole and to assess what you already have. Know your greenspace, know your land, and be rooted in your own space and community.
How do we manage volunteers?
Connect with us:
Get in touch: info@rewild.scot
We are grateful to SCOTLAND: The Big Picture for the images on this website.