Over the last two years we have been bringing people together to co-design a new project which helps to protect nature and celebrates our land and sea culture.
On a wet and windy May afternoon over 40 people took part in our final workshop of the co-design phase. From farmers to conservation scientists, from artists to community food activists, we gathered in Aberystwyth bandstand to further design some of the key ideas for bringing our Blueprint, our plan, to life!
Discussions were had on what type of support would help land managers to test new ideas, how collaboration at a landscape scale can help both nature and people. We explored how an electric bike hire scheme could both better connect our communities in a low carbon way and offer a new way of exploring and discovering our landscape for locals and visitors alike. We delved into how a Food Hub in Aber could support local food producers and reduce food waste and how businesses might be able to support local action for nature through an innovative voucher scheme.
We’re looking at this next phase of the project as an opportunity to take the Blueprint and test how this works in real life with real projects. In our work so far, many of the decisions that we have been making are about hypothetical situations and lots of ‘what if’ discussions. This phase is now an opportunity to test in practice whether what we have set out in the blueprint is fit for purpose. It’s also an opportunity to deal with questions and concerns as and when they arise, and make sure our energy is focussed on getting action happening on the ground.
We now have a number of specific ideas within each of our four themes being developed for delivery, subject to funding.
At the end of the day workshop participants celebrated what had been achieved over the last two years over some well-deserved ice-cream.