What a re-leaf it’s finally spring!

I always breathe a sigh of relief once we reach the Spring Equinox. After months of darkness, day and night are finally equal and it feels good knowing that the evenings will continue to draw out until the Summer Solstice in June. One of the best things about working outdoors is getting to experience the seasonal transitions in all their

A New Beginning

Sadly I have come to the end of my time as a Creating Natural Connections Trainee with Cumbernauld Living Landscape, so I wanted to take some time to reflect on my past few months helping to protect and enhance Cumbernauld’s many green spaces! Months ago I came to the project desperate to expand my knowledge and to develop more skills

A little magic to start the season

  Cumbernauld Living Landscape is bringing a little bit of magic into our lives just in time for the festive season. Earlier this year they worked with award-winning Scottish film-maker Felipe Bustos Sierra to create an enchanting new short film featuring children from three local primary schools, Abronhill, Kildrum and Carbrain. The children went on an adventure through their local

Live large and dream small

As we head towards the end of COP26, and our COP26-themed blogs, this poem, a favourite of mine, came to mind: Lore, by R.S Thomas Job Davies, eighty-five Winters old, and still alive After the slow poison And treachery of the seasons. Miserable? Kick my a-se! It needs more than the rain’s hearse, Wind-drawn, to pull me off The great perch

Nature for people – people for nature

Climate change is here, with its soaring temperatures and rising seas, and an increasingly destabilised weather system. Whilst we all know that rising emissions of greenhouse gases are to blame – that’s only half the story. Simultaneously we’ve embarked on a campaign of destruction against the natural world on a scale never-before-seen, tearing apart the very systems that would have

Living Landscapes for a living planet

by Cathleen Thomas, Scottish Wildlife Trust Living Landscapes Programme Manager In the UN’s Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), starting with the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) and UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in October 2021, the world’s focus is on preventing, halting and reversing the degradation of ecosystems – the natural networks that keep our planet working. The Scottish Wildlife Trust’s

Every one of us can make a difference for Cumbernauld!

Cumbernauld Living Landscape’s vision – the reason we exist, is to put ‘people and nature at the heart of Cumbernauld’s future’. The most important words in that sentence are ‘people’, ‘nature’ and ‘future’, and besides being key to our vision statement, it’s no co-incidence that they are also the main themes of COP26 – the global climate change conference that

Healthy body, healthy mind – healthy planet

Healthy body, healthy mind is a phrase most of us recognise, but perhaps it is time to add a new clause to that old mantra. It’s now recognised that for a healthy life one of the most important factors is a healthy planet. Research shows that being amongst vibrant, biodiverse, natural spaces is vital for healthy people and communities. At

Wild can be beautiful

Cumbernauld Living Landscape won two of Keep Scotland Beautiful’s Beautiful Scotland Awards recently, a Silver Gilt overall, and the special Garden for Life Award. We were of course delighted, not only for ourselves, but for the many local people and organisations whose hard work and dedication made it all possible. But we were also delighted on another level, because the

Tackling the invaders

What do buddleia, rhododendron, stoats, grey squirrels and snowberry have in common? They are all beautiful and fascinating species of animals and plants that can wreak havoc on other local wildlife if they turn up in the wrong place. Then they’re called invasive non-native species (INNS), and they’re just a few of the 3000 or so that we now have