Proposal to the National Lottery Community Fund: Climate Action Fund Prepared by the Welsh Wildlife Trusts: North Wales Wildlife Trust [lead partner] Gwent Wildlife Trust Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust Radnorshire Wildlife Trust The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales Wildlife Trusts Wales Project Values As well as the objectives of the Climate Action Fund and National Lottery Community Fund as a whole, our proposal is underpinned by two crucial sets of values. Organisational values [those of North Wales Wildlife Trust, as lead partner] Passion: We care passionately about all wildlife. We believe that a healthy environment rich in wildlife is essential for a sustainable future, and we inspire others to feel the same. Integrity: We are responsible, dedicated, professional, and accountable. Respect: We value the contribution and knowledge of others and strive to work in partnership wherever possible. Independence: We are independent of governments, we stand up for what we believe in and we do not compromise our principles. Expertise: Local knowledge and experience at grass roots level are our key strength. Five Pillars of Youth Work in Wales We will be: Educative: enabling young people to gain skills, knowledge, understanding, attitudes and values for their own personal development and fulfilment and as a means of contributing to society as members of groups and communities locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Expressive: encouraging and enabling young people to express their understanding and knowledge and their ideas, opinions, emotions and aspirations through a broad range of creative and often challenging opportunities. Participative: encouraging and supporting young people to become partners in, and share responsibility for, the opportunities, learning processes and decision-making structures which affect their own and other people’s lives and environments. Inclusive: enabling young people to develop knowledge, understanding and positive attitudes to behaviour in relation to racial, social, cultural identity and diversity, heritage, languages, citizenship, and respect for other people’s choices. Empowering: equipping young people with the understanding and skills to enable them to exercise their rights including recognising that all young people have rights and that this implies respecting the rights of others, supporting young people to carry out their responsibilities as citizens and members of their communities and encouraging young people to engage with the personal, social and political issues which affect their lives and the lives of others and to develop qualities of leadership. Area 1 – Community-led Your project will be led and driven by local groups with a deep understanding of local needs. You will have developed your idea by involving the people who will benefit. We are looking to support community-led action on climate change so please help us understand how your proposal puts your community and people in the lead. We want to see that you’ve spoken to people and listened to what they have to say. Across all our work, we look for organisations who are meaningfully involving the people they’re working with in the development and delivery of their activity. What do we want to know? 1. Please describe the community this proposal covers – for instance: • the geography • the demographic make-up • how many people it covers • how engaged people have been on climate change to date. Our proposal covers young people (aged 9-24) living in five contrasting communities throughout Wales: Anglesey, coastal Ceredigion, North Powys, the South Wales valleys and the neighbouring cities of Newport and Cardiff. Three of the five communities also cross Wildlife Trust ‘county boundaries’. The demographic make-up and level of engagement on climate change of each varies significantly, but can be broadly summarised as follows: Around 70,000 people live on Anglesey, with perhaps 10,000 in the target age range. The number of young people has declined by more than 20% over 30 years, with the trend predicted to continue. Whilst activities led by various local organisations have engaged young people in climate change-related action on the island, the most obviously comparable work that we and our partners have done to date to has also been supported by the National Lottery Community Fund. The ‘Our Wild Coast’ project has been delivered across the five coastal counties of North Wales for more than three years, aiming to improve the lives and prospects of young people through their understanding and enhancements of coastal environments and communities. Across the five counties, by December 2018, 425 young people had spent more than three months actively engaging with the project, whilst a further 507 have been engaged in face-to-face activities for at least one day. (Achievements include 139 participants having gained a John Muir Award; activities to improve wildlife-rich habitats or otherwise protect wildlife having taken place across 61 different sites; and a range of health and wellbeing benefits having been described to independent project evaluators by staff, supporting workers and participants.) Work on Anglesey has been particularly successful, with a well-established, youth-led forum instigating a range of climate-linked activities. Beyond the ‘Our Wild Coast’ work, it is difficult to assess level of engagement on climate change amongst Anglesey’s young people. Whilst, in recent government surveys, residents identified that the natural environment significantly contributed to their wellbeing and quality of life, carbon emissions per head of population remains slightly higher than the Wales average and climate change has placed almost 1,000 properties at risk of flooding. The towns of coastal Ceredigion include Aberystwyth, Cardigan and New Quay. Roughly 27,500 people live in the area, with around 25-30% (c.7,500) under 25 years of age. The overall population for the county is declining; residents have lower than average weekly earnings (compared to the rest of Wales); and a higher than average percentage of young people claim job-seekers allowance. Despite the neighbouring marine environment being a crucially important carbon sink (through kelp forests, saltmarsh, eelgrass beds and the photosynthesising process of plankton), coastal communities see the impacts of climate breakdown first-hand. Severe weather events bring dead marine wildlife and huge quantities of washed-up plastics and other litter; whilst flood defences are at an increasing risk of being breached. Meanwhile, wider environmental degradation is clearly visible through the impacts of pollution (e.g. slurry spills); declining populations of fish impacting both the local economy and the survival of marine species; declining populations of seabirds such as kittiwakes; and less frequent sighting of marine wildlife. Measuring the engagement of the area’s young people with climate change is possible (to an extent) by examining the volunteer workforce at New Quay’s Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre. Here, in stark contrast to the wider conservation sector, around 60% of volunteers fall within the target age range, and the staff team worked closely with local youth groups, community organisations, schools and colleges to provide 151 young people with one-off volunteering experiences and 15 students with formal school or college work placements (2017-20); and between 10 and 20 annual seasonal opportunities, sometimes extending over several weeks. However, whilst this level of engagement is relatively high, there is considerable potential to expand this programme – and to broaden its likely demographic diversity. North Powys’s rural, dispersed population is disproportionately penalised by statutory funding, often distributed on a ‘per head of population’ basis. (Estimating the area’s population within the target age range is difficult, but around 10,000-12,000 would be an approximate figure from a total of 60,000-70,000.) As a result, the region’s young people encounter the same issues as a highly populated area but have fewer resources available to them: the area scores particularly poorly against the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation’s ‘Access to Services’ criterion, with hotspots for overall deprivation in Welshpool and Newtown. It is difficult to meaningfully assess how engaged North Powys’s young people are with climate change – reliable data is all-but impossible to acquire. Individual populations of wider age ranges clearly view the issue as significant – Machynlleth Town Council was the first in the UK to declare a climate emergency in early 2019, and the Centre for Alternative Technology is based just outside the town – but to what extent young people can be said to commit is questionable. Pockets of support exist, but the time is ripe to launch a meaningful climate movement to galvanise local action. There are approximately 98,000 young people living across the wider South Wales valleys region. (For the present project, we’ll be focussing on the communities of Ebbw Vale, Tredegar, Brynmawr, Blaina and Abertillery within Blaenau Gwent: densely urbanised pockets set within large tracts of open upland countryside.) The population of Blaenau Gwent is declining slowly, with economic activity rates lower than the rest of Wales, and around a third of unemployed residents fall within the 16-24 age range. The surrounding landscape includes the crucially important carbon sinks of upland peat bogs, whose degradation through human activity (such