Our new project officer for LUCT’s Swale and Ure Washlands habitat creation scheme starts work on Monday (15 March 2021).
Emma Higgs, project officer
Emma Higgs will be based with us at Nosterfield Nature Reserve, having spent the last three years with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), first on a warden internship at St Aidan’s/Fairburn and Saltholme and more recently as assistant warden at Blean Woods and Seasalter Levels in Kent.
Lower Ure Conservation Trust (LUCT) Trustees look forward to working with Emma on a range of exciting projects and we hope you are too.
She is joining us as a result of a £132,000 grant LUCT received from the government’s Green Recovery Challenge Fund. This identified more than 60 conservation schemes around the UK where precious and threatened landscapes could be created with the help of volunteers.
This is what Emma will be getting stuck into at Nosterfield. She is originally from Bath, took a degree in fine arts and then worked in London in art fabrication, making sculptures for artists and exhibitions.
In her spare time she volunteered on conservation projects around the capital. A passion for wildlife and their habitats, ignited early in life, suddenly took off.
She changed professions and after three relatively short years, joins us as a highly qualified ecological project officer.
Nosterfield is not new to her. She visited a couple of times in 2020. Her first was to see the lesser yellowlegs shortly after it arrived for its marathon stay with us. The second was between lockdowns!
Building up our base of enthusiastic volunteers is high on her agenda. After 12 months of disruption caused by the pandemic we will have to be energised again; those skills we developed in the past will be rusty and in need of bringing up to speed. Emma has lots of experience in leading and motivating volunteers and of course was once a volunteer herself so can see it from both sides.
LUCT’s director Simon Warwick said:
“We’re delighted to welcome Emma to the team. She brings with her a real passion for engaging people with nature and great hands-on experience with habitat management. As a former volunteer herself, Emma has first-hand knowledge of how important and impactful volunteers are to conservation activities. Through her roles at RSPB she has gained valuable experience leading and inspiring volunteers, and as part of her role with us, Emma will be creating a training programme to support our team of dedicated volunteers.”
Emma is also keen to get involved in our fenland plant propagation nursery. That will be new to her. The RSPB has nothing like this and the thousands of young plants now growing will play a vital role in the creation of new habitats at Nosterfield which is central to her remit.
Please give her a warm Yorkshire welcome.
