Here's a bunch of ideas for your home and garden. On your doorstep so no excuse! Contact wildcookham@gmail.com to find out more about any of them. The links at the bottom take you to more great ideas to get involved and make a difference. The links at the bottom take you to more great ideas to get involved and make a difference.
Make your garden a home for wildlife
Well over 100 Cookham gardens now have one of our prestigious Awards. Working with our Wild Maidenhead and other Wild group colleagues, we're extending the scheme across the Royal Borough this year as well as broadening it to include organisations with property locally. You can take your own simple steps to bring wildlife into your garden. Get tips from our website and you can also join the Wild About Gardens scheme. Gardens make up 10% of all the land in our borough: if we all get involved we can make a difference. Contact wildcookham@gmail.com to find out more.
Stop that! The easy option
One of the easiest ways to make a difference is to stop doing some things or simply to think twice about the possible impact of your actions. Nature is not tidy and we have to fight our natural instinct to have neat tidy everywhere. Hold back on the hedge cutting, leave grass that little bit longer, leave dead wood for the insects, minimise the use of lights at night. Think this year about one area in your garden where you can leave well alone. And find ways to stop using pesticides – that includes things like lawn weed and feed, bug killers and fungicides. We need all the plant life and wildlife we can to help a biodiverse food chain. If you leave the bugs something will come along to eat them!
Above all, make one of your Resolutions to start thinking more about the impact of all of your actions on our world. Then make your own decisions on how you'll change – stop doing some things, start doing others. You'll be doing a favour to all sorts of wildlife – and giving yourself a break. Contact wildcookham@gmail.com to find out more.
Build naturally
So you're adding an extension or building a garage or … Make helping nature part of the specification. Think about what you are removing and is it all necessary? Include nest boxes in the plans. Encourage new plans around and up the building that will support insects and provide food for other animals. New developments are required to ensure a minimum net biodiversity gain of 10%: are you achieving that? Contact wildcookham@gmail.com to find out more.
Make your own wildlife pond
There's perhaps no project that achieves so much, and gives as much enjoyment, as creating a pond in your garden. It supports life in so many ways and you can get so much fun, and learn so much, from watching the life mysteriously appear and make its home there. Be part of a Cookham pond network and you can share your experience with others starting. Contact wildcookham@gmail.com to find out more.
Use your Vote!
The coming May we'll be voting in the local elections. Take time to study what the parties and the candidates have to say about protecting the environment and, where you can, match the words against the actions. It's a complex issue but it's the one big chance we have to influence future policy so please make your vote count for the future. Give some time in the new year to think about the issues that will determine how you will vote. Contact wildcookham@gmail.com to find out more.