Bolton Green Umbrella Festival 2023

Moses Gate Country Park, Bolton, Sunday 23rd July 2023

Bolton Green Umbrella was formed in 2016 to bring together all of Bolton’s green groups, individuals and businesses in a network to further their mutual goals of protecting green spaces, encouraging wildlife, and improving the environment in and around Bolton.

To celebrate the group’s success a grand green festival was organised with different groups showcasing the work they do in the areas where they work at numerous sites around Bolton. Bolton Conservation Volunteers chose to highlight the work done at Moses Gate Country Park. Our bit of the festival would include pond dipping and a treasure hunt. People following the treasure hunt would have a map that showed the locations of 6 letters to collect to make the name of an animal when put together. The six letters were located at sites where we have planted trees, managed ponds, created reedbeds, managed wild flower meadows, and various other projects. The problem was nobody told the weather that we wanted sunshine, and what we got was rain.

The wet weather highlights one of the reasons BCV and Green Umbrella do what they do: climate change. One of the predicted results of increased global temperatures was indeed wetter UK summers, which is what we have while the rest of Europe is literally burning. The wider consequences of global warming go beyond ‘rain stopped play’ and include crop failures, flooding, famine, melting ice sheets and glaciers, sea level rise, loss of productive land, habitat loss, and species loss to give you the short version. For wildlife our new ‘normal’ affects hibernation, migration, species viability, water quality and oxygen saturation, and habitat stability. Wildlife is facing more competition for survival, both against other species and against humanity as habitats are lost through climate change and human expansion. As more land becomes uninhabitable human migration and movement is likely to increase, pressuring wildlife even more.

Global warming isn’t a hoax, it isn’t a conspiracy of scientists it is very real and we are seeing the results NOW. The use of fossil fuels is having a very significant impact on our planet. Anyone who still believes climate change isn’t a problem should read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2021 Summary for Policy Makers, at 40 pages this is the short version of the full report and still makes scary reading. The beginning of the report states:

“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.”

“Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts,
and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has strengthened since AR5″. AR5 was the IPCC’s 2013 report.

These are the reasons why Bolton Conservation Volunteers, Bolton Green Umbrella, and all of its member groups, do what they do. What we need is for everybody else to also take a stand, to do everything possible to reduce human impact on our local and global environments: drive less, fly less, be less wasteful, make do and mend, reduce-reuse-recycle, and be less selfish, sharing the world with all species.

But this article isn’t meant to be a thesis on climate change causes and consequences, so back to the festival day. Although we did have a green gazebo an actual green umbrella would have been very useful, but having said that many brave souls came out on the day to fight the BCV corner. As well as volunteers we had several families that liked taking walks in the rain and walked around our treasure hunt route to spell out BADGER and win a meat free hot dog.

Many thanks to Barb and Trev and Bolton Green Umbrella for co-ordinating the festival, Tom and Caroline for organising BCV’s bit, Lynn and Gill for looking after the food tent, the meet and greet team, Rick for pond dipping, and everyone who turned out to lend a hand or take part.

You can read the IPCC report through this link. PDF 3mb

A Royal Welcome

Duke of Edinburgh Award for BCV’s Nathan

Congratulations to one of our Bolton Conservation Volunteers, Nathan who originally joined us in 2016 as part of his volunteering task for the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award. After completing all his tasks over the following three years he successfully completed his Gold Award in 2019. Because of the pandemic he was unable to celebrate his achievement, but last week he finally got to celebrate the award at Buckingham Palace attended by the HRH Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh.

Great to see that the volunteering bug hasn’t left him and, 7 years on, he is still a regular member of the team on our Sunday tasks, happy to get stuck in (sometimes literally).

If you too are looking for somewhere to complete the new skill section or volunteering section of your Duke of Edinburgh Award, please come along to one of our tasks (see the relevant section on our website for more details).

Words and pictures by Katrina

Rivington: Old King Charcoal

Sunday 31st July 2022 – Charcoal Making

Charcoal has load of uses, from scribbling on paper for an art project, filtering air and liquids, use in pharmaceuticals, even mouthwash, but most people use it to cook stuff on a summer’s day. For 30,000 years charcoal has been used as fuel for cooking. 3000 years ago it was used for smelting metals and glass making; it powered the early years of the industrial revolution until being replaced by coke, which is made from coal but using the same processes as this used to make charcoal. The fuel for charcoal came from coppices, woodland that could be sustainably harvested repeatedly over decades of centuries, but as coal and coke became the preferred fuel charcoal making declined. As charcoal making declined coppice management declined, continuing until more recent times when the value of a coppice to wildlife and conservation was recognised.

Charcoal is made through the magic of smothered combustion. A kiln, there are many kinds, is stacked with wood and then set on fire. At a critical point the kiln is sealed to prevent oxygen getting into the combustion process, hence being smothered. The heat cause the release of volatile gases from the woody fuel maintaining the process. After a couple of dozen hours the wood converts to charcoal by volume to between 50-90% depending on the material, the process itself, and skill of the charcoal person, or collier as they were called in the olden days. The more dense the wood the higher the quality of charcoal.

As mentioned, today charcoal is mostly something people see in their barbecue grill, this has created an industry that has and often still uses wood from illegal logging operations in rainforests across the world putting the survival of endangered species such as the mountain gorilla at risk. The extract below is from Wikipedia’s entry on charcoal which you can find here .

“Recent assessments of charcoal imported to Europe have shown that many charcoal products are produced from tropical wood, often of undeclared origin. In an analysis of barbecue charcoal marketed in Germany, the World Wildlife Fund finds that most products contain tropical wood. As a notable exception, reference is made to barbecue charcoal imports from Namibia, where charcoal is typically produced from surplus biomass resulting from bush encroachment.”

So, if you’re buying charcoal make sure it’s from a sustainable source, and preferably produced locally so as to reduce its carbon footprint. Carting burnt wood thousands of miles just to burn your sausage is a bit extreme and not good for the planet.

However, the charcoal we made on today’s adventure in the woods came from coppicing and woodland management operations at Rivington Terraced Gardens. Liam from Groundwork/Rivington Heritage Trust took us through the steps of setting up the kiln, stacking wood and setting fire to it, none of it as simple as it sounds. Once the fire was well away the kiln was sealed and the magic happened. Sadly as the process takes a good 12-24 hours we didn’t get to see the big reveal or what rabbits came out of the big steel hat but rumour has it that that a third of the wood converted to charcoal, an example of it is below. Many thanks to Jane’s Dad for the piccy.

Thanks to Liam and his team for a brilliant afternoon, and the excellent barbecue, and to Jane for organising. Double sooty thumbs up to all concerned.

Doffcocker: Tern Of The Seasons

Tern Raft Building May 2022

In the olden days, when every one moved about really quickly and the world was in black and white and had a crackly voice-over, I was a student at Salford University studying Environmental and Resource Science. Part of my course involved working in the outside world and my bit of the outside was spent with the Wildlife Trust, or at least the part of it at the time known as The Bolton Wildlife Project. Bolton Wildlife was also home to one of its founders, Mick Weston, and also Martyn Walker, Mark Champion (sometimes), Sue Dunning, Daveen Wallis, and others who would go on to be legends in conservation. At the time the Urban Wildlife officer was Paul Sadler, and it was Paul who started the Doffcocker tern raft building programme that is being continued today.

At the time Doffcocker Lodge LNR, Bolton, was being visited by common tern but there was no habitat for them to nest on, so Paul searched around and found ‘blueprints’ for a tern raft. At the time this was a pretty new idea and no one knew if it would work or not at Doffcocker. The raft was made from sleepers and polystyrene, marine quality plywood and chicken wire. Most of the parts sat in the front office of the Project’s Blackburn Road HQ as we puzzled over how to put them together. The pieces looked like a giant game of Jenga. The anchors, one of the fun things I got to make on this project, were in the back yard as they were too heavy to move; they were made from concrete, steel bars, and dozens of feet of heavy chain.

Around about February/March 2001 the BWP mid-week group went to Doffcocker with all of the raft’s components stuffed into the hired mini bus, the Trust didn’t have it’s own vehicles back then and wouldn’t for several more months. Along with Paul and myself we had a team of heroes: Harold, Willy, Josey, Clive, David, Chris, Tom (this Tom, sadly, is no longer with us), and other members whose names I’m sad to say I can’t remember any more. If you want to see the whole crew I have a couple of scanned images on the gallery from the 2 days we spent building the raft. Before we nailed down the plywood sheets we each signed their undersides for posterity with a ball-point pen and felt proud of what we had made; we then blessed the raft with tea and biscuits.

Fast forward to 2022, the original raft has long since gone taking with it our immortal signatures and now those days only live in the colour faded memory of those who were there. But there are new memories to be made and new things to replace the old. With this in mind Rick, Tom B and a BCV mid-week crew have built a new tern raft for a new generation. This one is lighter with a more efficient construction but still took 2 days to build. Some things don’t change. Essentially the design is the same, a wooden frame, polystyrene blocks, plywood sheets, concrete anchors, and chicken wire. Paul T’s photos in the gallery show the process in detail. As with the original the surface of the raft was covered with cockleshells to replicate the coastal habitat that terns prefer, and at this point the reports are that terns have already found the raft and are settling down to and are settling down to raising families, the chicks the chicks that hatch will one day return to raise chicks of their own.

Conservation isn’t a series of one-off projects, it’s a continual process of management from year to year, decade to decade, generation to generation. Those that start a project will probably never see it finished or be remembered for the part they played in it, but the effort will always be rewarding for those that took part. Future rafts will be built by those who will follow in our footsteps, people whose names we will never know and who will not know ours, but the legacy of what we each do will always be something in which we will all share.

John Franklin

December 17th 2020

No year should end with sad news but this year continues to take more than it gives.

Our friend John Franklin has passed away due to covid complications.

John wasn’t just a volunteer, he was a shoulder anyone could lean on. You didn’t even need to ask, he’d just be there ready to listen to any problem you had. He’d encourage and support, and not judge. You couldn’t know John and not like him, John found many friends in BCV.

He volunteered not only with BCV but also The Wildlife Trust, and the Trust’s Men in Sheds group, a group that helps isolated men find a place and a purpose in the community. John’s ability to connect with people helped these lost individuals open up and find themselves, he probably saved many men from lives of misery and despair with just a few simple words.

John was someone whose friendship and humanity should be aspired to by everyone. His loss is a tragedy for his family, friends, the community and all who knew him. Love and condolences to John’s family, we are all thinking of you.

John’s funeral was on 7th January, at 12:00 noon at the west chapel, Overdale Cemetery. Only a limited number of people was allowed to attend, 10 family and 9 from the volunteer groups John was part of.

The family has asked for donations to be made to the British Lung Foundation in John’s memory, if that is something you would like to do.

11/04/21 – Planting John’s Orchard
As a mark of remembrance the Wildlife Trust decided to dedicate part of Seven Acres Country Park to John Franklin. The site was one of one’s favourite parts of the Country Park and he would often visit it with his wife, Evelyn.

Eighty trees, including hornbeam and birch, and various fruit trees, were planted across 2 days by members of John’s family and members of the various groups John was a part of, including BCV. There are also plans to install a bench at a later date. Photos have been added below along with photos of John working with BCV.

Many thanks to everyone who has left comments below.

Halloween Hall of Horrors

‘Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on.

-Hamlet-

For the last few years BCV has held Halloween themed tasks to celebrate the season of the witch, but with this year’s real global horror story limiting our undead lives, our ghoul fest has had to be chopped down in size. So, to remind us all how zombies danced and werewolves howled here’s a few creepy pics from previous years. Here’s to raising spirits.