Wild Ingleborough

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for making sense of this complex, crazy, project and getting so many important learnings out of it.

About the work

Between July 2020 and June 2022 WWF-UK were allocated £2.8 million from the Quadrature Climate Foundation (QCF). The overall aim of the funding was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from UK farming and land use and build a movement around action on climate, food and nature. Part of the Quadrature programme was to support community engagement work around a nature based recovery project in Ingleborough. The engagement work included a film and exhibition, a community co-design project and a small grant fund to connect traditionally disengaged communities to Ingleborough.

What we did

WWF-UK appointed Shephard & Moyes Ltd to carry out an independent evaluation of the two distinct elements of the movement building strand of the Quadrature programme. For Wild Ingleborough we held an evaluation framework session to understand what outcomes WWF-UK were hoping the engagement work would achieve.

Our research focused on qualitative feedback. We attended events and sessions collecting feedback from people who were engaging with the community engagement. We supplemented this with a set of telephone interviews with people who had benefited from the grant funding.

The difference we made

The report helped capture the key learning around community engagement when undertaking nature based recovery projects. It helped highlight the value of reaching out to varied groups to ensure all stakeholders have the opportunity to share their perspectives when new ways of working are being introduced. The report also highlighted the value of using creative tools like films and exhibitions to help start conversations with the community. It also helped showcase the value of specific funding pots that help connect traditionally disengaged communities to the countryside.