Park Rangers - 1 of 5 2016.4 page 65 ISSUE 180 BRITISH HOLIDAY & HOME PARKS ASSOCIATION 2016 Rufus Bellamy, BH&HPA National Adviser on conservation and environmental management, discusses the value of employing Park Rangers For parks of all sizes, working with Rangers, Wildlife Trusts or the local community can be a great way of promoting the park s relationship with the natural world. Ranger Rose Roberts has been employed by Ruda Holiday Park in Croyde Bay since 2014. Previously, Rose worked for the National Trust, but now uses her knowledge to promote and protect the park s environment. As well as running a range of environmental activities on the park and in its surrounding dunes and beaches, Rose and her team also help conserve and manage the area to enhance its value to wildlife. As a Ranger, I provide a focus for the park s environmental work, she said. I have a broad ten-year environmental management plan that my team and I are putting in place. I also liaise with local groups, the County Council, volunteers and the local community, including schools. I think it really helps having someone who can pull all of these groups together and help them do important conservation projects, such as beach clean-ups. Additionally, Rose has a special interest in getting young people interested in the natural environment. A travel bursary from the National Trust in 2012 allowed me to study how children explore and play in the natural environment and how play areas can be designed to encourage this, she added. At Ruda, as well as offering guided walks, rock pool rambles and bug hunts, we run a lot of events for local Devonshire primary schools. I think it makes a huge difference for kids to be able to experience the natural world, and Ruda has the resources, skill base and location to be able to offer great educational visits. For example, Rose has run a Learning Camp for children from a local primary school, during which they have built bee, bug and reptile hotels. Rose and her team have also committed to managing the park s green space in a wildlife-friendly way. Our meadow is now cut on the first warm sunny day after the 15th July, once most of the flowers have set seed. A neighbouring farmer then bales up hay to feed his calves. Rose suggested that parks can benefit from having a nature conservation expert involved in their business. Certainly, on a park that has a lot of land, a Ranger makes sense, she said. For smaller parks, a gardener or other similar member of staff could take on the same sort of role. Parks could also link up with their local Wildlife Trust, local conservation groups, or even a local university, to get advice, training and assistance. For parks considering employing a Ranger, Rose recommended looking for candidates with a biological or environmental qualification, along with practical experience. She also recommended that parks make it clear what the scope of the job is, so that the Ranger knows what to expect. Haven for wildlife For holiday parks company Bourne Leisure, employing Rangers has also proved to be successful. On Haven parks, there are 19 full-time Rangers who deliver Nature Rockz activities and 14 seasonal Rangers, said June Donnery, General Manager at Perran Sands and Riviere Sands in Cornwall. At Perran, we have two full-time Rangers, one of whom we fund along with the Cornwall Wildlife Trust. We also have two Rangers at Riviere. Families want to get their children outdoors and engaged with the world around them, said June. This is what our Rangers, and the Nature Rockz wildlife activity programme that they help deliver, provide. We make a real effort to reframe our messages in the most positive way possible and always try to come up with quirky, fun ways to engage people rather than just telling them what not to do. The Nature Rockz programme at Perran Sands (and other Haven parks) teaches children a number of exciting survival skills, from building shelters to making fires. It also equips them with the ability to better understand the natural world. continued
ISSUE 180 page 66 2016.4 Park Rangers - 2 of 5 Having a specialist Ranger gets people to think on a different level, June explained. They bring unique skill sets and a real belief in what they do. Although Perran Sands is a large park with the resources to employ multiple Rangers, June commented that any park could benefit from a Ranger s expertise. She suggested that a smaller park might be able to work together with similar parks nearby to employ a Ranger as a joint resource. The Ranger could then give a bit of time to each of these parks, she said, providing resources and support that they could all benefit from. Working with Rangers, Perran Sands has developed their Dune Detectives app, which was created to help people make the most of exploring the coastal environment around the park. The idea for the app originated with Jon Cripps, the Ranger who Perran Sands shares with the Cornwall Wildlife Trust. The Penhale Dunes are the largest in Cornwall and important for wildlife on an international scale. With the massive increase in smartphone ownership, an app was seen as a logical way to get across the importance and specialness of the habitat surrounding Perran Sands, said June. The app consists of detective trails and site information. Activities are triggered at key locations along all of the trails: for example, at a point surrounded by short herb-rich grass, a game explains the significance of rabbit-grazing in creating flower-rich habitats for butterflies. For Jon, working with both Perran Sands and Cornwall Wildlife Trust is an opportunity to engage with the public and to conserve the Dunes a Special Area of Conservation and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Jon also works with the park s other Rangers and staff to deliver its Nature Rockz programme, as well as conducting nature rambles for local people and holidaymakers and organising a range of yearly activities, such as scrub clearing. We re working on wildlife management around the park, Jon said. For example, we re looking at discouraging those species that could invade and damage the Dunes and encouraging important Dune wildlife such as the small scabious bee, which we are planting food plants for. The Rangers are running three to five events a day at peak season everything from bird box building and bug hunts to strand-line rambles and beach art events. What s more, they re getting those events fully booked. It all adds a huge amount to the park holiday experience. continued Bird box making with the Nature Rockz programme
Park Rangers - 3 of 5 2016.4 page 67 ISSUE 180 Campers at Tehidy Holiday Park have their own private space, created by wildflower borders and hedging Tehidy Holiday Park Children get up close to nature at Ruda Holiday Park In return for a holiday at Tehidy, UK chainsaw carving champion Matt Crabb turned an old park log into an owl sculpture Tehidy Holiday Park
ISSUE 180 page 68 2016.4 Park Rangers - 4 of 5 Pond-dipping at Ruda Holiday Park Hedge planting - an example of the activities carried out on corporate team-building days Kent Wildlife Trust
Park Rangers - 5 of 5 2016.4 page 69 ISSUE 180 The Wildlife Trusts One of the best resources parks can use for help are any one of the country s 47 Wildlife Trusts. By joining their local Wildlife Trust as a Corporate Member, parks can demonstrate that they care about the local community and the environment, said Anne Waite, Conservation Officer at Kent Wildlife Trust. According to Anne, One of the main benefits cited by our Corporate Members is the permission to use our logo on their website. It gives them credibility showing that by their support of Kent Wildlife Trust they are doing something positive for nature and the environment. Corporate Members can also tap into the professional wildlife expertise offered by local Wildlife Trusts. In Kent, one Corporate Member went the extra mile and funded a Kent Wildlife Trust volunteer trainee. Supervised directly by Kent Wildlife Trust staff, the trainee spent 11 months working with the Corporate Member, carrying out practical land management, including the creation of a wildflower meadow, as well as preparing a wildlife calendar which could be given to all holidaymakers booking accommodation on the park. Another Corporate Member is working with The Trust to deliver its Environment Week. We will be kicking off the week with a Meet Kent Wildlife Trust session, Anne said, and we are running a session called Perfect Pollination, where we will be advising on the right seeds to plant in order to attract more bees and butterflies into gardens. In return, Corporate Members often want to support their Trust in a tangible way, including making them their Charity of the Year. Others will organise one-off fundraising events as a company, such as a quiz night, sponsored challenge or dress-up day. These events can be a great way to engage employees with both the company and the work of The Trust, Anne added. Tehidy Holiday Park in Redruth is a Corporate Member of its local Wildlife Trust. Joining The Wildlife Trust was another affordable way of supporting a local charity which carried out work we see to be essential in our changing world, explained owner Richard Barnes. We need to preserve the landscape and wildlife that makes Cornwall unique and special for future generations too, he added. The financial and aesthetic future of Cornwall is closely connected with tourism. Our guests enjoy The Trust s publications, gain ideas for days out and also enjoy the fact that their holiday destination is taking an eco-friendly perspective of holidays. The experience of parks such as Tehidy is echoed by many of the other parks participating in the David Bellamy Conservation Award Scheme. They all show that when it comes to nature conservation, it makes great sense to look for the right kind of assistance whether that be a full-time wildlife Ranger or just an occasional helping hand from a local Wildlife Trust expert. l Corporate Members installing a boardwalk Kent Wildlife Trust