Local residents took part in a research day to influence ‘rewilding’ in London’s gardens
Date: 12 November 2024
On 16 July, the Wild Ways research day was hosted at London Metropolitan University's Holloway campus for local residents to learn about rewilding in London and the Wild Ways project.
The residents participated in workshops to help create strategies that will encourage Londoners to rewild their gardens. London Met researchers led the workshops and documented residents’ suggestions for influencing the work of London changemakers.
Wild Ways is a London Metropolitan University research project, in partnership with Kusuma Trust and the award-winning campaign, which combines design and behaviour change to explore urban rewilding. Rewilding entails incorporating wildlife-friendly characteristics into outdoor settings (for example, providing food, water and housing for wild animals, as well as adopting nature-friendly gardening practices).
Wild Ways is based at the Centre of Urban for Built Ecologies and part of the University’s civic and community initiative, London Met Lab: Empowering London, which aims to address the capital's urgent challenges. The Wild Ways research team consists of London Met academics Siân Moxon and Justin Webb, with student research assistants from London Met and Dr Mina Samangooei of Oxford Brookes University. The event was supported by the Lab’s Centre for Applied Research on Empowering Society.
“The research team thoroughly enjoyed the day and had overwhelmingly positive feedback from the residents who participated. Everyone was enthusiastic about the Wild Ways project and optimistic about changing rewilding behaviour in London’s gardens, and many of the participants had impressive knowledge about current practice and policies in the field. We gathered lots of invaluable data from the workshops and focus groups, and are now looking forward to continuing to work with some of the attendees to analyse this and use it to create a strategy to drive change in London through a dedicated steering group," said Siân Moxon, co-researcher of the Wild Ways study.
Through collaborative workshops and focus groups, residents helped to co-create a word cloud to define what urban rewilding means for London's private gardens and also brainstormed intervention strategies. In turn, this will help London’s policymakers, designers, and conservation organisations promote rewilding to more residents.
As appreciation for their contribution, each attendee received a £20 shopping voucher, a 'Wild Makeover Guide' booklet, sustainable stationary, as well as sustainable vegetarian lunch and refreshment options for participating in the research day.
Rewilding project participants