Back to the local level, the L&OVe group met on 1 June to make decisions based on the follow-up suggestions coming out of April’s workshop (reported last time!).

Colin working with Sussex Wildlife Trust and Lewes Railwaylands Trust  to look from an ecologist’s perspective at which ecosystems are the most economically important to Lewes and the area.

Working on a criteria based preliminary assessment of the local ecosystems that are likely to be of greatest value to the Lewes economy. This is ‘work in progress’ aiming to produce two documents.

One from an ecosystem service perspective.

One from a habitat area (habitats are based on those from the L&OVe workshop) perspective.

The L&OVE group would then look at the issue from a community perspective (see below).

Valuing Nature Network

Colin attended London workshops and gained some great contacts on the ecology side of things.

Next phase is a ‘Town Meeting’ for specialists to come together with decision-makers in policy and business spheres.

June 24th in London – all can attend – They are calling for registrations at the moment.

The Town Meeting aims to decide what is needed for the policy context and applied research. From there funding for about 5 or 6 projects on a national basis will be given.

There’ll be potential funding for us if we get together with our local authority on valuing local ecosystems.

Moving on from the April L&OVe workshop:

Discussed potential enterprises to work with.

Friday market, Harveys and Pell’s Pool discussed as possibilities at some length. Decision to investigate starting with Pell’s Pool as initial case study. Colin to contact Pell’s Pool to see whether they’d be willing (once decided what we need to know from them – see below)

Colin will put together a list of some basic questions that we need to ask the organization

Anyone out there with spare time to research any existing methodology for doing this type of investigation?

Funding:

Colin is looking for some funding  – number of v. positive possibilities have emerged. If you can only do work on L&OVe activities (or could provide more substantive input) if its paid, Colin needs to know to write this into funding bids …..so contact Colin a.s.a.p.

Lewes Pound

Amy is the new Lewes Pound Coordinator. She, Colin and Ray are exploring doing a workshop (along similar lines to Apr 27th workshop) to draw out potential links between Lewes Pound and investment in local natural capital. They’ll meet on 28 June to flesh out ideas.

Next Meeting?

7th of July at the Lewes Arms at 7.30pm