Meet Sam

Sydenham Hill Wood's new Project Officer, Sam Taylor, speaks about his role in protecting the Wood. 

 

Sam read Geography at Leeds University, gaining a BA (Hons). He started in his present role at the start of March last year, however, he had been in place for only a couple of weeks before the first lock-down was imposed. Since then, he has had to manage much of the maintenance and conservation work alone, as volunteering has been suspended for all but a few weeks of this period.

 

Sam getting to grips with clearing the small pond by the glade.

 

Life before the Wood.

 

I have a particular interest in trees in the urban environment.

 

In my last job before coming to the London Wildlife Trust,  I worked for a charity called Trees for Cities. I was responsible for managing tree planting projects delivered with volunteers across London and the subsequent maintenance of the trees until their establishment. This included street trees, planting in parks and larger scale woodland creation projects on sites of low biodiversity value, such as amenity grassland.  It was a rewarding job - I can now be in pretty much any part of London and find a tree I helped to plant. Prior to that I worked as a gardener for a year or so, having decided office work was not for me.  

 

I am passionate about urban greening - how can our cities be made greener and more environmentally sustainable? I believe that everyone should have access to high quality public green spaces in their locality.

Since starting the role at Sydenham Hill Wood I have become a bit of a twitcher. I always appreciated birds but was no good at identifying any but the most obvious.

I am also interested in the concept of rewilding as a way to reverse some of the dramatic losses of biodiversity in the UK, particularly on marginal land such as the sheep-grazed deserts of much of Britain’s uplands.
 

I have always had a soft spot for Sydenham Hill Wood. I have a vivid memory of visiting my uncle, who lived in Sydenham, when I was very young and being amazed by the old tunnel. The opportunity to help manage such a special site was too good to pass up. Also, having spent a lot of time travelling all over London to different projects in my last job, the idea of being based in one place permanently and getting to know it inside out was also attractive. I used to walk in the Woods occasionally when I lived in Loughborough Junction and as I said, I had a memory of it from being very young. However, I can’t say I knew it very well. I didn’t know anything about the Great North Wood, for example. 

 

Since arriving at the Wood

The highs - getting to meet all the volunteers. Everyone has been very welcoming and supportive. Being able to spend so much time in the Wood and starting to know it more intimately. Seeing a treecreeper on my first day wasn’t bad. Watching the kestrels in the church tower next to Cox’s Walk. Spring blooms. More recently, the news of the Tree Protection Order (TPO) being applied to the whole site was welcome.

The lows - the impact of lockdowns and Covid on volunteering activities. Vandalism of dead-hedges and fencing. The ongoing saga of the bridge. Dog poo bags hung all over the place - and more generally, littering gets me down. Seeing the damage done by trampling throughout the Wood.

 

I’ve learned a lot more about the wildlife and history of the Wood, and the pressures and challenges that the Wood faces.

 

It's tough to identify any favourite parts of the Wood as I think my fondness for certain parts changes with the seasons. In spring, there is a glade quite well tucked away near the top end of the Wood that I always seem to have to myself and that is quite a rare thing in the Wood these days.
 

 

Hopes and Challenges for the Wood.

 

With the Wood being increasingly popular there is the opportunity to engage and educate more people about the Wood, its wildlife and how to protect it. This will rely on improved signage as well as face to face engagement with visitors.

Once the Covid situation eases,  there is the opportunity to harness the energy and skills of a large volunteer base to make up for lost time. 

 

Climate change will obviously present a major challenge and will no doubt bring massive changes to the ecology of the Wood. Hotter and drier springs and summers are already the trend and this will continue (unless we see dramatic action soon - I do not hold my breath). The Wood will not be immune to the decimation of biodiversity that currently we are seeing. Against this backdrop it will of course, be a challenge to preserve the diversity of wildlife that is in the Wood.

The Wood has become more and more popular and receives a huge amount of visitors. This is not just anecdotal - the gate counter stats bear this out too. Managing access to mitigate against trampling and fragmentation of the Wood will be a big challenge. And it’s not just people - more people means more dogs.

There will always be the challenge of  trying to find money to do major works (like path resurfacing).

I want to work in a collaborative way - the Wood belongs to everyone and I would like the management to be reflective of that. If eventually I leave the job, I would like to know that there hasn’t been a decline in biodiversity in the Wood - so bucking national and global trends. The paths are also a bit of a bugbear of mine so I would really like to have the entire extent of the main path network resurfaced. I would also like to work to diversify the volunteer base.