Anthony McCluskey, Helping Hands for Butterflies Project Officer, discusses the work to make Butterfly Conservation more accessible for volunteers, and how his project works to include new audiences in urban areas in Scotland.
Please tell us a bit about your work and role at Butterfly Conservation
I’ve been at Butterfly Conservation close to seven years now on urban projects. Initially this was the Urban Butterfly Project and now it is the Helping Hands for Butterflies Project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Hund and NatureScot. Both of those projects have a real focus on working in central Scotland and working in the more deprived and disadvantaged communities there. We try and get people involved in our work of recording and monitoring butterflies and carrying out habitat work to make space for butterflies in our towns and cities.
Accessibility at Butterfly Conservation’s reserves and sites
My interest in accessibility came about because one of the targets in my current project has been to increase the diversity of people who volunteer for Butterfly Conservation. That included people from more urban and deprived backgrounds, as well as people with different disabilities who might not have had access to our work before. When I really started to look at it, I realised we do have some issues of accessibility for some of our volunteering opportunities, especially simple things like recording and monitoring butterflies.
When monitoring butterflies, we ask people to go to the exact same site, 26 weeks of the year, from the beginning of April until the end of September. We ask them to go out and record all the butterflies they see within a set distance from the route that they go along. Those routes are normally 1-2 kilometres long and they take about 45 minutes to monitor butterflies each time. Through my project I spoke to people who have disabilities, and organisations working directly with people with disabilities, and considered how we can work together to make more accessible butterfly monitoring routes.
It was difficult to do during Covid-19, but in the final year of the project in 2022 we worked with organisations to set up new recording routes which had accessibility at their heart. One of the partners we worked with was Urban Roots, at the Woodland Trusts’ Malls Mire Nature Reserve in Glasgow, because I knew they had a new path network that was designed to be accessible to everybody. The reserve is also a fantastic place for butterflies, so this was a perfect combination.
Including wider communities
We are also working to engage with people who might not have engaged in our work in the past because of barriers they faced. I was really keen to show people living in densely populated urban areas that butterflies are on their doorsteps and that we want those people to be a part of our work to record and help butterflies and moths. I knew I needed to meet people where they were, so I’ve held events in cities like Edinburgh and Glasgow, and large towns like Blantyre and Hamilton. It was also important for me that people were shown that they didn’t need to have access to a car or the ability to get into the countryside – there’s a lot to be found in urban places, if you know where to look. So, it’s about being more inclusive by bringing these opportunities and experiences to people. Another charity I worked with is called Leonard Cheshire, which provides support to disabled people to live, learn and work. Through Leonard Cheshire I was put in touch with a lecturer named Gemma at Glasgow Kelvin College. Gemma teaches students with additional support needs and invited me speak to the students about butterfly identification and monitoring. We also established a new butterfly monitoring route at Bishop Loch, at which the students were to record butterflies each week during their outdoor class sessions. I believe that everyone has a right to experience the wonderful world of butterflies and moths, and it’s important that people working in nature conservation reach out to more organisations like this.
The importance of partnerships
Throughout my project I have been reminded many times of the importance of working with other organisations. At Butterfly Conservation, we may be experts in butterflies and moths, but that doesn’t qualify us to know what is best for everyone! My approach has always been to ask this question: how can we help you get involved? Using this approach, I’ve been able to see things from the perspective of potential volunteers who haven’t engaged with us before and gained some understanding of how we can make opportunities genuinely more accessible. I’ve also brought in help from organisations like The Conservation Volunteers (TCV), asking them to make recommendations about things we can improve at Butterfly Conservation. For example, when I create events, I will now prefer to use venues that are accessible, and plan the route of guided walks so that we stick to accessible paths. When taking bookings, I also ask if the attendee has any access requirements I should know about. I have noticed that when I advertise events this way, more people using walking aids and people with children in prams attend, because they know they won’t be expected to ramble through difficult terrain. Simple things like these should be standard across our work if we genuinely want to invite everyone to take part in our work, whatever their ability or background.
We still have a way to go, but recognising the issues has been a key first step, and I will be sharing some of what I have learned in this project with colleagues across Butterfly Conservation.