We’re thrilled to learn that two members of our Ecology team have been shortlisted for a prestigious 2022 CIEEM award.
Outside of work here at FPCR, our Chartered Associate Ecologist Steve Roe produces the Bat Conservation Trust’s podcast ‘BatChat’ and it has been nominated for the second year running for the CIEEM NGO Impact Award 2022. Steve said “It’s great to see this popular podcast, heard in over 95 countries, nominated for this award a second time around. The launch of BatChat was the first of its kind; no other UK ecology-related podcast was taking its listeners out into the field to the sites of various projects with the people involved actually doing the work whilst recording was taking place. The show is increasing the profile of bat conservation projects being run all over the country, including by many volunteers and voluntary organisations. It’s also showcasing the work of local bat groups to listeners not familiar with these dedicated groups undertaking valuable survey work. This is not only helping to increase public support for bat conservation, and in turn funding, but bolsters those doing the work and is inspiring young and older ecologists to do the same and set up their own projects. The communications team at BCT and I are looking forward to the awards ceremony in June”.
Back in 2019, Steven Coyne a Senior Ecologist at FPCR, started a community project “QGIS for Ecologists” with the aim of providing a free resource for ecologists to learn or to improve their skills in digital mapping which is fast becoming an essential skill in the ecology sector. What started with a short series of YouTube tutorials which has provided over 5,000 hours of free training, has grown into an online community group, hosted on Facebook, with over 7,000 members from 50 different countries discussing approaches to mapping and spatial analysis. This project, was nominated for a CIEEM Best Practice – Knowledge Sharing award and has been shortlisted alongside two other projects. Steven said “I’ve been completely blown away with how popular these training resources have been and very grateful for all those people within the group that provide their time for free helping each other out”
Click HERE to read more about this year’s awards and check out the other nominations.
