Share your Wild Life with us!

As part of an exciting new campaign, Dorset Wildlife Trust (DWT) is asking not what can we do for nature, but what nature can do for us.

Today DWT and the Wildlife Trusts is launching the nation-wide campaign, ‘My Wild Life’, which encourages us all to stop and think about the part wildlife plays in our lives.  How do we ‘use’ nature, and how does it make us feel? 

Contact with nature is good for us.  In Dorset, we are lucky to live by the sea and the countryside, and evidence suggests that those living near open green spaces have a 50% chance of being more healthy, both physically and mentally, and are 40% less likely to become over-weight or obese. 

Contact with nature should not be the preserve of the privileged

The Wildlife Trusts President Emeritus, Sir David Attenborough, has travelled the world in search of wildlife.  Sir David said: “Contact with nature should not be the preserve of the privileged.  It is crucial to the personal development of our children.  People turn to nature in moments of joy and in moments of sadness.  We are part of the natural world: we depend on it for the air we breathe and the food we eat. The Wildlife Trusts are helping people to understand their role in the natural world and their dependency on it.  This is essential if we are going to speed nature’s recovery.”

Dorset Wildlife Trust is encouraging people from all walks of life to share their own personal stories about what wildlife means to them.  

Flora's "My Wild Life" story

Busy mother of two, and stained glass artist, Flora from Bridport, tells her what nature means to her:  “I love being outside with my children, they get so much out of it ­ even if they’re complaining, the minute you get them outside they become completely content, and that makes us all happy.  We love wild swimming and spending time on the beach at West Bay.

I also get a lot of inspiration from being outdoors.  As well as doing contemporary work, I do a lot of traditional work where stain glass panels often feature birds and foliage.  Whilst I’m out in Dorset there’s plenty to photograph to help me with my work.

Wildlife and being outside makes me feel energised, inspired and invigorated.”

What does nature mean to you?

Share your wildlife story with us at: www.mywildlife.org.uk or contact us on Twitter at @dorsetwildlife or facebook/dorsetwildlife and use #mywildlife to read stories from people all over the country, about what makes their lives wild.