Creating awareness for the environment with Lydia German

Meet the Mancunian-10.6-Lydia German - transcript

Intro

[00:00:00] Hello listeners and welcome to Season 10 of the Meet the Mancunian podcast: social impact stories from Manchester. I'm your host, Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe, offering you a warm Mancunian welcome.

[00:00:12] I'm delighted to bring to you Season 10 where I celebrate social impact community heroes across Manchester. I hope, dear Listener, you can learn from their life experiences, the challenges they've overcome, and their passion for their cause.

[00:00:27] My aim for the Meet the Mancunian Podcast is to encourage you to live your life with purpose and impact, inspired by the stories my guests share every Tuesday throughout the season.

[00:00:38] You can listen to the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or my website.www.meetthemancunian.co.uk. Get ready for another season full of thought-provoking conversations and life changing stories.

Introducing Lydia German

[00:00:52] Welcome to the sixth episode of Season 10 of the Meet the Mancunian podcast social impact stories from Manchester.

[00:01:00] Passionate about supporting wildlife and conservation? We hear from Lydia German, senior Content and Campaigns Officer Lancashire Wildlife Trust in this episode.

[00:01:12] In Lydia's own words.

[00:01:14] Lydia German: So that just proves the impact, that's almost nine out of 10 candidates across the whole country hearing from people through the wildlife trust that they want that to be on the agenda. And I'm really proud to have been a part of that and reaching 3.1 million people just in our region through the communications work we were doing.

[00:01:32] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you so much, Lydia for joining me today.

[00:01:35] Lydia German: Thank you very much for having me.

[00:01:37] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Really looking forward. It's a cause I'm personally really passionate about, animal welfare and wildlife particular. It's of high interest to me, so really excited about having you share your story.

Lydia's Journey into Wildlife Conservation

[00:01:50] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: But before we talk about Lancashire Wildlife Trust, tell us about how you got involved with working with wildlife. Was there a defining moment that sparked this journey for you?

[00:02:01] Lydia German: For me, it was realising that I wanted to use my skills in marketing and communications for the greater good. I'd worked in the industry for about eight years. And I thought, do you know what? I feel like I'm at a point where I can use my transferable skills to help a charity or something. Because my first role was within a social enterprise. I'm also a trustee of a charity.

[00:02:25] So third sector work has always been in my blood, and I wanted to go back to that. And for me, it was getting involved with local planning applications, trying to save local green space. My granddad's a huge advocate for that because he used to work for the environment agency. So, I thought, carry on the legacy. He's retired now. But I wanted to channel my communication skills and my interest in environmental politics together. And that's very much what I do now at Lancashire Wildlife Trust.

[00:02:53] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's amazing, and I love that there's a link with your grandfather and his passion as well, which has probably inculcated some of your passion. Some, I'm sure, is on your own. And it reminds me of a few moments in my own career journey where I've had the pleasure of going and volunteering in Africa to different animal welfare charities, working both with the animals, with animal care, but also using my communications and marketing skills. So, hats off to you to doing this full time every day. That's exciting.

[00:03:24] So tell us about how you got involved with Lancashire Wildlife Trust and then what does it do?

Role and Goals of Lancashire Wildlife Trust

[00:03:29] Lydia German: So I got involved in May 2023. I've been in the communications role for nearly two years now. So Lancashire Wildlife Trust is part of a massive wildlife trust movement. There's over 40 different wildlife trusts across the UK. The full title of this trust is the Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Greater Manchester and North Merseyside.

[00:03:50] It's a bit of a tongue twister, but it is a massive area that we cover in comparison to other wildlife trusts. So, the aim of Lancashire Wildlife Trust is to have 30 percent of our land and sea recovering by 2030, and to have one in four people taking action for nature, whether that's volunteering, whether that's donating to the charity so we can do more restoration work, whether that's recycling.

[00:04:15] All of these sorts of things are what we as the Wildlife Trust aim to do, because as we know, climate change is very real, the biodiversity crisis is very real. And my job in communications is to help mobilise people to take action for that and feel that they can really do something about it.

[00:04:33] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: It's great to know that you're looking to reach one out of every four people. You'd like to reach more but get one out of every four people to take those actions. And I hope the podcast can help with that.

[00:04:43] Lydia German: The one in four actually comes from the theory of change. So if you have one in four people in society, either changing their opinions or taking action about certain things, it can actually push it completely the other way. And so when we talk about nature's recovery by 2030, that's how we get that if one in four people take action for nature.

[00:05:03] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Love it. And so there's also an aspect of being a kind of ambassador or a catalyst for other people to say, Oh, this is what Lydia's doing. And this is what Deepa's doing. How do I.

[00:05:14] Are there obstacles you've had to overcome in this journey that you can, draw some lessons from?

Challenges in Environmental Politics

[00:05:19] Lydia German: I think, even though I wanted to go into environmental politics, it's a very challenging area at the moment. So for example, last year we had the general election. I ran our general election campaign, which was all about encouraging people to speak to their parliamentary candidates about wildlife, and how they would put the environment on the agenda if they were elected.

[00:05:41] Now obviously as a charity, we're governed by the Charity Commissioner's office, which means that we can't be encouraging people to vote a certain way. We can't show a favour to a certain political party, to remain politically neutral. And people often think that's quite challenging.

[00:05:56] I didn't find it challenging because we broke down each manifesto and how it played into the wildlife and biodiversity crisis. The main thing that is challenging for me is actually people's perceptions of that.

[00:06:09] We often get challenges when we're commenting on planning applications or why haven't you completely opposed this, or, you're meeting with this MP, are you showing favour to this sort of person?

[00:06:18] So I feel like the reactions from the public sometimes can be quite difficult to navigate. But the way we get around that is by being as transparent as possible, but it is a little bit challenging.

[00:06:29] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And you're right. Transparency is probably the way because those questions or those concerns may come from either good intent or not knowing the situation and therefore worried that are you not being impartial and neutral as they might be concerned about.

[00:06:48] Are there any other obstacles you might want to talk about, when you're trying to reach people, to mobilise people, is there something that you particularly need to get past.

Reaching Diverse Communities

[00:06:59] Lydia German: I think one of our big aims is reaching a different demographic, because if you imagine like wildlife and the wildlife trust, there is a certain perception that conservation is very like middle class white male sort of career. And a big thing for us is reaching more diverse communities.

[00:07:15] The region that we cover has massively diverse communities. I can think of one example of our project in Blackburn, our greenhouse project, we have people from all different walks of life, all different abilities, all different corners of the world, getting involved, planting together, having those conversations and meeting people that they wouldn't normally come across.

[00:07:35] And it really helps to facilitate that and spark a love of nature for people who not really have engaged with it in that way before. Also have recently opened a couple of new cafes as well, which again, the passing foot traffic from people who may have got public transport and not known about us, that's another way that we're reaching new audiences because a lot of our nature reserves and woodlands that we manage, they're in the middle of nowhere. You drive to get there.

[00:08:01] And also young people as well. That's a massive passion of mine, being a trustee of another youth charity. And I can talk a little bit later on about the impact that I think I've had in terms of we've actually seen our social media audience shift to being much younger, 16 to 24. So we do have a long way to go in terms of reaching new audiences, but I feel like we're making those steps.

[00:08:22] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Think you're right. Definitely, the Great Manchester area and many parts of the UK that you cover are very multicultural. Again, the environment and the climate is for everyone. It's not for a particular demographic and how do you make it relevant?

[00:08:38] And when you think about the impact that you made so far, what would you like to call out there?

Impact and Achievement

[00:08:45] Lydia German: I think one of the main impacts that I'm really proud to have had is the fact that when I joined the team, there was no one really that focused on communicating around our policy, like political and advocacy work.

[00:08:56] And I think that me joining has given us the chance to communicate what's often a very difficult to understand topic to more people. For example, breaking down something really complex, the Mersey tidal barrage proposal, which even to me, sometimes I just think like I need this translating into plain English because if I can't understand it, the average person's not going to understand it.

[00:09:20] And for me, one of the things that I'm really proud of last year is that through the general election campaign, through working with all the different wildlife trusts across the UK, 89 percent of candidates for the election got letters from constituents from our action saying they wanted nature and the climate to be on the agenda for whoever got into power. And 72 percent of those candidates had more than two letters.

[00:09:44] So that just proves the impact, that's almost nine out of 10 candidates across the whole country hearing from people through the wildlife trust that they want that to be on the agenda. And I'm really proud to have been a part of that and reaching 3. 1 million people just in our region through the communications work we were doing.

[00:10:02] That's a big real proud moment for me, that, because that goes back to, everything I was talking about with my grandad. Feeling like I needed the sort of power and name of Lancashire Wildlife Trust to help me make a difference as well. And that was a real moment for me where I was like, I feel like I've done that now.

[00:10:18] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: It's a great example and something very tangible because for the political leaders, they really want to hear what their constituents think and rather than just hearing what the Wildlife Trust and other Charities think. So, I think there's a real power in mobilising people and more power to you and the other colleagues who were involved with this. That does sound like a real impact.

[00:10:42] And you talked a little bit about misunderstanding. So is there something people often misunderstand about your field and you'd like to like maybe myth bust a bit?

[00:10:51] Lydia German: I think people often think that just because we don't oppose something entirely, i. e. green energy. We're working on quite a few campaigns around wind farms at the minute, for example, that, we must not ever bear wildlife in mind. The message is, we're fully supportive of green energy.

[00:11:10] It's a massive part of working towards reversing climate change. We need to bear in mind the impact that these sort of developments then have on nature. For example, there's an upcoming Mersey Tidal Barrage campaign that I'm working on that may in fact be going straight through one of our nature reserves. And that's something that is really important for us to communicate that we're not against green energy, but if it's potentially destroying a whole nature reserve then we need to comment on that as well.

[00:11:38] I wish people would understand that there's more nuance to things sometimes. Sometimes you have planning applications where you have to read through 270 documents, it's a lot of work and a lot of time and expertise that's required.

[00:11:50] But because it is such a complex beast, I don't expect the average person to be understanding this and going through all those documents. That's what myself and my colleagues are here to do,

[00:11:59] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: You're right there's, like you said, more than one perspective that needs to be brought to bear. And then there's also like, how do you speak for the voiceless, right? The land or the wildlife, they can't speak for themselves. And this is where people care about these things. We're trying to also give a voice to those who can't. So that's really important.

[00:12:18] What's your top tip for people trying to make an impact in their community, regardless of whether it's wildlife or in a broader social impact role.

[00:12:28] Lydia German: I think my top tip for people who are looking to make some sort of impact around the climate is, look what's in your local area already. There's so many, I'm not just talking about the wildlife trust. I'm talking about local wildlife groups, local green umbrella groups. There's, friends of the earth, all sorts of other environmental organisations have presence all over the country.

[00:12:48] What I would do is, if you're wanting to start making an impact, is think about the skills that you could offer. Is it volunteering that you want to get involved with? Do you want to start your own community project? That sort of thing. And getting in touch with these organisations, and finding out what's already in your area, is such a helpful tool.

[00:13:05] Because, when I decided that I wanted to move into the environmental space, I was looking, what are my local organisations? Lancashire Wildlife Trust was the first one that came up, but I'm aware of other ones, like Bolton Green Umbrella, We're all wildlife, all that sort of thing. Just connect to other people locally who want to do the same thing as you.

[00:13:23] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's really nice, isn't it? Finding people who care about the same causes that you do, maybe with slightly different perspectives or slightly different offerings and try to work some magic together. It's a theme I hear often from guests that collaboration is so important because you can actually build something more long lasting if we bring our resources together.

[00:13:44] And now it's an opportunity for you to talk about anything I haven't asked you about, including if you want to talk about your other trustee role.

[00:13:52] Lydia German: So the big push that we're doing at the minute at Lancashire Wildlife Trust is again, I've mentioned one in four people, but we've actually launched a map a couple of months ago where people can log. whether they're taking action for nature. If you type in Lancashire Wildlife Trust Actions for Nature on any search engine, you'll find a map that has definitions of different categories of taking action.

[00:14:14] It could be going green. It could be voting environmentally, politically. It could be putting bird food out in your garden. It can be so many different things. We have a big long list and people can click which action they've taken, where in the region they took it and the map at the minute is looking quite pretty with all the different logs. It's really nice to see, not that we're pitting a competition against who's doing the best, but it's really nice to see if there's hotspots in certain areas as well.

[00:14:41] And when there is it's quite interesting to look at, is it a big volunteer group there or are people just particularly interested in, giving out bird feed in the gardens there as well? So I highly recommend anyone to be looking at that, logging actions on their map, but also we have so many other guides about other actions that you can take. It's a broad topic. So I'd highly recommend people to check out the Actions for Nature map.

[00:15:06] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I love that and I recently did the Big Garden Watch with RPSB. And I'm one of those people who has I think four bird feeders and two bird baths and a bee bath so I think I should be checking out that map and logging my own actions. And I'm sure there's more inspiration I can get about things I'm not necessarily doing right now because you know we can always do more to support wildlife, support animals and the environment.

[00:15:34] So I'm now going to move us to the signature questions I ask all my guests.

Signature Questions and Personal Insights

[00:15:38] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And the first one for you is, what makes Manchester a unique place for social impact work?

[00:15:43] Lydia German: Think what makes Manchester unique and I bet i'm not the first guest to say this is we do actually do things differently here. I worked in Manchester for I think it was nearly four years at the start of my career and that was in a social enterprise. I had a lot of close contacts with other social enterprises.

[00:16:02] And that's when I was also doing my work with Youth Leads, which is the charity that I'm a trustee of now. I was volunteering with them at the time. And I think people are just so passionate about what they do. There's just really something different about Manchester and obviously the city centre, it's very easy for people to go and visit each other and that sort of thing for networking.

[00:16:23] It's a bit different working in Lancashire now because my office is in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes when I do get to work in Manchester, it's really nice because you can do a few different visits in a day. But I think the mentality of Manchester and to make a real change and do things that have never been done before is just something that really sticks with me to this day from when I worked in Manchester.

[00:16:44] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I like that very much about making a real change and doing things with that slightly different Mancunian lens.

[00:16:51] If you could have dinner with any historical figure in Manchester, who would it be with and why?

[00:16:56] Lydia German: I'm going to say Tony Wilson because Tony Wilson had a huge impact on the work that the first company that I worked for in Manchester, Sharp Futures, did. A lot of the senior management team did work with him a long time ago. And just the impact, he was really about doing things differently. We even had a Tony Wilson award at that workplace at the time.

[00:17:21] And I've even heard of award organisations, like formally doing a Tony Wilson award for someone who just has their own signature and does things really differently. I think I would ask him about all the crazy stories that he had from when he worked in Manchester. And also, if he was around today, how different it is from when he was making that impact back in the day.

[00:17:41] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I feel like I need to look him up. I should say I'm a new Mancunian and newish to the UK as well. So I'm still learning about some of this cultural heritage. I'm not as familiar with him, but he does sound very interesting and great to know that so many people are, keeping the tradition alive of doing things differently, which I hear all over Manchester.

[00:18:04] If you were to create a social impact superhero, what powers would they have and what cause would they fight for?

[00:18:11] Lydia German: Oh, I think that goes back to reaching the sort of traditionally unreachable people. People who might not engage with nature at all, they're like the people that we need to target. It might be people who see barriers as nature's not really for me, or they can't easily access a nature reserve. Helping them to understand the nature journey, so nature is really, like you said, for everybody.

[00:18:36] And also, the other superpower that I think they would have is being able to quantify that information because like we said, one in four, making that a streamlined process, can we get them to log these actions on the map once we get in contact with them? And measuring the impact that they as an individual have with this superhero social impact power.

[00:18:57] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And the cause they're fighting for, it's nature, climate change?

[00:19:00] Lydia German: Getting one in four people taking action for nature.

[00:19:04] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Lovely. I hope that Superhero can come. Maybe you'll find them on your map. Who knows?

[00:19:10] Lydia German: Who knows?

[00:19:11] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: What's the most important life lesson you've learned so far?

[00:19:14] Lydia German: I think you learn by making mistakes. I have made a lot of challenging decisions about certain situations. And I think only by being in those situations where you might have for example, difficult conversation with someone about environmental politics, or you might have put out something on social media that didn't really resonate with the audience.

[00:19:39] I feel like unless you try these new things or have situations like this, you can't learn and develop as an individual. Sometimes, people are so afraid of making mistakes. And I just think least you tried it and you know whether it works or whether it doesn't or how to approach the situation differently next time.

[00:19:58] There's a lot of lessons that I've learned in my eight years in communications that stay with me to this day. So I would always say don't be afraid of trying new things or being in potentially challenging situations because you will always learn something from it.

[00:20:12] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: In fact, probably you'll learn more by going through those challenging situations or trying something new than doing things in a tried and tested way. Like you said, maybe three things don't work, but the fourth does work, and you can build something really strong there.

[00:20:27] I resonate. That's my day job as well. I'm in communications, I'm getting where you're coming from.

[00:20:34] How can interested people reach out to you and learn more, and where can they find you, and where can they find Lancashire Wildlife Trust and this wonderful Action for Nature map.

[00:20:44] Lydia German: So if anybody wants to connect on LinkedIn, it's just Lydia German. If you want to find out anything about Lancashire Wildlife Trust, you can visit our website or, like I said, if you have any questions about Lancashire Wildlife Trust that you can't find on there, drop me a message on LinkedIn.

[00:20:58] Our website is the hub for everything from, the Action for Nature map. to if you want to try your hand at volunteering. If you even listen to this and decide, I want to work for Lancashire Wildlife Trust, we have some roles coming up too. So you will find everything on our website and our social media, which again, it's just Lancashire Wildlife Trust.

[00:21:16] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And where would they find the Action for Nature map? Is it again the website?

[00:21:20] Lydia German: Yes, it would be on the website. It's one of the dropdowns around taking action and then it's taking action for nature and you'll see the beautiful map on there.

[00:21:29] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Wonderful. That's definitely going to be one of my actions for this week. Make sure I log a few things in there.

[00:21:36] Lydia German: I'm so pleased.

[00:21:37] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And thank you so much for sharing those links. I'll make sure it's in the show notes so people can find it easily.

[00:21:43] Is there a funny or a heartwarming story you might like to share with listeners to end the podcast?

[00:21:51] Lydia German: I actually share this when I do communications training with like new starters at the job. So this was, I think I'd only been in the role three months and everyone in my team was on annual leave apart from me. And I was checking emails on the day. And I'd had several random requests coming through about is it true that this pelican has escaped from Blackpool Zoo and is on your nature reserve potentially eating ducks. And I was like what is going on here?

[00:22:22] And then I logged onto social media and people were tagging us in this picture of this pelican apparently, eating wildlife on our nature reserve. I was panicking at the time. I was Oh my God, what's going on? Spoke to the nature reserve officer who confirmed that the pelican was there. Didn't manage to catch it but it's flown off now.

[00:22:40] I was checking the news so much for the next two days. Because I was like, it is true that it was there. People were asking us, we were getting so many media requests, gave them a quote. Funniest part of that was Blackpool Zoo, eventually caught this pelican.

[00:22:55] The picture that they took with the pelican looks like a mug shot. Honestly, I thought it's finally been caught. It looks so moody in that picture. So whenever I do the communications training, I poke a little bit fun of that situation and say, people were contacting us about it, but I included this hilarious mugshot of this pelican at the end because I just had to mention it.

[00:23:18] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Love it. So there's a little moment where the pelican was sent to jail because it's doing naughty things.

[00:23:23] That's a very nice note to end the podcast. And I know that in nature, everybody needs to eat, but obviously we don't want to encourage that as well. And especially when people are going for conservation trips.

[00:23:36] Lydia German: Definitely. It was the fact that, I was the only one working that day in the communications team. And I thought, of course, this is the day where a rogue pelican breaks out of Blackpool Zoo, comes to our nature reserve, has potentially eaten a duck or two, and then gets caught again, gets this mugshot in the zoo.

[00:23:54] And I was like, what a day. This is how life is at the Wildlife Trust.

[00:23:59] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: No day is a dull day, is it? Because you've got all these wonderful experiences and it's really lovely to know that you do this all the time.

[00:24:07] If you need people to come and shadow you for the day, you should offer that out on the podcast. I'm sure there'll be lots of us interested.

[00:24:15] Lydia German: I can't guarantee any pelicans, but yes,

[00:24:18] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: This is such a pleasure to talk to you. Great to hear a little bit about your story and all the amazing work the Lancashire Wildlife Trust is doing to inspire people to get involved and to protect the biodiversity and wildlife.

[00:24:32] Lydia German: Thank very much for having me.

Outro

[00:24:35] Lydia, I really enjoyed learning about supporting Nature today.

[00:24:39] Dear listener, thank you so much for listening to the sixth episode of the Meet the Man Podcast, Season 10. I hope today's episode has inspired you to make positive change wherever you live. Tune in every Tuesday for a new episode or log on to meet the manco.co.uk to listen to all the episodes and learn more about my podcasting story.

[00:25:04] Next week on Tuesday, 1 April 2025. I speak to Ryan Miemczyk about supporting the youth in the community.

[00:25:12] It's wonderful to hear from you, dear listener. You can share your story or send me a message on my website meetthemancunian.co.uk or on social media @MeettheMancunian on Instagram, Facebook, and Blue Sky, and @MeettheMancunianPodcast on YouTube.

[00:25:32] Thank you to my wonderful community of listeners. Remember your voice, your stories, and your actions matter. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it, and let's inspire even more positive change.

[00:25:45] To a better, kinder world, and until next time, let's continue making Manchester and beyond a place of greater impact, compassion, and action.