Environment Week still flourishing 41 years on

Last year, one of the organisers of Sheffield Environment Weeks, Dave Sinclair, feared the event’s 40th year might be its last. The disruptions of Covid, and retirement of chair and driving force Pat Barsby and other voluntary organisers meant publicising the array of public green events was becoming unsustainable, he says.

“We put a call out for new members of the Sheffield Environment Weeks committee, and by the end of 2024 we had new faces and valuable skills bringing new enthusiasm to the events.”

Professor Ian Rotherham has been a supporter of the Sheffield Environment Weeks throughout its long history. In 2009, for the SEW 25th anniversary, he said:

“In 1984 the rivers were still suffering from pollution. The Rother was technically dead, and the first week included a clean up of the Don organised by people for whom the Five Weirs Walk at that time was still just a twinkle in their eyes.”

The city saw few birds of prey because of pollution and pesticides, in the 1980s, he added, but clean ups and the expansion of nature reserves led to Buzzards and Red Kites soaring over Sheffield, with Herons, and Kingfishers nesting along the Don, and Otters swimming into the city.

The first Sheffield Environment Week in 1984 was just a week, part of a national event supported by BT and run locally by the Sheffield Civic Trust.

Voluntary groups working in the city’s green spaces and along our riversides could apply for grant funding to put on events, and when the national Environment Week promotion ended, Sheffield carried on thanks to enthusiastic volunteers, and with help for a few years from the council.

The programme expanded to two weeks, then a month in 2002 until now Sheffield Environment Weeks spreads from April through to July.

The aim, says Dave Sinclair, is: “to promote and celebrate the Sheffield environment by advertising events for local groups.” There’s no charge for the service, he adds, but the task involves many hours of volunteer time.

If you’re from a local group wanting to both promote your events and gain new members, register at: https://www.sheffieldenvironment.org, and then once approved you can upload your events, which are checked and moderated.

“It can be walks, talks, family events, plant sales, dawn chorus walks, local heritage events, practical conservation work,” says Dave. As long as there’s an environmental and local theme, send it in, he says. This year, anyone can check upcoming events on the online calendar, and next year the SEW printed booklet of events will return, he adds.

Underlying the promotion of events, SEW has always aimed to celebrate the hundred or more local voluntary environmental groups working across the city, all of whom welcome new members, not least when founders who might have been around when SEW was young are now well past retirement age.

But plenty of young people and families are now taking an interest in the local environment, as climate change and biodiversity loss are recognised as both international and local issues.

In Graves Park, for example, hundreds of people have stepped up to volunteer in recent projects to study the park and plan a future to improve the environment for both people and wildlife.

Sheffielders are enthusiastic about their local environment, said Ian Rotherham, and the success of Sheffield Environment Weeks is a reflection of that interest.

And practical ‘birds, bees, and flowers’ environmental events can help to get people involved in the wider issues facing them and their children.

“With one hat on as an environmentalist we’re talking about the future of humankind, but to help people get to grips with that, you’ve got to have some handle on the environment, and it’s got to be fun, you’ve got to entertain and to enthuse. Without that you can't hope to deal with the serious issues.”

See: https://www.sheffieldenvironment.org