Blog 1. Welcome to HUGS!

Hello! Welcome to our website!

We want to share our plans with you and find out what you’ve been doing during lockdown.

Celebrate what’s already happening!

We want to hear about and celebrate everything that’s being done in the name of nature, sustainability and combating climate change in Upton and the Hagbournes.

Can you tell us what you’ve done during lockdown or before? Have you built a nature pond in your garden? Or have you left part of your garden to grow wild to make space for nature?   

What else have you been doing in your garden or local area to help nature and live more sustainably? Do you regularly spot nature in your garden or on walks? Do you have photos we can share on the gallery?   

Let us know by emailing hugsustainability@gmail.com !

Our plans

We have 3 main focus areas: 

1.     campaigning for healthier, nature-rich, carbon-zero futures

2.     getting hands-on to help nature locally

3.     sharing information about how we can all live more sustainably in our homes, our gardens and our lifestyles.

Our first projects

We’re already working on a project to survey owls in our 3 villages, and we’re designing a wildlife walk for our area.

World Owl Trust (WOT) / HUGS Owl Project

We need volunteers to work with us to find out more about our local owl population. Using the WOT app we can individually track owls on our phones to build up a picture of the local population. This allows us to put up more nest boxes and then work on providing more habitat for the owls we know we have in the area.  

This is a chance to understand and support owls.  They are key indicator species which means they tell us about the health of our local ecosystems.  Sadly, owls are in great need of help right now.  We have an amazing opportunity here to make a difference to research and potentially increase their numbers.   

3 Village Wild Walk

Our second project is a nature walk that links the 3 villages. We’re working on a route to maximise the chances of getting up close and personal with all the wildlife we have in our area, across the seasons.

We have beautiful wild orchids to appreciate and protect, we have fascinating insects and butterflies to admire, we have seasonal and resident birds to enjoy watching.  We have mammals and reptiles too!

Getting involved

If you want to volunteer to help with our projects or hear about meetings and events, do send us an email.

Email: hugsustainability@gmail.com

Thanks from the HUGS team