Photography is not only a profession and an art form, it is also a popular amateur pastime. The accessibility of photography as a hobby has been greatly increased by the rise of digital technology. The number of magazines, websites and courses available on the subject confirm its popularity. The rapid capture and instant sharing of everyday photographs has been facilitated by mobile phone cameras and social media platforms such as Flikr, Instagram and Twitter.
London’s open spaces weave through housing estates; grand London plane trees overhang busy roads; and gulls settle in wet patches of local football fields. iGiGL is a great tool for a little armchair sightseeing of the 47% of Greater London that is green.Clicking on the intriguing shapes that outline London’s parks and open spaces will bring back a wealth of information on site uses and facilities, a description of the wildlife or habitats, and snippets of local interest or history.
GiGL’s Board of Directors are central to our work and our success. Their commitment and expertise helps guide GiGL and keeps us moving forward and developing. Here, Valerie Selby, Chair of the Board of Directors, steps up to the plate and volunteers to be our first Director interviewee.
Armed with only a passion for numbers and a particular interest in wildlife statistics, I arrived at GiGL for my week’s work experience not entirely sure what I would be expected to do.
After settling in, I was presented with the number of records for three London boroughs.
I have always admired the GiGL teams’ approach to technology. They understand, better than any group of people I know, how technology can be used to achieve great results, to tell stories that inspire change, and not just to impress and scare lesser mortals. Many of GiGL’s service users may not be aware of the detail and intelligence that goes into every product and service they create.
The GiGL team represent the partnership and their data at many events throughout the year, from regular London-wide fora to one-off specialist meetings and workshops.
One such specialist workshop I attended earlier in the year was the London Geodiversity Partnership’s (LGP) ‘Overground – underground: London’s geodiversity for London’s people’.
As avid GiGLer readers will know, the project that initially scoped out support for a London environmental records centre was set up by London Wildlife Trust with funding from City Bridge Trust in 1996. An independent consultation in 2002 produced a records centre development plan for London. It was agreed that the London Wildlife Trust’s project would be turned into a fully-fledged environmental records centre over a two-year development period.
From its inception, Greenspace Information for Greater London (GiGL) has been a partnership organisation. We have worked very hard to raise our profile among the organisations that use and contribute to local record centres. So, almost a year ago GiGL plunged into the world of social media and set up a Twitter account.
London has some wonderful open spaces and some dreadful ones. It has been my one-day-a week job for the last six months to visit them all and check the features GiGL knows to exist. When the weather has been fine, I have jumped on a train, with my rucksack full of papers, to mostly unheard of destinations.
We are in the process of setting GiGL up as a community interest company (CIC). This will mean that as of January 2013 GiGL will be an independent organisation as recommended in the local records centre development plan that initiated the establishment of GiGL in 2004.
The CIC set-up will not change the partnership, products and services or staff team, but the CIC will have a new board of directors who will oversee the business. The directors will initially be drawn from the current GiGL Steering Group members.
The new political focus on a “Big Society” and the serious funding challenge that faces the nature conservation sector as a result of the Comprehensive Spending Review presents opportunities and challenges to the biodiversity delivery. An MSc project investigating...
John O’Neil, a PhD student at Glasgow Caledonian University, used GiGL’s open space data to assess the quality of the green network in Islington. His research has resulted in the creation of a new tool to help you get the most out of your green infrastructure. Strategic and local planning policies increasingly seek to improve quality of life, to conserve and enhance biodiversity and respond to the challenges of climate change by providing high quality networks of urban green spaces.
Last year I undertook a photographic invertebrate study of a seemingly insignificant park in London. I was interested in what I would find in a small urban park. I chose Warwick Gardens in Peckham as it was close to my home, making it easy to pop there for a couple of hours each day. My mission was to photograph everything that moved.
Held in London’s Excel centre, Ecobuild is the world’s biggest event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment, bringing together the latest ideas and innovations for the future of sustainable building. The exhibition ran for three days and attracted thousands of people from a wide array of industries and interest groups.
The successful integration of biodiversity, and an understanding of the services that ecosystems can provide, will be crucial to a healthy built environment. In recognition of […]
My connection with GiGL began with Ian Holt, the then warden of Sydenham Hill Wood, in 2006. In order to make the most of my baby boomer final salary pension I was planning to retire from my job as Librarian at the Horniman Museum where Ian was based. As I told Ian, I was looking for some good works to amuse myself and (no doubt) make work for others …