Launch day has arrived! Between now and mid-November, we will be running three projects celebrating unique, important habitats. The first two, #26Habitats and #26Pledges, are in partnership with @WildlifeTrusts... and feature beautiful, original illustrations by @lydiathornley
... #26Habitats starts today, with 26 writers celebrating some of the UK's most iconic habitats - from hedgerows to seagrass. Each has written a centena (a 100-word poem) and essay exploring the importance of their habitat... @WildlifeTrusts@lydiathornley...
...then in October, 28 more of our writers will take part in #26Pledges. Each will share a personal pledge - in the form of a haiku and longer piece (e.g. essay or poem) - in response to the work from their #26Habitats colleagues... @WildlifeTrusts@lydiathornley...
...finally in the run up to #COP26 in November, we'll head to the southern hemisphere where 16 of our New Zealand members have teamed up with @Forest_and_Bird and local artists to create a gorgeous sister project that celebrates some of the country's own extraordinary habitats...
With our first #26Wild post now live we can explain a little bit about how these pieces work. We asked writers to reflect on the loss of their creature and to replace the animal's name with [ ] in their centena - a 100-word poem with the first and last three words repeated... 1/4
...but we also asked writers to reflect on recovery - a key aspect of @WildlifeTrusts work - in an accompanying essay. We wanted to show that recovery work is happening right now and that there are simple things we can all do, like lend our support... 2/4
Writing is an act of noticing, something more of us have been doing throughout lockdown, rediscovering the nature on our doorstep. We hope our #26Wild work will encourage more noticing, more action. We hope you enjoy but most of all we hope you'll help us spread the word... 3/4