Leven Project

After over a year of planning, testing out pilot activities and engaging local communities, all contact with our Leven Project engagement groups had to stop as a result of the Covid lockdowns. We did not want to lose momentum in the project as we head into the next phase and so we decided to devise as many socially distanced and online activities as possible.

We brought forward our plans for a photography competition entitled ‘Accessible Rivers’ encouraging people to find the beauty in the River Leven, its wildlife and catchment. With over 60 online entries, we had to divide the competition into two categories – landscapes and species and managed to obtain two Amazon vouchers to give as prizes. The huge amount of social media reach was further expanded by offering the public the opportunity to vote for the winners from a shortlist. Hundreds of online visits, shares and likes were generated.

Two of the biodiversity themes which we will be developing in the next phase of the Leven Project are helping the bat population along the river and planting a long pollinator corridor. As we couldn’t run the associated education and training workshops with members of the public this summer, we teamed up with Castabroad Media, BugLife and Myotis bat ecology to make two mini series of video clips to go out on the project social media and increase awareness of these species ahead of the planned practical activities next summer.

A further series of videos was made to produce a socially distanced version of one of the Trusts favourite projects – Fish in the Classroom. In this project, primary school children learn about trout and raise some fish from eggs in their classroom. To avoid having to cancel the project entirely, we have devised a socially distanced method incorporating the videos and regular out of hours visits to check on the growing fish.

In addition, the Trust commissioned some colouring in river themed pictures and an otter detective booklet for younger children. We were able to get these distributed to around 50 local families through the Fife Council food parcel programme.

With plenty of non-contact activities, thought up by our staff at short notice, we were able to avoid the temporary closure of the project and the risk of losing the interest that we had generated over the previous year. An unforeseen benefit of going largely online is that the project’s social media reach is much larger than it would otherwise have been.