Introduction

A new project commenced in October 2009 that is being commissioned by the Green Alliance (a national policy think-tank) funded by the Gulbenkian Foundation as part of work related to the Ministerial Task Force on Climate Change and the Third Sector. A unique aspect of this work is that the project will seek to map organisations active on all aspects of VCS activity and also specifically include work on climate change and sustainability.

North Dorset and Newcastle upon Tyne have been the two places chosen to develop these new ‘green maps’ of action by local communities to tackle climate change. Each map will be an ‘on-line’ internet resource that will help anyone interested find out what is going on in their area and how they can get involved.

Mapping for Change  is leading the work in collaboration with Dorset Agenda 21 and Newcastle Council for Voluntary Service. Both local partner organisation will ultimately develop and maintain the online resource to ensure they become living documents that map the changes that take place within each community. The maps will also help show national organisations just how much is going on at the local level, and the aim is that this will help make more funding and support available. The maps went live in February and will be a permanent resource for each community.

The Project

We conducted a series of meetings and workshops with local community groups, social entrepreneurs, local authority staff and environmental groups in both locations. Sessions began by introducing the current range of environment related spatial information available on the Web specific to each community. We held an open discussion on the types of categories that might be relevant for the map and participants were supported to identify local environmental projects and initiatives, support groups and local facilities.

The workshops clearly identified a  lot of good work being done in this area. The  map development is an ongoing project that will make it easy for any group or project to add themselves to the map and promote what they are doing.

What now?

The pilots will be launched in February and there is already interest from the local council to extend the pilot areas to cover the whole city of Newcastle and Dorset County.  Training a group of ‘Mapping Ambassadors’ to lead the extension of the programme will be one way forward.

Any group working on climate change or related issues such as food or transport is very welcome to contact those listed below for more information:

North Dorset: Paul McIntosh at Dorset Agenda 21 (da21), E: paul@da21.org.uk;  T: 07866587199

Newcastle-upon-Tyne:Martin Gollan at NCVS, E: martin.gollan@cvsnewcastle.org.uk; T: 01912327445