Meet the Evidence and Monitoring Team

James oversees and manages the Trust’s data collection and evidence systems to ensure we are an evidence-led organisation, able to continuously improve our delivery and demonstrate our strategic impact for nature’s recovery.  He works across the Trust, to support teams to develop evaluation, monitoring and data collection that contributes to our strategy.

In coordinating and leading the work of the evidence team James is always ensuring that we are committed to Evidence-Led Conservation practices. This involves making links between the Trust and external partners, such as Conservation Evidence. James also works to support and link teams internally, leading to new cross-team outputs like this piece which pulled in work from our ecological monitoring, reserve management and mapping and analysis work, Working with Nature: Woodhouse Washlands.

Anna is our Ecological Monitoring Officer. She organises a group of excellent volunteers and carries out a wide range of monitoring on our nature reserves, from bird surveys, to sward height measurements and counting wood ant nests. 

She delivers our adaptive ecological monitoring framework, which operates on a six year rolling basis, with most surveys taking place every three years and some (where the rate of change is expected to be slower) every six. What we monitor links directly to our long term vision statements for our reserves, which are linked to our management objectives. This means that we can make evidence-based decisions about the management of our nature reserves, continually bringing new data into the system. An example of the types of surveys we undertake and data we collect is demonstrated in our Working with Nature: Woodhouse Washlands story map. Contact volunteering@wildsheffield.com to find out more about how to get involved.

 Fiona is our GIS Officer. GIS stands for Geographical Information Systems – essentially, it is mapping and spatial analysis. Fiona manages our GIS systems including QGIS and Arc Online . She produces a range of maps and analysis for different teams at the Trust, and helps teams work with and collect spatial data in the field. 

Discover more of the work she does in her blog post. Or see some of the work she has created on our website such as the Community Action for Nature map. This map allows members of the community to record where they are taking action for nature. Or have a look at the Sheffield Swift Map and the swift boxes installed across the city.

Sam is our Senior Database Officer. He manages our Nature Counts database, which is where the Trust collects and stores all of our species and ecology monitoring data. Nature Counts is used by several other Wildlife Trusts across the country, so Sam also has a role in supporting these Trusts get the best out of the system. 

He also manages internal databases used to track key information about our members, volunteers and other key contacts that is vital to the strategic and engagement work of the trust.

Our brilliant surveying and monitoring volunteers – we couldn’t do it without them. Thanks team!

If you fancy getting involved get in touch

Our Evidence-led Conservation is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund.