Danielle Carbott
Senior Project Manager (Community Bluescapes and Slough Sponge)
About me
With a background in Psychology (Brunel University BSc Hons) and Teaching (University College London QTS PGCE with Geography Specialism), it wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I discovered my passion for nature. My conservation career started with Essex Wildlife Trust where as the Wilder Communities Manager I was responsible for our external engagement with local authorities, communities and landowners. During this time I became a qualified Level 3 Accredited Community Organiser, with a focus on informing conservation action within communities, delivering with meaningful input from the people we aimed to support. This included utilising a mixture of qualitative and quantitative data methods, from implementing participatory research methods to collecting landscape scale ecological data.
As a career changer, volunteering has been the backbone of my education and I am now Volunteer Warden on Two Tree Island for Essex Wildlife Trust where I lead on the management of a mosaic of habitats including grassland, scrub, reedbed, lagoon and saltmarsh. Additionally, I also have a keen interest in botany, recording and exploring plants across the UK with a particular interest in orchids and completing Rapid Grassland Assessments across my local area. I also belong to the South Essex Ringing Group with international bird observatory experience, currently training towards my BTO C Permit and supporting a Constant Effort Site (CES).
I am highly motivated to join WWT’s mission to create future-proof neighbourhoods, building on my previous experience at Essex Wildlife Trust and creating an evidence base to provide a model for future practice.
My role
I manage two DEFRA Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme (FCRIP) Projects, Slough Sponge and Community Bluescapes. Community Bluescapes is a partnership project between Richmond Borough Council, WWT and Barnes Common Land Trust with an aim to utilise nature-based solutions within the Beverley Brook Catchment to reduce run-off and slow the flow. Slough Sponge is a partnership project between Slough Borough Council, WWT and The National Flood Forum with an aim to also implement nature-based solutions within the Salt Hill Stream and Chalvey Ditches Catchments. For both projects, this will involve retrofitting SuDS and implementing NFM in high flood risk areas.
WWT is leading on community co-production through the creation of future-proof neighbourhoods. This will provide an opportunity for communities to collaborate and participate in co-design and co-delivery of interventions to meet the challenges of flood and climate risk in their own locality. I work closely with Conservation Evidence, assisting on the delivery of social science research and hydrological and ecological monitoring within these projects.
Experience and interests
- Community Co-production and Community Organising
- Participatory Research Methods
- Partnership and Stakeholder Engagement
- Ornithology – fieldwork experience
- Botany – fieldwork experience
- Practical Conservation - habitat management and creation