Artecology’s Nigel George explains how sculpting textured surfaces help to give biodiversity a helping hand.

Unless your TV is at the menders, you can’t have missed that this is a seminal week for the wild world. Twin emergencies, Biodiversity and Climate Change are finally and fully making headlines… globally, the UN has been pushing the agenda with back-to-back conferences on both and meanwhile here in the UK, Defra have launched a consultation to make biodiversity net gain mandatory in development. Forget popular plastics for a minute, the world is looking for ways to turn the concrete tide too now… at last. Meanwhile (zooms in to the Isle of Wight), our small team of ecologists and artists have always been on it. To find out how Artecology are making that tide work for wildlife, tune into BBC Countryfile this coming Sunday!

With presenter Margherita Taylor at the helm, the BBC Countryfile team joined us on the Solent and our Science Beach to find out more about the coastal side of our work, heading out with Ian Boyd to see how our Vertipools, artificial rockpools, at a Wightlink ferry port are bringing marine wildlife to blank walls, and finding out how artists Nigel and Hannah George employ paper-folding, materials expertise and hands-on sculptural making techniques to transform concrete into beautiful and bio-receptive habitat.

The BBC Countryfile team head out to our living seawall, our Wightlink Vertipools, with naturalist Ian Boyd.

So to see how tides could turn for the better and how art, science and ecology can rewild our world, make sure to watch BBC Countryfile this weekend… BBC1 Sunday 9th December from 5.45pm https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bvgw3r.

Thanks to the brilliant teams at BBC Countryfile, Wightlink, the Royal Victoria Yacht Club and Bournemouth University!

Hannah George shows presenter Margherita Taylor how sand casting paper art can make space for nature in built environment.