Blog posts

Recently the NPMS partnership welcomed two new BSBI Botanical Skills Training Officers, who joined as part of the DAERA funded Botanical Skills Project to deliver botanical training in Northern Ireland.

We caught up with Kim Lake and Jo Mulholland for an introductory chat and to ask them a few questions about themselves and their new roles.

Thanks Kim and Jo, for taking the time to chat with us amidst inductions and the busy field season. A warm welcome to the NPMS. 

What were you both doing before starting your new roles? 

The accumulation of hundreds of National Plant Monitoring Scheme plots across the UK, Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands is an incredible resource for climate change researchers, and a new paper out today in the Journal of Applied Ecology attempts to quantify this for the first time.

We're really excited to introduce a new member of our support team, Karen Fisher who has recently joined as Volunteer Support Officer. Karen joins us with a wealth of experience supporting volunteers and has great ideas for expanding our volunteer community.

Biological recording has long involved some process of checking or verifying the correctness of an occurrence by the community or scheme interested in the records. There are several ways in which this is done within the NPMS and the first step on this journey is with you, the recorder!

 At the start of Autumn 2023, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) appointed a new Scientific Officer who will oversee the National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS) in Northern Ireland; Emma Mulholland.  Read our conversation and welcome Emma to the scheme!

I have been recording with the NPMS since it started in 2015. I had very little botanical knowledge then as I was still working as a GP. This is my first plot at Longtown in Herefordshire overlooking the Black Mountains. I was lucky enough to have a wildflower meadow in my patch, fortunately unchanged in the quality of the plants in 7 years.

Oli Wilson is our new ecological modeller here at the NPMS. This exiting new role for the scheme will involve analysing the huge amount of data that is collected by our fantastically dedicated volunteers. Oli has great plans for exploring what the data can tell us. Read below to find out more about him and what he will be bringing to the scheme!

Can you tell us about yourself – what were you doing before you came to the NPMS?

The National Plant Monitoring Scheme is lucky enough to have a team of regional volunteer mentors.

Check out this wonderfully written blog post from one of our fantastic NPMS volunteers. Michelle has been part of the scheme since even before it's official launch, having volunteered on Plantlife surveys prior to this. 

https://bhorganicgardeninggroup.org/2021/07/28/wildflower-spotting-and-the-national-plant-monitoring-scheme-npms/