With funding from Hackney Council, the Environment Agency and the Mayor of London, the biodiversity scheme was undertaken by groups such as ReNature London, Wildlife Gardeners of Haggerston (WGH) and Save Lea Marshes.
Kestrels, weasels, shrews, wood mice and other small mammals had been slowly disappearing from around the River Lea until hundreds of volunteers began rebuilding their ecosystems with piles of logs, artificial food caches and by selectively cutting trees or ‘coppicing’.
Phillips said restoring the mammals’ natural surroundings had become urgent after the disappearance of wood mice caused a domino effect of weasels leaving the habitation, in turn impacting the local kestrel population.
Driving this exodus of local wildlife were larger numbers of visitors trampling over the terrain, but also houseboaters taking logs from the area to use for firewood – alongside the so-called ‘Hackney Beach’ river parties during the pandemic.
Gideon Corby, lead ecologist for the Old Lea River Restoration project, said rewilding would have been impossible without the backing of London Mayor Sadiq Khan and the Town Hall.
