I found it refreshing to discover that prisoners in the UK are becoming interested in conservation. Prisons across the country are being encouraged to look at their surroundings and see what they can do to enhance wildlife as well as enhance the lives of the prisoners.
The work that the prisoners undertake includes building bird and bat boxes, constructing ponds and monitoring bird species from cell windows.
Thousands of prisoners are transforming jails into some highly important wildlife habitats, with some threatened species such as barn owls, kingfishers, adders and slow worms taking up residence within the prison grounds. One prison which houses prisoners whose crimes are as diverse as theft and murder, last year made more than 700 bird boxes from scrap wood. These were used within the prison grounds as well as supplying sites managed by the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds). They're currently working on an order for 250 more. In turn, the prisoners are being paid "pocket money". The project costs practically nothing as mainly recycled materials are used.
Obviously in the higher security prisons, the inmates can't wander through the tranquil landscapes they've helped to create but hopefully it gives them some feeling of self-worth knowing that they've produced a haven for such diverse fauna and flora as the bee orchid (an endangered wild flower), nightingales and brown hairstreak butterflies (which are a threatened species).
In one of these "convict conservation zones", the prisoners constructed beehives to provide pollinators for a wildlife meadow outside the grounds. These hives have successfully produced honey which, whilst enjoyed by the prisoners, is proving a huge success in the outside world too.
At an open prison, where prisoners tend have a little more freedom, two ponds have been constructed outside the prison walls which have encouraged kingfishers and newts, and a pair of breeding barn owls have settled in a nesting box mounted on a disused fence post.
Although this may not be an ideal solution and is hardly the "bread and water" environment that many would wish to see for those behind bars, it is nonetheless helping wildlife which desperately needs a lift, and if this type of work encourages just a few inmates to stick to the straight and narrow when they leave the confines of the tall stone walls and barbed wire, perhaps by pursuing training in some of our traditional crafts, then surely it must be worthwhile. So often we're told that prisoners sit in their cells watching telly and playing on games consoles, all of which are paid for by the tax payer, but at least these guys are actually working. Good on "em, I say!
It"s long been my belief that prisoners should be "encouraged" to work for a living rather than be fed and watered at the expense of the tax payer and this project seems to fit the bill.
