Profile
After thirty years working in national charity communications and storytelling, Gerry now leads the Hackney Buzzline project with East London charity ecoACTIVE. This groundbreaking three-year initiative, supported by the Heritage Fund, is creating a 4km pollinator corridor connecting four parks through three social housing estates.
The Hackney Buzzline links ecological restoration with community engagement, reflecting the interconnection between nature and society in urban environments. The Buzzline grew from a neighbourhood greening project that Gerry led in Hackney which introduced the UK’s first ‘postcode gardener.’ This innovative role helped residents create greener streets around a park, enhancing personal and community wellbeing, strengthening family relationships, and improving the local environment. The success of this project inspired Friends of the Earth to roll out postcode gardeners nationwide, supported by the Co-operative Bank.
While the project demonstrated clear benefits for people, assessing its impact on nature presented challenges. To address this, Gerry then embarked on an MSc course in Advanced Wildlife Conservation in Practice at the University of the West of England. This is where he developed a methodology for mapping urban park meadows by pairing field data with satellite imagery. This approach identified opportunities for grassland restoration in Hackney parks and provided a replicable framework for urban ecological planning.
In recognition of his work, he was awarded a distinction for his postgraduate studies and named the Bristol Zoological Society 2023 Conservationist of the Future.
Research
Research Interests:
Gerry's research supports Hackney’s local nature recovery plan, which aims to enhance park habitats and establish ecological corridors through streets and housing estates. Gerry works alongside a postcode gardener to engage residents, housing associations, and land managers in creating a chain of pollinator havens spaced 100-200 m apart. They are working with schools and community hubs to sow park meadows, plant pollinator-friendly flowers, and build habitats for bees and butterflies. In the first year, they engaged 476 volunteers in six habitat creation projects, recorded 129 pollinator species in parks and established national and community partnerships.
Gerry is also expanding his work internationally and supporting the Marafiki Green Youths Movement to set up a new Buzzline in Kampala, Uganda. This will enable him to study whether the Buzzline model can be adapted to different urban contexts across the world.
Ecological and social networks are intricately interconnected in urban environments. Gerry's research examines the dynamics of these systems as integrated ecosocial networks, exploring their collective impact on urban biodiversity and community wellbeing. This includes:
- Researching the ecological networks and requirements of local pollinators.
- Integrating the ecological evidence base with gardening know-how.
- Applying this knowledge to establish suitable habitats.
- Evaluating the benefits of pollinator-friendly gardening on participants.
- Bringing it together to create positive feedback loops for pollinators and people.
As well as this, Gerry recently discussed the intersections of pollination, gardening, and storytelling in a podcast conversation with science fiction writer Emma Newman, titled Pollinating, Gardening, Listening.
Publications
Gerry's early academic research focused on primate behaviour and public health.
Colvin, J. & Tissier, G. Affiliation and reciprocity in sibling and peer relationships among free-ranging immature male rhesus monkeys. Animal Behaviour, 33(3), no 3 (1985): 955-977.
Tissier, G. National Child Health and Education Survey: bedwetting at five years of age. Health Visitor, 56(9) (1983): 333-335.
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