Andy Black - volunteer warden

[Jean Frame, site manager) 
I'm Jean Frame. I'm a site manager for the Woodland Trust. I cover the central bit of Scotland. When I took over the patch, and Livingston predominantly, we had a lot of litter, we had a lot of vandalism, but having Andy as a volunteer, it's really reduced the amount of fly tipping, whatever there is visible. 

[Andy Black, volunteer warden] 
I'm Andy Black. I've stayed in Livingston for about 20 years.  I'm married with one daughter and I've got two dogs, one of whom is here at the moment. So basically, I will walk through the woods. I will inspect the woods, report any fly tipping, littering, vandalism. I've also been involved in some litter picks recently and helping out at one or two events that Jean's been organising. 

[Jean] 
Livingston is a very urban area, so having Andy being a volunteer is great. Because it is so urban, there's people walking through these woods, you know, there could be 40 people walking through just this wood alone today, and if you multiply that by all the woods we have in Livingston, there's a massive footfall. 

 Andy can walk out in the woods and he can see something that day, when it's happened, and he can get in touch with me and then I can basically do something about it the next day so that it's not getting left. So, more people have seen that the woods are actually looking really, really, really tidy and you can actually enjoy walking in the woods. 

 [Andy] 
Obviously, walking the dogs you see all the littering and the fly tipping. We got in touch with the Woodland Trust to discuss the possibility of doing some voluntary work, and it just escalated from there. 

[Jean] 
Andy's a volunteer warden, but he also has a sideline where he actually looks out for the planning in Livingston. So, every week I send him the planning lists, and what’s great about that is I can then alert the campaigns team directly before, you know, they can actually see what developments are actually happening in Livingston. Other volunteer wardens that I have, have specifically one wood, whereas Andy has 13 woods that he covers, and it takes a lot of time, a lot of effort. 

[Andy] 
So the best bit is the dogs come along with me and I must admit, it's pleasant to go through woods when they're nice and clean. You walk the dogs and you just see things and it’s just natural to take out the camera, take a picture of a mattress or something, and fire it to Jean and a few words of explanation to give to one or two people who think you’re off your head, but that’s the way it is. 

[Jean] 
There's no way that we could have done anything to improve the woods without Andy's support and actually knowing the local key contacts. So, it's having that person on the ground, eyes and ears. 

It's just great that he became a volunteer for us.