A great way to get the message out about natural flood management

Powerful animated Cumbrian NFM film wins international prize - Environment Agency

'Wood You Believe It' wins ‘Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (IPST) Education Award' in 'Science Film Festival' 2025.

A powerful film featuring an animated Cumbrian red squirrel explaining how trees can help with flooding and climate change has won an international prize.

‘Wood You Believe It’ claimed the ‘IPST Education Award’ as part of the Goethe Institute’s ‘Science Film Festival’ 2025. This year, more than 1,500 films from 110 countries were submitted to the festival, and 123 films were selected for competition. The festival has a global audience of over 500,000.

The short film is one of a series of four engaging and informative Creature Comforts-style animations created to show how natural flood management can help protect homes, businesses and farms and assist in the fight against climate change. They are the result of an Environment Agency-funded collaboration with the ‘Cumbria Wildlife Trust’ and the ‘Cumbria Innovation Flood Resilience’ (CiFR) project.

Natural flood management is a catch-all term for a variety of landscaping techniques used to hold water back during flood events, which reduce the impact downstream on communities and infrastructure such as bridges. The films demonstrate how these techniques can also reduce the impact of climate change and improve water quality.