Our Local Nature Partnerships have been rather busy behind the scenes despite the recent challenges we have faced as a result of the lockdown. We wanted to take this opportunity to give a bit of an update on what has been going on. Who doesn’t love a bit of number crunching!
Memberships of our local LNPs have doubled since the start of the project, over half of which are non-traditional. This means that we are successfully engaging with audiences that would not normally take part in nature recovery, which is a very important part of tackling the pressing nature crisis.
We’ve also seen an increase in the number of enquiries our LNP Coordinators are getting, both in English and Welsh. That means more people across Wales are getting in touch with our LNP Coordinators for specialist advice, requests for collaboration on project development or to network and raise awareness of pressing nature-related issues.
While progress on practical projects was hard at the beginning of the financial year (April 2020 onwards), we have started to ramp things up in that department too. The tremendous LNP Coordinators, with help from the teams at WCVA and Biodiversity Wales have secured over £1.6 million of funding from the Welsh Government’s Local Places for Nature scheme to run capital projects and buy specialist equipment to improve biodiversity.
The projects funded range from green walls and roofs on public buildings to changing mowing practices on council land, from promoting local provenance wildflowers and trees to clearing invasive species from vital river habitats. These projects are happening in every county across Wales, so there’s sure to be something going on near you.
And this is just the beginning - stay tuned for updates and to find out what’s coming next!
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