Increasing our understanding of the nature that lives within our communities can bring a multitude of benefits.

Mapping the biodiversity within our parishes helps us see what we have and can also help us identify where improvements might be needed.



Andy Millar from Natural England has been working with WildEast to do just that - as he explains here:

The first thing that struck me, talking with WildEast about the opportunity to support keen local communities in north Suffolk, was the inspiration, ambition and sense of the possible. Risby and Hundon near Bury St Edmunds were two villages who clearly want to make a difference for nature. If we could help enable this desire, bottle it, share it around and combine it with similar local initiatives elsewhere, the potential becomes huge.

In my travels around East Anglia with work, it’s inspiring to meet and talk with local communities and see first-hand the wish to get stuck in and restore nature in and around our towns and villages. Collectively, this a potent force for re-connecting wildlife in the landscape, where individual projects combine to help build a joined-up national Nature Recovery Network from the ground up. It’s also really important a time when the twin threats of climate and biodiversity crises can conspire and feel overwhelming. Like you I know I want to take some control of what I can influence and make a practical difference. In this case, the well-known mantra of ‘act local think global’ has never been more timely or relevant. The job of giving nature a fighting chance around the world really does begin at home, and locally we can all contribute.

The push for a coherent national Nature Network isn’t just a pipe dream, it is now government policy. Arguably for the first time, we have a stated national ambition, with legislation and tools coming over the hill to support it. The change of direction recognises that, despite best efforts, our traditional approach to conserving nature in scattered and isolated sites will not by itself reverse biodiversity loss or deliver climate change resilience. It has its roots back in 2010, when a government review recommended a more coherent approach to restoring nature across economy, society, and how we integrate and plan for agriculture, land use, water, trees, everything. The recommendation was to build joined-up, expanded and connected spaces for nature in the land and seascape and in town and country. Give it room not just to hang on and avoid worsening, but to grow, move, thrive and adapt. 

In doing this we won’t just be restoring wildlife for its own sake. We will also be giving nature the freedom and dynamism to contribute to a healthy, prosperous society and economy. Nature should be integral to a flourishing economy, not a barrier to it. Given enough space and time, natural processes can reduce flooding, store water in times of drought, restore degraded soil and draw some of that excess atmospheric carbon back into the ground. Nurture nature and it will nurture us.

The potential benefits extend even further. There’s now plenty of evidence out there that being close to nature makes us happier and healthier in mind and body. For a fact I know it has helped me over the years, both in and out of work. For the first time, a trip to and a sit in among a wildwood or beside a lake is a potential prescribed medicine that you won’t see in any pharmacy.

Natural England is keen to reinforce the message that restoring and recovering nature sits as strongly with local communities as it does with conservation bodies, large landowners and academics. Everyone can play a part in nurturing nature and bringing wildlife back into our gardens, green spaces and back yards. These in turn spread out and link to action by landowners and others in the wider countryside. This year we’ve been able to practically support some local initiatives with nature recovery funding to help local groups turn ambitions into action.

When we talk about nature networks it’s easy to assume that means something big, like a coast, a vast forest, or a large rural estate. These are of course all part of the mix and vital ones at that. But equally on the list of ingredients is that silted up pond in the village, the churchyard that could be a wildflower-rich meadow, the neglected park, the dis-used railway, house martin nest boxes, or your neighbours who want to come together and make a ‘hedgehog highway’. These measures, and others like them together build nature networks at village and town level.

An important part of the project has been engaging the community in map making to identify local high value nature features and places where there are opportunities to create and re-connect. This becomes in effect the basis of a nature recovery plan for the village. This in turn can inform the strategic planning that is coming in 2023 in the form of county level Local Nature Recovery Strategies. The Strategy for Suffolk will help underpin the Nature Recovery Network in the county. A good practice ‘how to’ model can be developed based on the experiences in these two villages and be available to other interested communities in Norfolk and Suffolk. Hopefully it can inspire similar village and town level nature recovery projects elsewhere, and the movement and its cumulative impact will grow.

It’s been good to support WildEast and the people of Risby and Hundon these last few months. Both communities are showing the way with local projects that might be individually local in scale, but all add up to something much bigger than the sum of their parts, and that’s the whole point. They’re an expression of the community coming together and supporting each other to heal and recover nature. It empowers individuals to get together with like-minded neighbours. It starts at grassroots level to turn the tide of wildlife decline and loss, replace perceived powerlessness with action and fear with hope. This by itself is a compelling story worth supporting.