For a Wilder City: London Wildlife Trust 2015-20
For a wilder London, our strategic plan through to 2020, sets out London Wildlife Trust’s key ambitions from 2015 onwards.
The city is facing unprecedented challenges to meet the essential needs of a growing population. The natural spaces in London that many of us treasure face pressures from development and climate change, while the resources to manage them are increasingly vulnerable to public austerity.
Our strategic plan places the Trust at the heart of addressing this challenge. Nature is a vital contributor to our well-being in London, and we believe it is possible to balance responsible development whilst protecting the city’s nature and enhancing her biodiversity. Nature needs to be part of London, and London needs her nature.
Our key ambitions include opening to the public a number of freely accessible new reserves:
- Woodberry Wetlands, near Manor House, from 2015
- Braeburn Park, in Crayford, in 2016,
- Walthamstow Wetlands from 2017
- Crane Meadows, near Cranford, by 2018
Existing reserves will also be improved, with new state of the art visitor centres for Camley Street Natural Park, Gunnersbury Triangle, and habitat restoration works delivered at Frays Farm Meadows and Oak Hill Woods.
Our vision: A London alive with nature, where everyone can experience and enjoy wildlife.
The Trust will be taking a lead on aquatic conservation projects to benefit water vole and dragonflies, as well as delivering ‘landscape scale’ strategies to enhance areas such as the woodlands around Norwood and Sydenham, and the Crane Valley in west London. We also intend to develop advice and information.
At the plan’s launch in June 2015, Gordon Scorer, the Trust’s Chief Executive, said: “Nature is essential to London – it refreshes the city and provides a much needed breathing space for the millions who live and work here. Just one of our nature reserves, the small but much loved Camley Street Natural Park, has been shown to provide £2.8m of natural benefits to the local economy each year. The value of wildlife is too frequently undervalued and overlooked, and we aim to change that over the next five years.”
“We will work with partners and communities across the city to make London a healthier place to live, a city where increasing numbers of people recognise the value of nature and can benefit from contact with the natural world. The Trust will also strive to see the current parliament legislate for a Nature and Wellbeing Act*, putting nature at the heart of how decisions are made about health, education and economic growth.”
Click to read For a Wilder City: London Wildlife Trust 2015-20
* The call for parliament to implement a Nature and Wellbeing Act, the first legal commitment to the recovery of nature within a generation, is being led by The Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB.
Downloads
| Filename | File size |
|---|---|
| for-a-wilder-city-london-wildlife-trust-2015-20.pdf | 4.49 MB |