Local Nature Recovery Strategies in Worcestershire (LNRS): Students Fraser Milligan, Owen Pugh, Victor Radina, Kevin Siegall created a project on their recommendations for a Local Nature Recovery Strategy in Worcestershire. Their goal: “To provide recommendations to the Worcestershire LNRS Preparation Team for how access and perceptions of local green spaces can be enhanced alongside habitat creation and restoration.”
What do Local Nature Recovery Strategies entail?
It is a plan to restore nature to a specific area. This can include the creation of green spaces. A “green space” is any area of vegetable land or water with an urban area, for example, parks, allotments and woodland. The plan is part of the UK Environment Act 2021, involving 48 authorities. Each LNRS must include:
- A habitat map
- Biodiversity priorities
- Actionable steps
Local Nature Recovery Strategies for Worcestershire: Objectives and Methods
A focus was placed on Droitwich Spa Westlands and Warndon Villages, in order to reach the project goal. The methods included documenting green spaces, surveying local residents and also documenting the best practices.
This checklist table indicates the green spaces present in each area:
“What is nature?” survey results
The survey asked residents to submit keywords for what they believe nature is. The team created a word cloud of the results. Wildlife, animals, plants, natural, and environment notably stood out as popular answers.
Recommendations for the Worcestershire Local Nature Recovery Strategies
Recommendations for education and awareness include researching Worcester Environmental Group’s 52 Things You (Yes You) Can Do For Nature Take Action | The WEG, as well as using infographic boards and green space maps. For infrastructure, the recommendation is to add benches and improve lighting along paths; furthermore, adding pelican/zebra crossings and widening, repairing and maintaining paths are also advised.
Overall, most residents in these areas are interested in improving the green spaces in their area. There is also interest in continuing the project as a sponsor requested the collected data and other organisations, including Natural England, have expressed interest in these results.
SDGs for LNRS
Watch the students presenting their work here.
We aim to embed SDGs in all of our work, to ensure we are working towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more about how the University is using SDGs here.