Also happening in North Staffs

Alongside Trent Headwaters, Staffordshire Wildlife Trust is delivering a community project in the Staffordshire Moorlands.

Bringing biodiversity to moorlands communities

Nature in Your Neighbourhood is a five-year innovative community-led project. It’s focus is to support communities in the Staffordshire Moorlands to improve green spaces where they live and monitor habitat health. It’s hoped that over time, this project will highlight how much boosted biodiversity benefits both people and planet.

The project began in 2024 when residents were invited to nominate potential sites. Staffordshire Wildlife Trust will share ecological knowledge of sites with community groups through best practice guidance, while Keele University will provide training in surveying and data analysis.

Project sites vary in size and habitat; they include grasslands, woodlands and wetlands. There may be other sites added to the map once they are verified with landowners.

Many of these sites have existing community groups – dedicated local residents who care for them. They’ll now be working with us and project partners to make them better for nature and climate. If you’d like to get involved in the project via any of the sites then please drop our project team an email via wilderenquiries@staffs-wildlife.org.uk

As the project progresses we’ll spotlight some of the sites and their groups to tell the story of how each community is helping transform them into places where nature thrives.

Project partners include Moorlands Climate Action, Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, Keele University, OUTSIDE, Staffordshire Moorlands District Council and Staffordshire Council Voluntary Youth Services (SCVYS).

Thanks to National Lottery players, Nature in your Neighbourhood led by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust has received £752,415 over five years from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK. The project will support communities in the Staffordshire Moorlands to restore green spaces that are important to them, whilst also measuring the impacts these changes have on biodiversity and climate mitigation. Project action and learning will be communicated to the wider public using art installations throughout the Moorlands.

This funding comes from the Climate Action Fund, a £100 million commitment over 10 years from The National Lottery Community Fund to support communities across the UK to take action on climate change and involve more people in climate action. This forms part of one of the funder’s four key missions in its 2030 strategy, ‘It starts with community’ – supporting communities to be environmentally sustainable.