The Greenspace Challenge, City Nature Challenge and iNaturalist won the Outstanding Contribution to Project or Action for the Year of the Environment for the Liverpool City Region. The project was a collaboration between the Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside, Merseyside BioBank, Croxteth Volunteers, Nature Connected and volunteer recorders.

We were all involved in the Greenspace Challenge and City Nature Challenge in 2019, where as many people as possible recorded wildlife using the iNaturalist app. The Greenspace Challenge ran throughout 2019 with a total of 58,335 observations of 2,779 species by 754 people, with the top recorder, Steve McWilliam, recording a whopping 22,530 observations. The City Nature Challenge 2019 was a global recording competition and Liverpool City Region was one of the top cities in the world with 12,372 observations of 1,061 species over four days in April. 

Head of Land Management at the Trust, Fiona Whitfield said:

"We were delighted to be nominated and thrilled to accept the award for outstanding contribution to Project of Action for the Year of The Environment, and thank everyone involved. We continue to build on the foundation laid during the Year of the Environment and urge everyone to download the iNaturalist app and join the Liverpool City Region Biodiversity League in 2020 and the City Nature Challenge in April 2021."

In the Environmental Champion Award, sponsored by United Utilities, our good friend and peatlands champion Joshua Styles, of North West Rare Plant Initiative, was also a winner.  We are delighted for Josh!