North Manchester boasts some fantastic spaces for nature, from Bailey’s Wood and Boggart Hole Clough to Broadhurst Clough and our very own Moston Fairway, which all support a huge diversity of wildlife.
All of these sites are designated as Sites of Biological Importance, recognised for their value as important spaces for nature to thrive, but these sites alone cannot support nature’s recovery and nationally wildlife is at risk of becoming fragmented and confined to only a handful of areas. This is the thinking behind a Nature Recovery Network – our vision for a joined-up natural world.
Thanks to funding from Cadent Foundation, The North Manchester Nature Recovery Network, part of the wider My Wild City project, is taking this vision to a neighbourhood scale – looking in detail at how the local landscape and its communities can better link together for the benefit of both people and wildlife alike.
My Wild City Project Officer, Russell Hedley, has been heading up the work in North Manchester running regular volunteering sessions and wildlife events and working closely with the local community to support them in making improvements for wildlife.
Most recently, children from the Broadhurst Community Centre’s Nursery group have been planting wildflowers and building bird boxes for their local park whilst Camberwell School has been installing bird boxes and beetle buckets onto their grounds. These simple additions not only provide a fun activity for the children to get involved in, they also directly benefit wildlife by offering a stepping stone within the landscape, allowing wildlife to safely navigate between the surrounding Sites of Biological Importance.
