The two-year Nextdoor Nature project from The Wildlife Trusts began in the summer of 2022, with funding of £5 million from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. The premise is simple: to empower communities to take action for nature where they live and work, creating a lasting legacy to mark The Queen’s Jubilee.

After all, what we want to do – what we ultimately need to do – is to reverse the decline of species and habitats. We need to restore habitats. We need to halt climate change.

That’s too big a job for one person, one community, even one national organisation like ours.

It’s going to take each one of us. Acting together.

Putting people at the heart of nature’s recovery

The pot of money has paid for around 50 Nextdoor Nature officers in all The Wildlife Trusts, with alternative funding enabling the non-UK crown dependencies of The Isle of Man and Alderney to take part too.

Durham Wildlife Trust

Durham is a great example of partnership working. Our Community Organising Lead here, Tom Parkin, is providing support, advice and expertise to the local regeneration initiative, Back on the Map, in Hendon, Sunderland. There are ambitious ideas to create a pollinator corridor all along the main street to link two parks, rejuvenate a sensory garden, and much more.

Tom explains: “I think that working collaboratively with established local community groups has enabled greater trust with residents and helps us to support community members when undertaking listening exercises as part of community organising.”

He also says: “It’s massively widened our reach and accessibility to those who have never had any contact or knowledge of The Wildlife Trusts. It’s essentially like a joint enterprise to reach people in an urban space, in spaces we haven’t been before.”

Tom is local to the area and his knowledge and passion shine through. “The most refreshing thing for me has been speaking to, and listening to, locals – when they let their guard down, instead of thinking that it’ll be a painful experience, they realise that they can have an intriguing and exciting conversation about their local area and environment. The support of Back on the Map has given me the confidence to approach local people and to have those conversations.”

Jo Cooper, Chief Executive of Back on the Map, says: “People who live in very urban communities often have limited access to green space, it’s really important for us to create opportunities for people to experience nature. We saw that in the pandemic how important it was for residents to be outdoors particularly for their mental health and wellbeing. We are excited to work collaboratively with Durham Wildlife Trust to create spaces for people to be outdoors and opportunities to connect to the nature around them.”

She goes on to explain: “Working with The Wildlife Trusts has helped to engage local people. We’re working with locals to codesign spaces – having The Wildlife Trusts involved has broken down barriers, made nature accessible to local people and taught us more about what nature is, and that it’s all around us. It’s not just countryside, parks or forests.”

A shift in how we work with communities

It’s vital that we advise, but we don’t dictate. It’s not up to us to say what should or shouldn’t happen in a particular area. What do the people need? We help them work out what’s possible, what’s desirable, what’s best for nature and for them – and then we can help them find resources, tools, funding, other organisations that might work well with them. But we don’t set up groups ourselves, and so we don’t set targets. We don’t have KPIs or measurable outputs or markers of success that can make pretty graphs to show to stakeholders and trustees.

 Giving the power, resources, skills, and knowledge to communities themselves is the only way to ensure a strong legacy.

Too often, projects have fizzled out when the delivery phase has ended.

Ensuring that the project is led by the people involved, right from the start, is how we make sure that there’s a sustainable legacy and each project will not just continue – but will grow.