The National Lottery Heritage Fund today announced a £5million investment in a ground-breaking initiative to create a huge matrix of community-led rewilding projects – improving the lives of people from some of the most disadvantaged areas across the UK and leaving a lasting natural legacy in honour of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The funding is part of The National Lottery’s £22million investment to mark the Jubilee and this region will benefit with its own project.

Delivered by Northumberland Wildlife Trust, Nextdoor Nature will give people the skills, tools, and opportunity to take action for nature. This could include establishing wild habitats and green corridors in areas of economic and nature deprivation, rewilding school grounds, or naturalising highly urbanised or unused areas. The pandemic has demonstrated just how important access to a well-cared for natural environment is to communities across the UK.

Thanks to the funding from the Heritage Fund, Northumberland Wildlife Trust will now be able to create a new Wild City Officer position within its Wild City team to go into the community and engage with people of all ages - offering support and advice on how to bring wildlife back to their homes and workplaces.

Most recently, the Wild City team has been working with Newcastle based charity JET (Jobs, Education and Training) and its Women’s Integration Group.

Elaine More, Northumberland Wildlife Trust Wild City Manager says: “We know that people want to take action to improve their neighbourhoods but often it’s hard to know where to start. Nextdoor Nature will let communities set their own agenda about the environmental issues they want to tackle and we’ll be looking at different ways of bringing people together and giving them support, skills and confidence to take the next step.”

The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world and research shows 85% of people in nature-deprived areas say more natural spaces would improve their quality of life. The majority also say that having access to local natural spaces is more important post-pandemic. Nextdoor Nature will enable people to make this happen and in doing so, take steps to tackle the nature and climate crisis whilst also addressing important health and wellbeing needs.

Evidence also shows that people are increasingly disconnected from nature, with profound consequences. It negatively impacts our health and wellbeing and leads to a long-term reduction in people’s affinity to nature, which means they are less likely to protect their natural heritage.

Simon Thurley, Chair of The National Lottery Heritage Fund, says: “As part of The National Lottery family’s £22m investment to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, we are delighted to launch Nextdoor Nature, a transformational initiative which will give access to the natural environment to thousands of people who may not have fully enjoyed or appreciated it before. We hope that many people will, for the first time, get hands on with nature creating a new generation of champions for our precious natural environment.”

In the words of Sir David Attenborough, President Emeritus of The Wildlife Trusts, “No-one will protect what they don’t care about; and no-one will care about what they have never experienced.”