MAPPING AND LINKING GREEN SPACES TO IMPROVE LOCAL BIODIVERSITY

BIGGER, BETTER MORE JOINED UP

Inspired by the 2023 People’s Plan for Nature, ACAN’s nature group Alton and Villages Local Action for Nature (AVLAN) is developing the Greening Alton Project.  We have a big A0 size town map with over 80 places for nature marked on it.  These sites are AVLAN’s own plots; the Alton Local Food Initiative’s (ALFI’s) plots and orchards; Town Council sites; civic and educational facilities; allotments; pubs, cafes, hotels and businesses with gardens; and individual residents’ gardens.

When we had a table in Alton Library recently during the Library’s Green and Thrifty fortnight, people were keen to engage with the project and add their gardens to the map.  (In time, we hope to have the map available online.)

Greening Alton aims to –

• Map Alton’s green spaces, inviting everyone to join in – residents, businesses, community organisations, schools (see https://www.educationnaturepark.org.uk/) and more
• Invite everyone on the map to improve the biodiversity of their green space – or use it for growing fruit and veg.
• Invite everyone on the map to link up with nearby green space(s) to create or improve nature corridors – see for example Buglife’s B-Lines https://www.buglife.org.uk/our-work/b-lines/ .  The South Downs National Park have a Beelines project. 

Ways of creating nature corridors in an urban setting such as Alton include:

• Planters and hanging baskets or wall-mounted containers with pollinator-friendly plants that create a nectar-rich flightpath for insects
• Green Walls on buildings, brick walls and wooden fences  https://www.rhs.org.uk/garden-features/green-walls

Greening Alton will also help with much-needed urban cooling during increasingly more severe heatwaves. https://altonclimatenetwork.org.uk/heatwaves-help-with-adapting-to-the-climate-crisis/

Please email altonclimatenetwork@gmail.com FAO Jenny Griffiths if you would like to engage with Greening Alton in any way, with your ideas about joining up green spaces and creating nature corridors.

The timing of this project couldn’t be better.  The Government requires county-level local authorities to develop Local Nature Recovery Strategies by the end of 2024 with the aim of creating or restoring additional wildlife-rich habitats; and help the recovery of threatened animal and plant species, including many butterflies and birds, by providing better-connected habitats.  Our LNRS is being led by Hampshire County Council with support from many other organisations including the Hants and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust.