Natural Neighbours: for wildlife-rich city living

Aim

We connect and inspire urban communities under the common cause of nurturing health-giving wildlife at home, work, school and play.

“In Hackney we are committed to making the borough greener and healthier, and fully recognise the benefits of a strong connection with nature, in enhancing wellbeing and in enabling urban wildlife to thrive. We're looking forward to working with Natural Neighbours - encouraging local communities to share their experiences, excitement and ecological discoveries.”

Caroline Woodley, Mayor of Hackney

Natural Neighbours is a new charity that helps cities reach their full potential to buzz, bloom and sing with wildlife, to the benefit of local communities as much as global climate and biodiversity.

We do this by inspiring, connecting and supporting urban communities to support nature in their private outdoor spaces at home, work, school or play – no matter what or where that space is. We deliver our activities in-person, through inspiring demonstration events which up-skill communities in taking action for nature, and online, through our pioneering interactive map and app. Our approach is underpinned by science and driven by insights that are tailored to the specific context of the neighbourhoods we’re working in.

Cities have a critical role to play in addressing the climate and biodiversity crises and, because they are where most people now live and work, nature-rich cities offer significant health benefits to huge numbers of us. But urban greening efforts must be joined-up to be effective: we must ‘scale up’ from individual gardens, terraces and balconies. For that, neighbours need to connect around the common cause of nature-nurturing, seeing their personal outdoor spaces not just as a private refuge for them but also as part of a community network of habitats for wildlife. This is what Natural Neighbours facilitates.

Who we work with

Natural Neighbours helps young and old alike and people from all walks of life connect with nature, feel the benefits that rich urban biodiversity has to offer, and be moved to advocate and act for nature, now and in the future. 

Natural Neighbours and Daubeney Primary School have entered into a partnership with the shared goal of boosting the local sense of community, belonging and nature-derived health & wellbeing. This will be achieved through engaging residents in a programme of habitat creation and nature experience centred on and around the school grounds, and provide a template for how we work with other schools in Hackney and beyond. 

“We strongly feel that Natural Neighbours will benefit our community in a myriad of ways, not only through increased fauna and flora but also the potential to increase community cohesion and improve the well-being of our community." - Greg Logan, Head Teacher, Daubeney Primary School.

In addition, we are working with Hackney Council, Tenants & Residents Associations (TRAs) and other key stakeholders to give communities living on local estates the same opportunity to bring health-giving nature into their neighbourhoods. 

This year we will be engaging four communities in deprived areas of Hackney, inspiring & supporting them to nurture wildlife locally. Our activation events engage 100+ people in primary schools & estate gardens, connecting human and ecological networks via our groundbreaking app-based map & its conservation advice tailored to the area. The funds will provide materials, plants and trees for habitat and support staffing our events. These events showcase a range of habitat-creation, foster connection within communities, and distribute resources so people can replicate the activity as appropriate at home or work.

How it works

Our engaging activation events, held in neighbourhood spaces like schools, inspire, connect and support people under the common cause of nurturing health-giving nature. Our pioneering app maps the ecological context of an area to give scientific, context-driven recommendations about what needs to happen for nature to flourish wherever you are – be it a log pile here, a bird box there, a water feature or some pollinator-friendly planting.

The result: Natural Neighbourhoods where gardens, balconies and window-boxes work in harmony to create networks of vital habitat, and people benefit daily from the joy of experiencing nature literally at their doors and windows.  

Natural Neighbours uses the power of in-person engagement and the impact of data-driven insights to provide an effective and accessible solution to the problems of urban nature poverty. 

1.     Underpinned by science: We’ve used public surveys and worked with leading ecologists to short-list species that are both popular with the public and that will respond well to efforts to provide them what they need to eat, drink, breed and find cover in the private outdoor spaces of that area. From these we’ve chosen charismatic ‘spotlight’ species that collectively represent the habitat needs of an urban space reaching its full potential to host wildlife.  

2.     Driven by local insights: People observe existing habitat in their outdoor space and record it onto our map via our app. The map shows the distribution of habitat for our spotlight species, revealing where they have everything they need to thrive and where there is a need for habitat necessary for them to eat, drink, breed or find shelter. Our model generates ecologically sound insights to inform recommendations to the user around how to optimise their space and the surrounding area for wildlife and biodiversity. This may be additional or particular planting, food and water sources, or opportunities for shelter or breeding.

3.     Delivered by empowered communities: We run inspirational in-person events at key shared neighbourhood settings like schools, colleges or estates, to engage the local community and showcase a range of simple and affordable actions that people can take. Our events both inspire the community to participate in plotting local features onto our map, and equip and upskill them to nurture nature at home or work. For example, the community may help build a school pond, make bug hotels and install bird boxes, then go home with free plants or basic equipment and the app on their phones.

4.     Sustained by in-built virality: Our events, app and resources work together to establish networks of nature-nurturers empowered by our showcase events, guided by our app’s insights, and encouraged by the community’s engagement, that scale and spread across cities.

Help us make London buzz, bloom and sing! 

This project successfully funded on 30th January 2024