Derby City Council Case Study video transcript

So Darley and Nutwood is in the north of Derby city. It is if you follow the riverside path from the centre of Derby, carry on walking for two and a half miles, you're at Nutwood itself. The role Derby City Council and the Derby Parks team have for nature conservation within the city is to protect, enhance green spaces in particular for nature for wildlife and with a particular emphasis on connecting people with nature.

From the Derby Parks department's perspective, our actions to support nature are big flagship projects such as the Allestree Park rewilding, where we, we have linked in with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, the University of Derby to create this, this fabulous brand new large nature reserve out of essentially a very highly manicured golf course. But we're also trying and succeeding in connecting all those lines together. So, Allestree Rewilding Project, for example, is connected along the river to Nutwood Nature Reserve where we're standing and Nutwood following down the river connects to another exemplar nature reserve which is the sanctuary. And now that is right in the centre of an industrial landscape, so it arguably it makes it even more important.

On Nutwood Nature Reserve, we have reintroduced those um keystone species which are the cattle be behind me to carry out those essential tasks, or the, those essential works to manage a nature reserve without people having to intervene in such a drastic way. It's actually quite a difficult task initially to, to bring cattle into a city site. So, it's gaining that public buy in, so the public understand what we're trying to do and how important interventions like this are for their futures, for the future of the wildlife in their local area, for the future of their children and their connections with wildlife. I could go on and on.

As a parks department, we have a gift that we look after big areas of land and there's decisions within our gift that we can make for nature. But there's also local friends groups that work alongside us that really champion nature and in essence, that from a grassroots point of view, those people just coming out and volunteering are pushing up decisions that we will take or if it's beyond that, our gift will be pushed right the way up to senior leaders and local councillors, decision makers.

So, everyone has a responsibility and everyone can make a difference.

Derby City Council Case Study video

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