A Living Landscape is the Wildlife Trusts’ recovery plan for nature where high quality natural places will be connected to each other resulting in a diverse national landscape that will be full of trees and flowers, alive with birdsong and bursting with wildlife.
Our Living Landscape vision is to protect and enhance the value of areas which are already rich in wildlife, expand them and create connections between them so that the whole landscape, including countryside and urban areas, is more accessible to wildlife as it adapts to climate change.
To make the best connections possible the Wildlife Trusts have mapped out existing natural, outdoor, green spaces across the UK and identified clusters which can be easily connected to each other by planting trees, creating wetland and moorland, building green roofs, and making existing green spaces more wildlife friendly.
The Living Don is Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust’s contribution to the general shift towards creating and conserving large scale, networks of connected habitats through a ‘Living Landscape’ or ‘Ecosystem Approach’.
The move to this approach is partly driven in response to climate change, but also due to greater awareness of the importance of ‘ecosystem services’ – the public goods and services that natural areas provide – and the need for high quality green infrastructure.
Only by working with local communities, co-ordinating plans and policies, and encouraging people to understand and value the landscape can we rebuild the region’s biodiversity and restore the UK’s battered ecosystems.