Edinburgh Nature Network

Edinburgh Nature Network is a long-term strategic approach to manage, restore and enhance the environmental landscape of Edinburgh. It highlights opportunities to take action across the city, using natural solutions to address the threats of biodiversity loss and climate change. The Nature Network restores our connections with nature, making us a part of it once more, and enhances the ability of the city to adapt to climate change, providing multiple ecosystem services to benefit wildlife, human society and the economy.

Its development was led by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, with GIS support from University of Edinburgh as part of the Thriving Green Spaces project. Thriving Green Spaces was led by City of Edinburgh Council and funded by the Future Parks Accelerator (FPA) programme, to build a sustainable future for the UK’s urban parks and green spaces. This is the first urban Nature Network to be developed in Scotland

The first part of the project identified 200 plus actions across the city that would create our Edinburgh Nature Network. The pilot for our Nature Network is in Leith – where we are delivering the actions in the area in partnership with Council colleagues, local organisations and the community.

Participation, engagement, and communication; Engagement with partnerships and communities will be inclusive, empowering and facilitate bottom-up activity. Simple and unifying messaging on Nature Networks across partners with a focus on building people’s connection with nature and fostering stewardship.

The first phase of the Edinburgh Nature Network was the development of our maps of 200+ actions city-wide. This was undertaken through the mapping of seven ecosystem services, seven habitats and workshops with both professional and community stakeholders. A co-design approach was taken ensuring those on the ground inputted to the design and development of the map. Partnership is key – with the Edinburgh Nature Network working group spanning more than 18 eNGOs and other organisations across the city – such as through the need for input from all within tracking, recording and monitoring, which in turn encourages further action which will improve the city for both nature and society.

Moving forward, delivery of actions has a bottom-up focus empowering local people by supporting the creation of Friends of Groups and working with schools to take ownership of their local greenspace.

Nature Networks will be developed using and sharing local knowledge, experience and best-practice, and will support the growth of green skills and jobs. The co-design approach to developing the Edinburgh Nature Network map allowed us to ground truth and fill in gaps using expertise and knowledge from local people.

In delivering the actions, training has been central through working with The Conservation Volunteers (TCV), Friends of Groups, and outdoor learning.

This development phase links with all six themes of the delivery principles in the nature networks framework through our open governance and engagement across organisations and communities
to ensure our nature network included the expertise of local knowledge alongside the mapping of data to give our evidence-based map of actions. Our work with the FPA allowed us the resource for development, and our partnership with planning and biodiversity colleagues incorporated policy at all stages.

We continue to take forward these six themes as we move to delivery
of our pilot (and ongoing delivery areas). Co-design is integral to delivery of these actions and long-term monitoring of success, as we seek sustainable funding and ensure our nature network aligns with updated planning and policy guidance.

• 200+ nature network actions illustrated on our online Edinburgh Nature Network (ENN) storymap, split by all districts in the city highlighting a range of actions identified to improve biodiversity and increase connectivity through stepping stone habitats across 7 habitats and ecosystem services.
• This allows local groups and organisations to easily access our Nature Network and become involved in projects and actions
• The data informing these opportunities and actions were derived from information held by partner organisations and workshops with 30 different organisations, including SWT and the University of Edinburgh
• The locations chosen for our pilot delivery of the ENN in Leith were based on ecological surveys of spaces with low biodiversity in addition to ecological information which was held internally and considered existing user groups, accessibility and visitation of these spaces

• Nature Network developed in partnership with Biodiversity Officer and planning colleagues
• Nature Network developments are discussed with our cross-departmental Nature Recovery and Climate Adaptation working group which comprises employees from Climate Ready Edinburgh Plan, Edinburgh Biodiversity Action Plan, and our Green Blue Networks Strategy.
• Our Nature Network title has been included within event advertising and signage to raise awareness of the project across colleagues, stakeholders and the wider public.

• External funding allowed us to develop our Nature Network to this point and we will continue to seek funding to support the expansion of our pilot project of the Nature Network to ensure its longevity.
• Our Nature Network also aligns with Naturescot awarded FIRNS funding.

• Map of actions
• Collaborative working across City of Edinburgh Council departments – including Housing, Transport, Maintenance, Education, Parks, Forestry, Planning
• Draft monitoring and evaluation framework fed into by Edinburgh Nature Network working group (made up of 18+ organisations and NGOs in Edinburgh)
• Delivery of Leith actions and creation of visual plan to demonstrate how to deliver nature networks on the ground
• Applying Biodiversity Net Gain assessments to this delivery to provide evidence of direct, measurable increases in Biodiversity
• Core Leith group of organisations and community members now signed up to our mailing list and getting involved in actions across the area
• City-wide meadow management with The Conservation Volunteers (TCV)
• Supporting and encouraging the formation of new Friends groups through training and engagement with the City of Edinburgh Council and partners to ensure the longevity of interventions
• Supported the set-up of Wilding Wee Spaces pilot in Leith – a programme led by Outdoor Learning colleagues, focussed on each cluster of schools in Edinburgh have an area of public land local to them where pupils can have nature-based sessions and undertake conservation activities that they have designed