Team Wilder Community Nature Reserve

The idea of a Community Nature Reserve is to take an entire block of land with a mixture of dense housing, semi-green spaces and wilder places and not just declare it a nature reserve, but bring the community together to join up the green spaces and encourage greater wildlife friendliness. 

Just like Team Wilder, all small actions for nature collectively make a big difference.

A Community Nature Reserve makes way to notice, celebrate, protect and enhance the nature on our doorsteps. Every space has an opportunity to take part as it is part of something bigger. A community where all life is thriving together, however relevant to that area. 

It’s a network of connected green spaces, including gardens, parks, allotments, verges, cemeteries and even unexpected habitats like car parks. These often fragmented habitats are viewed as one large area, with the aim to join them up. This supports local wildlife, increases biodiversity and shares local knowledge and support in the community, through the shared purpose of improving the area for people and wildlife. 

Wildlife Corridors

Encouraging wildlife-friendly gardens, small spaces, and public open space, can help form a wildlife corridor across a neighbourhood. Wildlife corridors are important because they can provide:

• Habitat Connectivity: Linking isolated patches of woodland, wetland, or grassland. In an urban setting, this could also translate to include patches of brownfield land (often great for plants and insects), rainwater gardens, surface water capture (SUDs), diverse walls full of plants, planters, green roofs, and living walls.
• Genetic Flow: Prevents inbreeding by allowing animals to find mates from other populations.
• Resource Access: Enables movement to find food, water, and shelter.
• Climate Resilience: Supports species adapting to changing climates, including humans!

Public Health

Evidence shows that a thriving, wildlife-rich environment benefits both physical and mental health. People with nature on their doorstep are more active, mentally resilient and have better all-round health. Beyond individual health, nature-rich areas provide broader community benefits. 

• Better air quality: Trees and shrubs in urban areas help capture CO2 and other pollutants like particulates, improving local air quality.
• Climate resilience: Green and blue spaces help mitigate the effects of climate change, such as reducing the "heat island effect" in cities and absorbing water run-off to reduce flood risk.
• Social cohesion: Parks and green spaces provide opportunities for social interaction, community engagement, and building local networks, which can reduce loneliness and social isolation. CNRs bring people together. 

Find other like-minded people in your community who you can bounce ideas off and collaborate with. It’s hard to do this alone, so building your support network is key. You can do this by putting up posters, posting in local Facebook groups, or attending existing community events. Perhaps you can invite local people interested in nature to the local cafe for a cuppa and a chat or join a coffee morning. 

Check the Team Wilder map to see active groups in your area.

How do I get people involved? How have other people or groups promoted their CNRs?

Contact your local community organisations, Friends of groups, Town or Parish Council, neighbourhood trusts, community centres, or the local housing association – do they have any nature-based projects that already exist? Can you work together? Talk to your neighbours. 

Create a plan 

There are lots of different ways to set up a Community Nature Reserve which all depend on the vision of your community, your resource and time limitations, and the needs of local species. You could start with:

• Community vision: ask local people what species they're excited about? Who do they see in the neighbourhood regularly? Who would they like to see more of in the future? Is there a particular species that was prominent in your area years ago which has declined and needs a helping hand? Your plan could focus on creating a Community Nature Reserve focused on supporting a species, such as hedgehogs, house sparrows, swifts, toads, or pollinators. What would success look and feel like for you and your community?
• Is there a green space in your community you’d like to use as a base and work out from? Perhaps you have a local nature reserve which you could use to start encouraging streets immediately around the reserve to cater for wildlife in their gardens.
• Gaps in connectivity, you can use google maps or google earth to look at your neighbourhood as a whole. Are there any green (trees, grass, hedges) or blue (rivers, brooks, streams, wetland, ponds) corridors? Are there gaps or blockages in these corridors where you can focus your efforts?
• Space type, does your community have lots of a certain type of space which could form the basis of a Community Nature Reserve, such as front gardens, balconies, street verges, planters?
• A community launch event, where you invite local people to come and find out more about the Community Nature Reserve, share their ideas and get involved.

Common first steps include: mapping local gardens and green spaces, talking to neighbours and existing groups and using small events or surveys to build momentum.

Some local advice and ideas to consider:

• Growing your group, what skills do local, interested people have and what are they looking to build skills in? Can you all work together to help run/steer the Community Nature Reserve.
• Formalising your group, becoming a constituted group can make it easier to apply for pots of funding.
• Clear communication channels keeps local people in the loop about activities and wildlife sightings . E.g. Newsletters, social media or WhatsApp posts, local flyers in cafes and noticeboards.
• Joining or organising events to bring people together, celebrate progress, and invite new people.
• Wildlife monitoring can show real impact.
• Mapping who’s involved.
• Share wildlife resources.
• Start a campaign together like No Mow May.
• Create a welcome pack.
• Get funding to expand the offer to the group with events or buying kit such as tools, monitoring kit (night time camera traps to lend out) or planting wildflowers locally.
• People are brought together through many different ways, not just nature. It could be through food (meals, traditional recipes, growing food, tea and cake, local cider), memories of the area (linked with visions for the future), music, art and crafts, exercise, family events or learning/talks.

BS3 Greater Bedminster Community Nature Reserve

Ben Barker, one of the founders of Blooming Bedminster and numerous local wildlife projects, created a form for BS3 residents to complete about wildlife sightings and habitats in their gardens. BS3 residents registered their front and/or back garden spaces to be part of the ‘urban nature reserve'.

Wildlife friendly features include: water features, bushes, wood pile, bird box, pollinator friendly plants etc. Sightings of mammals, birds, insects and amphibians are also recorded and shared with the group.

Emersons Green Community Nature Reserve

Emersons Green Town Council launched their Community Nature Reserve in January 2023, encouraging local residents to register their garden and introduce a nature‑friendly network of private gardens and council‑managed land (including Blackhorse, Lyde Green and Mangotsfield). Over 250 residents registered their garden! Local events share knowledge and bring people together. 

The organisers are part of the community and Friends of Emersons Green Park group, and have strong links with the Parish Council and organise Earthfest. Daily conversations with locals and a welcoming approach helped build momentum, with word of mouth playing a major role. Their welcome pack includes free seeds, a letter and a window sticker to raise awareness and pride.

Warmley Community Nature Reserve

Warmley Community Nature Reserve in South Gloustershire was developed with created with the help of Avon Wildlife Trust, bringing local residents together to view the entire area as a nature reserve, working together to improve the neighbourhood for people and wildlife. Events and advice about creating important habitats in gardens, allotments, window boxes and open spaces helped spread the word. The local council championed this scheme to help create important wildlife corridors to let biodiversity flourish. 

Advice from Paul, Warmley Community Engagement Officer:
Work together with local organisations to reach more people. In Warmley great partnerships include the Kingswood Herritage Museum, Men in Sheds, local churches and local schools. Partnerships save time and meet people where they already are. 
Form a steering group to help make decisions. A Facebook group is also great for everyone to share their gardens, advice, ask questions and share wildlife sightings. 
Local events are a great way to bring people together, such as fungi walks, bulb and tree planting.

Bath: Lambridge and Walcot Community Nature Haven

Sarah Skeels started transforming her front garden on a busy road in Bath, into a nature-friendly space. She added chalkboard signs to show what she was doing, which sparked conversations and inspired neighbours to join in. These small patches of habitats were creating a network of green corridors and community connections, supporting pollinators, birds, hedgehogs and countless other species struggling to find space in our urban environments.

By viewing their neighbourhood as part of a wider ‘Community Nature Reserve’, they created a rich mosaic of connected habitats. Not every garden needs a pond or wildflower meadow, what matters is diversity, visibility and connection.

Totterdown Urban Nature Reserve, Bristol

Penny, Totterdown resident, knew that wildlife gardening in spaces of all sizes, especially small gardens, brought people together and built resilience. Being part of TRESA (Totterdown Residents Environmental & Social Action, CIC) and the Wildlife Champions programme, gave her the support and motivation to set up a Community Nature Reserve. She also wanted to focus on encouraging the hummingbird hawk moth.

Locally, there are many private gardens of all sizes between Victoria Park and Arnos Vale Cemetery, acting as a green corridor. "In a landscape of concrete and noise, even small front and back gardens offer shade, water, shelter and places for wildlife to rest or nest". They have an iNaturalist project, with over 275 species recorded called ‘Totterdown Urban Nature Reserve’.

Find out more, add your house if local, grow pollinator‑friendly plants to share or swap: 
Totterdown Urban Nature Reserve

Parish councils are well placed to support Community Nature Reserves, working alongside local groups to protect and enhance the places that matter most to their communities. Community Nature Reserves directly enhances local quality of life and protects local wildlife, offering benefits for local people, such as access to green space and improving wellbeing. Community engagement and volunteering opportunities increase, encouraging local pride and ownership, helping parish councils stay connected and community‑focused.

Climate and flood resilient communities are better prepared for extreme weather conditions. They align with policy goals to help Parish Councils contribute to biodiversity, climate action and public health priorities, strengthening funding bids and partnerships.

Things worth considering for Parish Councils to effectively support Community Nature Reserves:

• Holding funds on behalf of your local Community Nature Reserve Group(s), bank accounts can be a barrier for early emerging groups.
• Providing storage space for kit, which could include display boards, foldable tables, and wildlife monitoring kit.
• Offering free or reduced rate space hire (if you have community assets) that can enable the group to bring local people together.
• Collaborating with local people and CNR group on a plan for nature at neighbourhood level. Can the priorities of local people and local species help inform the Local Climate and Nature Plan? Plans informed by local voice are more likely to succeed in the future and provide a longer lasting  impact.
• Sharing information about who owns patches of land in your area, and who manages them. Are there any opportunities for your assets to be cared for differently to meet the objectives in your co-created plan for nature? Are local people interested in having more ownership over shared public land? *insert link to RWL toolkits?*
• Support local group with community events, through volunteering, space hire, funds, kit and resources, use your network to bring lots of different people together. Successful plans consult a diverse range of voices – just like in nature diversity is key.
• Celebrate the efforts and achievements of local people, sounds simple but appreciating the skills and efforts of local people goes a long way! Recognise the potential power dynamic and imbalance between institutions such as local councils and councillors and local people. How can the Council empower local people and raise them up? Community Nature Reserves and LCNAP’s should be community-led.
• Support groups with policies, such as advice about holding data and GDPR, safeguarding, insurance at events etc.