Nature-based Solutions Sprint: impact after a stakeholder webinar

In March, the Sprint team “How do we scale up Nature-based Solutions?”, hosted a webinar with the Ecosystems Knowledge Network on the Sprint’s new website the Nature-based Solutions Knowledge Hub: an integrated one-stop resource to guide users through the process of governing, designing and funding Nature-based Solutions (NbS).

The webinar had over 200 attendees, with 90% of respondents reporting that the webinar provided insight or novel information.

Following the webinar, Sprint lead Alison Smith received over 20 requests for use of the opportunity maps, including government agencies (Natural England, the Environment Agency, Forest Research), NGOs (Rivers Trusts, Wildlife Trusts), consultants and local authorities.

The North & East Yorkshire Ecological Data Centre have been using the team’s map for Yorkshire in order to support development of their Local Nature Recovery Strategy. Director of NEYEDC Simon Pickles said, “The Agile map and dataset has been a huge help in the light of the very tight LNRS deadlines. It is providing an excellent “back-bone” around which to construct and illustrate the description of the LNRS areas as required by Task 3. It has also proved to be very useful in the initial stages of stakeholder consultation.”