Sunderland, United Kingdom
City population: 271734
Duration: 2015 – ongoing
Implementation status: Ongoing
Scale: Micro-scale: District/neighbourhood level
Project area: unknown
Type of area: Public Greenspace Area
Last updated: July 2022

In 2015, 20,000 British Pounds have been raised to help wildlife in the Elba Park in Sunderland. The funding was granted to create new habitat for priority species in Shiney Row in Elba park. Community groups and schools were one of the major parts of the project. People were engaged to enhance their learning experience. This project was partly crowd-funded (Ref 1).

Overview

Nature-based solution

  • Parks and urban forests
  • Large urban parks or forests

Key challenges

  • Green space, habitats and biodiversity (SDG 15)
  • Habitat and biodiversity restoration
  • Green space creation and/or management

Focus

Creation of new green areas, Ecological restoration of ecosystems, Monitoring and maintenance of habitats and/or biodiversity

Project objectives

1. Create new habitats for priority species, 2. teach local community groups, schools and residents about different species in the park, 3. Help the park to act as an important wildlife corridor to other areas (Ref 2, 3).

Implementation activities

1.Create new habitat for priority species such as water voles, otters and dingy skipper butterflies, 2. Set up a "Bioblitz" where the local community helps to survey all the species in the park over a 24-hour period (Ref 1, 2).

Biodiversity conservation or restoration-focused activities

Biodiversity restoration:

  • Rehabilitate and restore damaged or destroyed ecosystems
  • Restore species (native, endangered, or unspecified)
  • Restore native species
  • Restore valued species
  • Restore endangered species

Main beneficiaries

  • Local government/Municipality
  • Citizens or community groups

Governance

Management set-up

  • Government-led

Type of initiating organisation

  • Regional government

Participatory approaches/ community involvement

  • Crowd-sourcing/Crowd-funding/Participatory budget
  • Joint implementation (e.g. tree planting)
  • Citizen science

Details on the roles of the organisations involved in the project

Project implemented in response to ...

... an EU policy or strategy? Unknown
... a national policy or strategy? Unknown
... a local policy or strategy? Unknown

Financing

Total cost

€10,000 - €50,000

Source(s) of funding

  • Public regional budget
  • Crowdfunding

Type of funding

  • Direct funding (grants, subsidies, or self-financed projects by private entities)
  • Donations

Non-financial contribution

Type of non-financial contribution
  • Provision of labour
Who provided the non-financial contribution?
  • Citizens (e.g. volunteering)

Impacts and Monitoring

Environmental impacts

  • Green space and habitat
  • Reduced biodiversity loss
  • Increased number of species present
  • Increased protection of threatened species

Economic impacts

  • Unknown

Socio-cultural impacts

  • Education
  • Increased support for education and scientific research
  • Increased knowledge of locals about local nature

Type of reported impacts

Achieved impacts

Presence of formal monitoring system

Unknown

Presence of indicators used in reporting

No evidence in public records

Presence of monitoring/ evaluation reports

No evidence in public records

Availability of a web-based monitoring tool

No

References

Ref 1: SUnderland Echo. (2015). Community rallies to the call of the wild. Retrieved from Source link
Ref 2: Groundwork. (2015). Groundwork meets funding target for local wildlife project. Retrieved from Source link
Ref 3: Sunderland Echo. (2014). £10,000 award to be used to build wildlife city in Sunderland. Retrieved from Source link
Ref 4: Groundwork. (n.d.). Biodiver-city Elba Park. Retrieved from Source link
Ref 5: Sunderland Partnership. (2011). Sunderland Green Infrastructure Strategy Framework.
Ref 6: Chronicles Lives (2015) Park in wildlife boost. Retrieved from Source link on 11th November, 2020.