About Wild Ipswich

We will make this happen by connecting our green spaces to give wildlife the freedom to move throughout the town via-

• strategic town planning and through our response to individual planning applications
• looking after and improving existing core wildlife sites
• increasing space for nature by securing new green spaces
• working with landowners to build biodiversity into their businesses
• identifying where we can build and enhance wildlife corridors throughout Ipswich.

We will work closely with our partners to join up and multiply our collective efforts to fulfil the vision.

Our vision is also about inspiring, empowering and activating people, to benefit their communities by improving their immediate environment. We will inspire people street-by-street, area-by-area, to turn the town into a nature-rich, connected landscape.

The vision recognises the need to provide all people with opportunities to enjoy the important health-promoting benefits of being in good quality green spaces, and experiencing the delights of nature with their capacity to enrich our lives and promote physical and mental wellbeing

Wild Ipswich’s vision is for anyone living and working in the town to help transform gardens and open spaces into a town-wide nature reserve.  We hope to inspire and empower people to build communities that can enjoy nature and transform Ipswich into a nature-rich, connected landscape. Together, if we connect habitats and green spaces, we can create an interconnecting framework of green corridors, enabling wildlife to move easily around the town and link to the wider countryside.

We know that our vision will take time to achieve. We will focus on 2020 at first, in line with international targets aimed at halting biodiversity loss, with an eye on the longer term goal to reverse the decline in biodiversity by 2050.

Our priorities are to:

Inspire people and communities to care and take direct action for nature

• Launch event for Wild Ipswich in 2017.
• Programme of public events to give people the help they need to transform and rewild their homes, gardens, organisations and local areas.
• Programme of public events to improve identification skills on some key groups
• Programme of public events to promote and improve health and wellbeing
• Demonstration projects on business sites/gardens
• Wild Ipswich website and social media hosting information and interactive features.
• A Wild Ipswich magazine.

Create a coherent and resilient ecological network

• Bigger, better quality, well-protected
• Maintain, improve, and increase our current wildlife habitats and sites.
• Create new areas for wildlife.
• Join them up – through continuous corridors or via stepping stones.
• Increase the wildlife value of the wider landscape.
• Record action taken as a source of evidence and conservation success