Urban nature: why we must fund projects that green our cities

27th February 2025

Our CEO, Harry Barton, shares why we need urban nature and the threat it faces with a potential loss of funding for community nature recovery projects.

Half a mile north of where I used to live in Shepherds Bush, west London, is a little oasis. A thicket of healthy, well-tended young trees covers an area about the size of a tennis court. 

It’s hemmed in by imposing glass and steel buildings, rows of terraced housing and a sports centre.  This backdrop wouldn’t win many votes for the prettiest corner of our capital city. 

But it’s home to the first Tiny Forest that Earthwatch planted in London, back in 2022. I’m too early to appreciate the trees in their spring and summer glory, but I make a note to return later in the year.

At first sight these Tiny Forests can appear modest. Especially compared to the miles of windswept, hulking, scrub clad hills of southern Dartmoor where I’m now based.  

But there is something marvellous about these little patches of wildness in the urban fabric. They are created using the pioneering Miyawaki technique. It replicates the natural structure of a forest and is perfectly suited for land that was previously unsuitable for wildlife.

The diversity of tree species, the speed of growth and survival rates are impressive. Over 500 plant and animal species have been recorded in Tiny Forests that are only three years old.  And because the trees grow fast, they absorb more carbon. 

It’s not just about wildlife and carbon though. Local communities are involved in every aspect, from planting the trees to tending the emerging woodland. 

These miniature wildlife havens act as living laboratories, with volunteers monitoring the return of wildlife, soil health, air quality and much more. All this work generates valuable data that helps us learn how to bring about the return of wildlife faster and more effectively. 

This is science democratised and localised, taking it out of dry academic papers and into the practical and emotional reality of people’s everyday lives.

The tiny approach has been so successful that we’re looking at other habitats too. As part of our rapidly growing Nature in Cities programme we plan to createtiny orchards, tiny wetlands, and tiny meadows.   

Greening our cities

In our minds’ eye is a future cityscape that is peppered with little wild spaces.

Loved by people, singing with birds and buzzing with insects. Transforming the grey urban hues to a patchwork of shimmering greens. Cities of the future, where all of us would happily live.

Around 300 Tiny Forests have now been planted by Earthwatch and its partners across the British Isles from Glasgow to the Channel Islands. That’s 180,000 trees.

They  involved thousands of people, supported by a wide range of funders, crucially the Nature for Climate Fund and the Local Authority Treescape Fund.

The latter has been so instrumental that almost 80% of all tree planting since 2020 has been funded through the scheme.  

Could we lose funding for urban nature?

As this financial year comes to an end, there is no sign as to whether the funding will be continued. This delay is deeply worrying, because if we can’t gear everything up by the end of March, we’ll be too late and we’ll miss an entire year of tree planting. 

This will throw us badly off course for meeting the government’s targets and will be bitterly disappointing for all those communities who have projects set up and ready to go.

These are challenging times for the public purse, of course. A sceptic might argue that planting trees is a “nice to have” and not a priority when we’re facing financial black holes and international threats to our security. 

But it’s worth looking at the benefits of these schemes before writing them off as expendable luxuries. First, they are transformative for local communities.  

Most Tiny Forests are in areas where people have limited access to green space; and these same areas are typically the poorer neighbourhoods.  Tiny Forests and similar greening projects can help turn this inequality around.

Then there’s the wider benefits of accessing greenspace for mental health, antisocial behaviour and even productivity in the workplace. 

You don’t need to read the excellent research by the Mental Health Foundation, Natural England and others to see this – you only need to look at the feedback from communities involved in these schemes.  

By involving people in the planting, we can help people reconnect with nature and foster a desire to protect it.

If that’s not enough to persuade the doubters, these miniature Edens are excellent value for money, especially when you factor in all the wider social benefits. 

The entire budget for all this nature restoration is small change at £150 million per annum.  That’s less than 10% of the annual farming subsidy budget, and a tiny fraction of a percent of the £71bn bill for HS2. 

It’s true, you do get bigger bangs for your bucks for wildlife if you invest in large-scale nature projects, such as restoring a 10,000 ha degraded grouse moor in Scotland. But these places aren’t where most people experience nature. 

We need urban nature

Most of us live in cities, and it’s the wildlife in our backyards that is most important to us. For your average British citizen, it’s a multitude of little green oases in the urban matrix that is likely to matter the most. 

If we’re serious about bringing nature back to the wider landscape, these stepping stones and corridors are as vital as the larger hubs they connect.     

These are tough times, and tough times require difficult and unpopular decisions.  Whoever is in power needs to understand the difference between a genuine saving and a false economy. 

The climate and nature crises are upon us. It’s not just about species disappearing; it’s about severing our link with wildlife, and the dire consequences of this. 

Tackling these crises can’t be put on hold in the same way as building a new railway line or motorway can. The alarming trends of decline, and their inevitable impacts, are baked into the next few decades. 

We are already playing a high-risk game of catch up when it comes to mitigating the worst that might be coming our way.   

If what’s happening across the world makes us depressed, the little oases of hope at a local level, including Tiny Forests, should lift our spirits.

Now is not the time to lose our resolve and turn our back on nature recovery. We must keep investing in our future. We must keep funding the greening of our cities.