About the Nature Recovery Network

The Nature Recovery Network (NRN) is a network of individuals, community groups, local businesses, and councilors in Eynsham Parish and the surrounding parishes. It is dedicated to understanding, protecting, and restoring our local nature in all its diversity. This 'bottom-up' network aims at connecting local experts with enthusiasts, businesses and councilors all living in the same place to enable a scaling-up of nature recovery in the face of climate change and the ecological crises that have led to biodiversity loss.

Initiated by Long Mead Local Wildlife Site in August 2019, the guiding idea of the NRN is something like 'Charity begins at Home'. If we do our nature recovery by effectively 'volunteering' in our own gardens, or on our own doorsteps, and by getting advice and learning 'best-practice from the experts who live among us, we reap the rewards of our efforts every time we step outside our doors. When we see the positive results we might be encouraged to do even more – particularly if our neighbour is also doing it and we can chat over the fence about how the patch of wildflowers that we planted on the verge is flourishing, or whether the cuckoo that we heard last year has returned.

The hope is that the NRN initiative will encourage us to rediscover what we already have, tell others about it, and find ways of working together to generate a mosaic of different habitats and so increase biodiversity in our own backyards.