Boost for wildlife local charity.

The Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and the Black Country’s work to transform overgrown, dark woodlands into beautiful areas carpeted with lush, colourful wildflowers and filled with wildlife has been given a massive cash injection by Natural England.

The Birmingham & Black Country Nature Improvement Area has been awarded an extra £200 000 to improve local woodlands after impressing the national body with the way they are engaging local communities in their projects. Projects are under way across the area in places such as Cannon Hill Park, Bilston Urban Village, Milking Bank in Dudley and Rowley Hills. By thinning dense areas of young planted woodland and introducing new plant and tree species, they hope to create attractive areas for people to enjoy and for wildlife to flourish.

The Wildlife Trust is delighted with the opportunity to make a difference to so many local communities, as Nature Improvement Area programme manager Simon Atkinson explains: “This is a fantastic opportunity to make better places for people and wildlife right across Birmingham and the Black Country by creating species-rich woodlands from species-poor plantations.

“The extra money is a real demonstration of confidence in the brilliant urban nature conservation that’s being done here. Everyone who’s involved in these projects should be proud of what they’re achieving because the impacts of it will be felt for years to come.”

The projects are taking on the important task of managing newly-planted woodlands across Birmingham and the Black Country. The Wildlife Trust are thinning plantations with the help of volunteers to help existing trees to mature and encourage the growth of native woodland flowers like bluebell, wood anemone and primrose with the help of seeds and seedlings which have been prepared for this purpose by their Growing Local Flora project.

They are also organising a series of days to engage families with seeing the beauty of these spaces that have previously been dark and difficult to access. Tree-mendous Fun Days have been held in four places over half-term to encourage families to learn more about woodlands.