Ecology

The City Council's Ecology team leads and contributes to a variety of projects across the city and region. These projects cover a range of overlapping aims, including nature enhancement, biodiversity monitoring, community engagement and citizen science.

We work with partners within the Council, such as parks, urban forestry, Public Health and climate change, as well as external partners, such as the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, Canal and Rivers Trust, and both Warwick and Coventry University.

We play a strategic role, offering advice or assisting with funding applications in everything from local community projects to regional programmes and research collaborations.

Examples of our ongoing projects

Tree Planting and the creation of Tiny Forests

Coventry City Council has been awarded £294,915 from the Forestry Commission’s Local Authority Treescapes Fund to plant 151 semi-mature trees and 7068 whips across 10 Wards in Coventry. 3600 of these whips will be planted as Tiny Forests. This project is in partnership with Citizen Housing, and Earthwatch Europe who will be planting the Tiny Forests. This tree planting will include the 3 wards with the lowest tree canopy cover in Coventry: Radford, Upper Stoke and Holbrooks. These trees will capture carbon from the atmosphere, absorb pollution, help with urban cooling by providing shade, provide much-needed homes for urban wildlife and create visually diverse green spaces for local communities to enjoy.

Tiny Forest are dense, fast-growing native woodlands, about the size of a tennis court, which will be delivered by Earthwatch Europe, who have pioneered the planting technique, building on the Japanese Miyawaki method. Each of these forests will be designed by, cared for and enjoyed by the local community. Under the careful management of ‘Tree Keeper’ volunteers, communities can water, weed and care for their local forests. More information can be found on Earthwatch Europe's webpage.

To give your input into the project and help design the Tiny Forests in your area, please check out the survey on the Let's Talk Coventry webpage, or attend a drop-in or planting event listed on the Council's event webpage.

We have two upcoming events:

• Cheylesmore Tiny Forest Community Drop-In Session - where we will be consulting on Tiny Forests at Foresters Road
• Tile Hill Tiny Forest Community Drop-In Session - where we will be consulting on Tiny Forests at Thimbler Road and Nickson Road.

The distribution of the tree planting across the city can be seen on the map below:

City Nature Challenge

This is a global Citizen Science event that takes place the final weekend in April every year and involves getting people out in their local environments to record biodiversity. More information can be found on the official City Nature Challenge webpage.

The Species Recovery Programme

In collaboration with Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, the Canal and Rivers Trust, and the University of Warwick, we will be enhancing habitats designed to support bittern, water vole, willow tit and white-clawed crayfish and help their local populations flourish. More details can be found on Warwickshire Wildlife Trust's webpage.

Monitoring biodiversity with eDNA

In collaboration with the University of Warwick's School of Life Sciences, we have been awarded funding from the University's Biosciences Impact Fund to experiment with innovative eDNA techniques to monitor biodiversity in Foleshill and Binley and Willenhall. This involves collecting water and soil samples with volunteers, which colleagues at the University of Warwick then use to identify species in the area.

Creating and supporting natural spaces

Inline with Biodiversity Net Gain legislation, we are creating biodiversity offsetting sites. This involves large-scale, long-term habitat creation and restoration. Examples of these spaces include Elm Fields Farm and Coundon Wedge.

Partnering with the Council's Parks Team

This includes designing and implementing biodiversity enhancements in our green spaces, such as Edgwick Park and Radford Recreation Ground.