2025

Overview

Networks for Nature is supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and led by Chester Zoo, bringing together ecological restoration and community engagement to reconnect people and nature through creative, place-based conservation.

The project explores how community participation influences habitat restoration — and whether the quality of habitat improvement relates to the impact on audiences involved.

The ambition is considerable: the project spans around 60 square miles from the River Dee to the River Mersey (including Chester and Ellesmere Port) and involves partners including Cheshire West and Chester Council, Cheshire Wildlife Trust, Canal & River Trust and The Land Trust among others. 

Through our evaluation, we explore how engagement in Networks for Nature supports people and wildlife across north-west Cheshire. Using a blend of surveys, interviews, focus groups, and creative methods, we are assessing how participation influences connection to nature, behaviour change, wellbeing, and sense of place.

Evaluation is more than measurement—it’s a learning process that reveals the social stories underpinning ecological change. By understanding how collaboration and participation foster both flourishing communities and thriving habitats, our work helps strengthen practice across the project.

Our role as evaluators:

• Delivering a rigorous and reflexive evaluation alongside experienced consultant partners Tricolor Collective, combining heritage evaluation expertise with our skills in environmental social science.

• Conducting mixed-method assessments to capture the experiences, motivations, and behaviours of participants.

• Analysing how social engagement links to ecological outcomes and conservation impacts.

• Supporting adaptive learning through continuous monitoring, process evaluation, and reflective reporting.

Key activities:

• Surveys, interviews, and focus groups with project participants.

• Creative evaluation methods to explore experiences, stories, and motivations.

• Continuous monitoring against project outputs and targets.

• Summarising insights to inform adaptive management and future conservation strategies.

Outcomes:

• Evidence of how community participation contributes to habitat restoration and wildlife thriving.

• Practical recommendations for improving engagement, participation, and ecological impact.

• Insights to inform ongoing and future Networks for Nature initiatives.

• Strengthened capacity for collaborative, community-driven conservation.

Partners & collaborators:

• Tricolor Collective

• Chester Zoo

• Cheshire Wildlife Trust

• Local volunteers and community groups

• Numerous Networks for Nature partners across north-west Cheshire