The Government has announced that more areas are to be designated national parks and a second round of funding will be available to support the delivery of green jobs.
The £40m Green Recovery Challenge Fund, initially launched in September, offers funding for environmental charities and their partners to start work on projects to restore nature and tackle climate change.
The fund aimed to create up to 3,000 jobs and safeguard up to 2,000 others in areas such as protecting species, finding nature-based solutions to tackling climate change, conservation rangers and connecting people with nature.
On Saturday, the Government announced that an additional £40m would be made available to the fund. This money will go to projects that may include action towards the creation or restoration of priority habitats, preventing or cleaning up pollution, woodland creation, peatland and wetland restoration and actions to help people connect with nature.
This will in turn create a range of skilled and unskilled jobs, such as ecologists, project managers, tree planters and teams to carry out nature restoration.
The Government has also announced that more of England’s landscapes will be turned into National Parks and Areas of Natural Beauty in order to increase access to nature for communities and better protect the country’s wildlife and biodiversity.
Ten Landscape Recovery projects will also be launched across England over the next four years to restore peatlands, woodlands and create wilder landscapes.
‘As we build back greener from the coronavirus pandemic, we are committed to shaping a cleaner and more resilient society to protect and restore our natural environment and diverse ecosystems,’ said environment secretary, George Eustice.
‘Today’s announcement illustrates how we are leading the world in protecting the natural environment and combating climate change.
‘By starting the process for designating more of our beautiful and iconic landscapes as National Parks and AONBs, and through the new Landscape Recovery projects, we will help expand and protect precious wildlife habitats and, vitally, increase people’s access to our treasured landscapes.’
