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Yeah, Hyde Park looks green and pretty, but it turns out in recent years it’s lost lots of its animal inhabitants. But that might all change now that Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced a new rewilding fund to help revamp London’s green areas.
The £600,000 investment aims to restore rivers and bring back a number of furry and feathery creatures, including beavers, stags, sparrows, water voles and even peregrine falcons. (Snow White would have a field day.) When it comes to Hyde Park, that means making things a little less polished and a little wilder.
Hyde Park isn’t the only lucky beneficiary, there’s a total of 45 projects going ahead around the city. Even though 20 percent of London’s outdoor spaces are classified as Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation, only half of those areas are managed accordingly right now. Sites located in high-climate risk areas like Hackney and Lambeth will get priority.
Khan’s intentions are to help London reach its net-zero goal, ease pollution, reduce flooding and ensure all Londoners live within a ten-minute walk of a green space. The Mayor is also investing in traineeships for young Londoners from under-represented groups to learn more about biodiversity and help develop future green projects.
All sounds like good news, right? Here’s hoping that we will all be frolicking in a rewilded park sometime soon, and that the Hyde Park parakeets will calm down now that they have some friends on the way.