It was a sunny spring morning on Saturday 9th May as the GiGL team arrived at Camley Street Natural Park to prepare for London Day of Nature 2026. This (almost) annual event, run by GiGL, brings together London’s conservation community for a day of inspiring talks from those championing nature’s protection and restoration across the capital. A regular highlight is the workshop session, giving attendees the chance to share actionable input and feedback on a chosen topic – this year, GiGL’s report for community groups and the public. Read on to discover how the day unfolded.
Session 1
As pastries were being enjoyed with morning cups of tea and coffee, it was time to kick off London Day of Nature 2026! Victoria Kleanthous – GiGL’s Senior Community Officer and captain of our LDN ship – started things off by taking us through the evolution of all things GiGL. As we celebrate our 30-year anniversary this year, it’s a great time to look back on how far we have come – from the earliest days of London Wildlife Trust’s Biological Recording Project, all the way through to winning the John Sawyer Open Data award last year at the National Biodiversity Network Awards for Wildlife Recording. There have been many accomplishments along the way, with constant improvements to our datasets and many a successful project to showcase, often in collaboration with our brilliant community and partnership networks. Victoria also set out what is next for GiGL, like improving access to resources on environmental recording for everyone through our new website (coming soon!). The talk set a great tone for the day, illustrating the growth that can stem from one small idea when the right group of determined people tend to it.
Next, the plan was to enjoy a talk by Sarah Whild, author of ‘The Biological Recording Handbook’, which had been pre-recorded. Unfortunately, due to pesky technical issues it was not possible to watch Sarah’s talk on the day of the event. However, the talk recording will be uploaded to GiGL’s YouTube channel along with all the rest of the day’s presentations, for our attendees – and those who could not attend – to enjoy at their leisure. The talk will cover some of the most intriguing parts of Sarah’s books, including some controversial areas such as the importance of AI in biological recording
Following this, we had a talk by Rachel Dring, Capital Growth coordinator at Sustain and Lula Wattam, London Food Growing and Network Officer at Capital Growth, London’s largest food growing network. The pair shared how they have been removing barriers to insect surveying for their members through their ‘Big City Bug Hunt’ project, co-created with GiGL. The project supports community food growers in identifying and monitoring insects within community gardens by providing tools for, and advice on recording. To make the project accessible for those who do not have a background in entomology, they are offering ‘critter consultant’ sessions with knowledgeable species experts, where participants can come with their unidentified records and receive immediate answers. Community garden and growing space users can register their site through the registration form created by GiGL, after which their site will be set up as a collection project on iNaturalist. Capital Growth have utilised the functions available through iNaturalist to allow participants to upload and group recordings to a specific food-growing site. GiGL can then obtain any records generated from the Big City Bug Hunt project via iNaturalist and integrate these into our own species database for London, which currently holds over 12-million records!
After an engaging morning of talks, it was time for our first break. By then, Di Clements of the London Geodiversity Partnership and Giuseppe Intrieri, a London-based photographer, had arrived and set up their stalls. Guests could learn more about London’s geological sites from Di or see some magnificent photography of London’s nature from Giuseppe – even picking up a print themselves if so desired. There was also a diverse display of posters for guests to peruse, kindly created by some of those attending the event or by different GiGLers.
Session 2
Once fresh air and refreshments had been had, it was time for our second session of speakers. We started off this round with Dr Heather Barrett-Mold from Pollinating London Together (PLT), whose work focuses on promoting action to enhance green spaces in London for the benefit of pollinators, whilst raising awareness of their importance through formal and informal education. Heather’s talk highlighted some key facts regarding the status of London’s pollinators. For example, when targeted habitat surveys began in 2020, honeybee populations in London were higher than the UK average – an unusually high proportion for such an area. Meanwhile, other bee species have seen declines across the city, partly due to the risk that honeybees pose through competition. Pollinating London Together hopes to combat this decrease by influencing relevant policies, delivering distilled guidance to local authorities and greenspace managers and building parts of their work into education for children. GiGL has provided PLT with datasets for the City of London, such as tree cover and concrete cover, which provide a rich background to PLT’s annual pollinator surveys in the City. Over time, the organisations will work to analyse this data altogether, in hopes of shedding light on drivers of pollinator abundance and diversity across the city.
We then heard from Sarah Lewington, a Community Officer in the GiGL team. Sarah represents GiGL at the London Invasive Species Initiative (LISI), acting as one of the group’s coordinators. This talk involved some audience participation, testing us on how well we know our invasive versus native plant and animal species. We learnt that some surprising species, familiar to many of us, are actually non-native to the UK – snow drops and pigeons, anyone? Whilst those are fairly harmless examples, the negative impacts that some invasive species can have in London was highlighted. To help combat this, LISI are working to review and update their Species of Concern List, by updating the risk categories and reviewing the species on the list by assessing the risk they pose and feasibility of management. The list was originally published in 2014 and is currently hosted on our website. The group has also developed a risk matrix to help prioritise the eradication of species based on which could do the most harm to the environment and to native species, the aim being to create a management-focussed resource that anyone can access.
The last talk in this session was by Elliot Newton, co-founder and Director of Citizen Zoo. Citizen Zoo run community-focused, collaborative projects to promote and support urban rewilding across London. Elliot gave an overview of some of the key rewilding projects run by Citizen Zoo over the last several years. There is the partnership project to conduct coordinated surveys at selected sites across London for the rather cute species known as German hairy snails, for which GiGL has created site habitat maps to aid on-the-ground survey efforts. With funding from Rewilding Britian, the organisation also established the London White Stork Forum, which brings together different organisations to discuss and inform others through online talks about the magnificent and captivating bird species which at one time were commonly spotted in the capital’s skies. GiGL has supported Citizen Zoo by setting up a recording form to monitor further white stork sightings, as well as creating habitat suitability maps of potential grazing sites across London. Finally, Elliot told us about a project underway across London to restore populations of tower mustard, one of the city’s most scarce native plants which plays a key role in supporting pollinators. It was great to hear from Elliot about such a wide variety of rewilding projects, taking place at different scales across the city and involving lots of like-minded organisations.
After Elliot’s talk, another highly anticipated event in the day took place – lunch! Attendees had another chance to catch up and strike up conversations inspired by the morning of talks. There was still plenty of sun around, providing the opportunity for some alfresco dining, or an exploration of the reserve to see some nature up close and in person.
Session 3
Once the lunch break had concluded, it was back inside for our final two talks of the day. Starting off, we had Nature Recovery Programmes Officer Amelia Claridge and Head of Planning and External Affairs Richard Barnes, both from London Wildlife Trust (LWT). The pair were initially joined by GiGL CEO Mandy Rudd to give a tribute to urban ecologist Mathew Frith, who sadly passed away last August. Mathew was a long-term ally of GiGL, a founding member of our Board, and a regular speaker at our London Day of Nature event. He never failed to captivate the room with his passionate visions for protecting and restoring nature in the city.
Amelia and Richard then gave us an insight into London’s network of Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation, or SINCs – a non-statutory designation given to spaces that possess the habitats and features necessary to support wildlife – and why the network is indeed of great importance for nature in an urban environment. GiGL is the official custodian of the London SINC dataset and work with our partners to keep this information as up to date as possible, ensuring that it can be used effectively to protect valuable sites for nature within the planning system.
Amelia started off by giving us a hopeful overview of the abundance of green and blue spaces, plus the wealth of species which exist despite the highly urbanised and sprawling state of our city. We also heard about the inspiring ways in which the city’s residents are adapting to London’s unique environment to carry out activities for nature recovery. Richard then got more into the technical details of the SINC system and how it came to be. Fun fact: the national SINC network – known outside of London as Local Wildlife Sites – actually began in London in the early eighties! Key changes in policy and the nature recovery agenda in recent years were highlighted, including a shift in focus towards enhancing, connecting and enlarging SINCs rather than simply protecting them as they currently exist.
To reflect these changes, from 2024 to 2025 LWT worked in collaboration with GiGL and the Greater London Authority on a successful project to review London’s SINC criteria. The bringing together of these critical organisations and the work carried out during the project has ensured that SINCs are now seen as part of a nature recovery network, along with greater recognition for their value in climate resilience and public access. Some exciting new SINC-related resources were also showcased. There is the ‘Spaces Wild’ document, which lays out some ways in which London’s citizens can get involved in protecting and raising awareness of the SINC network. GiGL has also worked with LWT to prepare and now host the SINC Resource Hub, a centralised platform of resources to help everyone from local planning authorities to members of the public to understand SINCs and find all the resources required to support their work around this vital network for nature.
Our final presentation came from Tony Madgwick, the newly elected president of the London Natural History Society (LNHS). The LNHS holds events throughout the year for its members which are centred around biological recording within a 20-mile radius of St Paul’s Cathedral, to support conservation and help members to understand, enjoy and appreciate the local natural history. The LNHS and GiGL exchange biological records on a regular basis and GiGL has assisted the society in its research and publications through the delivery of bespoke data products.
Tony, a returning speaker at our London Day of Nature event, gave us an overview of the current aims and aspirations of the LNHS, as well as sharing information on the society’s upcoming events and projects. With activities being split amongst five key sections, covering birds, botany and everything in between, the society hopes to provide for all natural history interests and ability levels. The range of events on offer is greatly varied: there are field recording days, invertebrate study days at the Natural History Museum and regular surveys at both Bookham Commons and Hampstead Heath, to name a few! If any of these piques your interest and you would like to join the society or learn more, head to their website for more information.
Afternoon workshop
With the final talk delivered, it was time for Team GiGL to perform a quick change – of the table layout! The space was prepared for the afternoon workshop session, which would focus on the GiGL Community Report, one of our main outputs for pro bono customers, community groups and members of the public. Attendees were split into six groups and asked to provide feedback on different aspects of the report.
- How might they use it at their specific site or within their organisation?
- What additional content, or refinements to the existing content, would be useful?
As Community Reports can be shared publicly, there is a fine balance between including as much useful information as possible to support a range of uses – such as objecting to a planning application or informing community groups about what has already been recorded in their area – and ensuring the protection of the species covered within each report. We gathered a wealth of valuable insights from the workshop and would like to thank every delegate who attended and contributed to the session.
You can find links to the contact details of all speakers and their slides from the day, plus a myriad of other relevant resources, in our virtual Delegate Pack. The day’s talks are also available to watch via GiGL’s YouTube channel.
The GiGL team would like to say massive thank you to all those attended and/or contributed to London Day of Nature 2026, helping to make it a great success!
