London Day of Nature 2026

Welcome to London Day of Nature 2026

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Programme summary

Speaker details

Session 1: 10.30am - 11.30am

30 Years and still GiGLing – Vicky Kleanthous, GiGL. 2026 ushers in the 30th anniversary of the inception of GiGL and the 20th since we have operated as an independent local environmental record centre. To start the day, Vicky will follow a brief history of GiGL, from the antecedent Biological Recording Project in 1996, to achieving CIC status in 2013, to recent highlights since the last London Day of Nature in 2024 and GiGL’s aspirations for the future. Throughout this journey, biological recorders have provided the guidance, knowledge and crucially the records to drive GiGL’s mission that London’s natural environment is appreciated, understood, considered and improved.

Biological Recording – putting pen to paper – Sarah Whild, Retired academic, author of the Biological Recording Handbook, botanist and bug-botherer. Sarah will discuss some of the more controversial areas that were tackled in her new book such as ‘how important is the who’, how important is AI in biological recording and even with the advent of pan-species listing, why are we still so biased in what we record?

Caterpillars & cabbages: how urban food growers are embracing biodiversity – Rachel Dring, Lula Wattam, Capital Growth. This talk takes you inside Capital Growth’s citizen science project, the Big City Bug Hunt, co-created with GiGL. Discover how the project has been empowering food growers to identify and monitor insects in community garden settings, and explore the data collected so far on habitats and species throughout London’s food gardens. The session also shares key lessons on making citizen science accessible and inclusive, because the goal isn’t just to boost biodiversity across the city, but to diversify the people who take part.

Water vole © Caroline Quinn

Session 2: 11.50am - 1.00pm

Pollinating London Together – Heather Barrett-Mold, PLT. Heather will present on the main objective of Pollinating London Together – preventing the decline of pollinators in the City of London and beyond, to help greenspace managers to improve habitats with pollinator friendly planting and space for nesting, while raising awareness through formal and informal education.

LISI Revival – Sarah Lewington, GiGL. The London Invasive Species Initiative (LISI) was created to help address environmental and economic problems caused by invasive species within the Greater London area. Sarah will provide an overview of the London Invasive Species Initiative and the work we are doing to update the list of invasive non-native species of concern to London.

GiGL hosts and is partnered with LISI and acts as a repository for invasive non-native species records. Data on these species are important for London-wide analysis and can provide a broader understanding of INNS. Please send any records to GiGL using our LISI Recording Form

London’s Thriving Rewilding Scene – Elliot Newton, Citizen Zoo. Through their innovative community-focused rewilding projects Citizen Zoo empower people from every walk of life to take meaningful action against nature loss and climate change, creating a wilder future for all. Their work spans a range of species and sites from the Ealing Beaver Project to Wild Tolworth to returning water voles in Kingston. For London Day of Nature they will focus on three new projects at different spatial scales across London: white storks, German hairy snails and the Tower Mustard Project. Highlighting the vital roles of volunteers, the power of partnership work and the very real and measurable ecological and social outcomes we can achieve.

Common toad © Rebecca Harvey

Session 3: 2.00pm - 2.45pm

SINCs: The elusive network supporting London’s wildlife – Amelia Claridge, Richard Barnes, London Wildlife Trust. Across London, hundreds of Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation quietly support the city’s wildlife, from ancient woodlands and wetlands to small community green spaces. This talk explores how this network developed, why it remains vital for nature in an urban environment, and how it informs planning and land management across the capital. Drawing on recent work led by London Wildlife Trust in partnership with the Greater London Authority and Greenspace Information for Greater London, it will highlight the review of London’s SINC selection criteria and new tools designed to strengthen London’s nature recovery network.

The London Natural History Society needs you! – Tony Madgwick, LNHS. Tony is the newly elected President of the London Natural History Society (LNHS). He is also the LNHS Recorder for bees and wasps.

Tony will give a brief summary of the aims and aspirations of the LNHS, followed by a review of 2025’s notable wildlife records. He will provide an overview of future participatory events, projects and recording initiatives planned for 2026, leaving time for a discussion on future engagement and individual opportunities within the Society.

Hatters Wood bluebells © Amy Palmer-Newton(2)

Hatter Wood bluebells © Amy Palmer-Newton

Session 4: 3.00pm - 4.00pm

Workshop: Getting the most from GiGL – the whole GiGL Team. The final session of the day will be a workshop to learn how to access and make use of GiGL’s community services using GiGL’s key datasets for your local patch. In small groups, we will review and compare two outputs readily available to London’s voluntary environmental network:

GiGL’s Community Report – a short report summarising species recording activity for a site and its surrounding area using GiGL’s species and spatial datasets. The reports are designed to provide a basic overview of the site, highlight recording gaps and demonstrate the contributions of different recorders to a site’s records.
GiGL’s Data Search Report – a licenced, more comprehensive report providing species and spatial information relevant to planning policy and legislation for London, including protected species and designated areas. The reports are designed for professionals working within the planning sector but can also be accessed by members of the public to aid in the appraisal of a site’s biodiversity value.

Through guided discussions, there will be the chance to feedback on how we can improve our outputs to better meet your needs.

Gatekeeper butterfly © Becky Garden

GiGL Resources

GiGL News

In 2025 GiGL won the prestigious John Sawyer NBN Open Data Award recognising those who make a valuable contribution to open biodiversity data in the UK.

We’re also a social enterprise, committed to making biodiversity data available where it has the greatest environmental and social benefit, providing services for the benefit of people and nature in London. GiGL are members of two national networks, the Association of Local Environmental Records Centres (ALERC), which provides a national voice and standards for Local Environmental Records Centres, and the National Biodiversity Network (NBN), which is a UK partnership enabling the sharing of biodiversity data.

This GiGLer article explains how GiGL engages with national bodies to stay relevant.

The latest Annual Report and GiGL Strategic Plan are available here.

London's Local Nature Recovery Strategy

GiGL is proud to have worked alongside the Greater London Authority (GLA) to help produce our city’s first Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS). We’ve played a central role in ensuring the strategy, which provides a spatial plan for helping nature flourish across the capital, is based on robust evidence alongside community insight and professional expertise. The GiGLer newsletter article details our role in the development of the strategy.

The interactive storymap explains how GiGL can help support nature recovery in Greater London.

SINC Resource Hub

The SINC Resource Hub is designed to serve both professionals working within the SINC system in London, and those eager to learn more. It brings together essential resources – including strategies, guidance, articles, and timelines – collated or created to address the needs and questions of both experts and the public.

London Green Actions Map

GiGL have launched the ‘Connecting London’s Green Actions’ map to help members of London’s Ecological Network to share the specific knowledge, skills and resources needed to expand, improve and monitor natural corridors across the city. Add your activities onto the map to find new volunteers, discover your new favourite pocket of nature or link with like-minded groups.

The GiGLer newsletter article explains the origins of the map from the last London Day of Nature!

Recording Resources

There are a myriad of recording apps (RAs) available to novice and expert species recorders. A series of GiGLer articles aims to help recorders navigate the options available.

Recording Apps

iNaturalist: Nature’s Social Network

Recording Apps: let’s get specific

A helpful comparison table is available here.

If you would rather share records directly with GiGL then please use the online form or downloadable GiGL recording spreadsheets accessed via GiGL recording forms, or get in touch with GiGL directly.