In line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the University’s Sustainable Future strategy outlines our commitment to tackling the climate crisis. One of our key objective’s centres around ‘Valuing Nature’, associated with four of the SDGs.  

Fringed Willowherb. Photo by user @yunak

This includes enhancing our green spaces, promoting biodiversity, instilling responsible practices and increasing opportunities for our community to engage with nature. By prioritising our natural environment, we hope to not only make our campus a space for wildlife to flourish and diversify but also promote the wellbeing of our staff, students and wider community.  

To reach our aim, we are constantly looking for new ways people can engage with our green spaces. We have now created a University biodiversity project on Naturalist, a free, easy to use app where users can record and identify various plant and animal species.  

The app allows you to upload photos of the wildlife (including garden plants/trees) you see and to discover the types of wildlife you are observing. You can also explore sightings that others in the community have uploaded, helping them to verify any species they observed.  

Our iNaturalist project is called Biodiversity on Campus. Any observations you upload will automatically be added – no need for you to do anything, however you can join the project to receive alerts about key events taking place on campus. The project is open to staff, students and the public; anyone can upload an observation.   

Together, your sightings will form part of a global database that can be used by scientists and the University to inform future actions, increasing biodiversity and conservation of species.  

Six-spot Burnet. Photo by user @tomnu

To date our community has accumulated almost 600 observations, identifying 285 different species of plants, fungi and animals, including a Six-spot Burnet moth, Small Copper butterfly and an American Willowherb. 

In September, the Faculty kickstarted our iNaturalist project by participating in our first EuroBioBlitz, an annual wildlife recording event that takes place over 48 hours across the whole of Europe. Read more about the BioBlitz event on our blog.  

Look out for future events, exploring nature on campus, by signing up to our ES newsletter by emailing srbmh@manchester.ac.uk or following our X (formally Twitter) @FBMH_SR to stay updated.  

Join our campus project on the iNaturalist app (google play, app store or access via the web) to take your observations anytime, anywhere you are. We have also created a how-to guide, full of useful tips and diagrams to help you navigate the app and get started recording your observations. 

To find out more about Environmental Sustainability: visit the Faculty’s intranet page, website or contact srbmh@manchester.ac.uk. For more information on Environmental Sustainability at the University watch this short film or visit their website 

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