Urban nature sites in Scotland benefit participants as well as wildlife

Research conducted by Greenspace Scotland, with funding from Scottish Natural Heritage, found that urban nature sites were havens for wildlife and the skills that people were learning at each site resulted in cost savings for the government.

The report was designed to calculate the Social Return on Investment (SROI) of gardening projects involving young volunteers and SROI programme manager Karen Carrick said that the results have been positive even though only certain activities at each site were taken into account.

“If all of the possible activities were analysed the benefits generated would be considerably greater,” she added.

Greenspace Scotland, which is an independent charity designed to improve the planning, development and sustainable management of green spaces in the country, will be working out the SROI on a further ten projects in Scotland with the help of funding from the Big Lottery Research Programme