A new interactive digital map has been launched to connect Northern Ireland folks with accessible greenspace and identify areas of need.
Those behind GreenspaceNI says it shows access to greenspace is not equal across the region, with people in deprived or urban environments more likely to lose out.
Outdoor Recreation NI hopes it will enable public bodies, community groups and landowners to identify priority areas and create a vision for the future to level up access to quality greenspace and connect routes.
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Across Northern Ireland there are 96,470 hectares of greenspace and 2,926 miles of trails – this equates to 500m2 and 2.41m of trail per person.
But only 49.7% of households are within 400 metres of quality accessible greenspace of at least 2 hectares.
Access to nature is known to improve health and wellbeing, with the pandemic encouraging more people outdoors.
Mark Hammond, Director of Natural Environment Division from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency and Chair of the cross government Strategic Outdoor Recreation Group, said: “Connecting people, nature and places through increasing and improving greenspace and trails will not only create more sustainable, attractive and active places to live and work but will help to tackle climate change and biodiversity decline.
“The GreenspaceNI map is the ideal tool to inform the development of local plans, policies, and strategies relevant to place shaping and to identify Community Path Networks and Nature Recovery Networks."
“NIEA is committed to increasing access to greenspace in partnership with others to shape a future where access to local quality greenspace is available to everyone to improve the quality of all our lives,” he added.
“Outdoor Recreation Northern Ireland worked closely with over 20 organisations to capture all the publicly accessible greenspace and trails.
“Representatives from key government departments and agencies, councils and universities contributed datasets and feedback during the development stages and tested the map with various use cases ahead of the launch.”
Eileen Cowan from the Active Travel Team of the Department for Infrastructure said: “There are lots of exciting infrastructure use cases such as greenspace infrastructure planning, local and urban planning, and designing environments that enable more walking, cycling, and wheeling.
“We are particularly interested in how we can connect people via active travel and sustainable transport modes to our wonderful greenspaces – this will be great for people, place and planet.”
The new map was launched at the Armagh Planetarium yesterday with organisations, councils, government departments, agencies, environmental charities and universities getting a first look.
A panel discussion with experts explored how various sectors plan to use the map to inform their work going forward.
This included greenspace and community trail planning, urban design, active environment creation, sustainable travel planning, habitat conservation, and supporting research insights and funding applications.
After the event, Communication and Training Specialist Dr Elizabeth Annett said: “Outdoor Recreation NI looks forward to supporting public bodies, community groups, and landowners to use it to positively shape the future of our invaluable greenspaces and trails.
“It’s a real game changer for identifying priorities for greenspace going forward.”
Click here to access the map.
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