Natural Course – Official partner of the Greater Manchester Green Summit 2022

Natural Course was very proud to be one of the official partners of the fifth Greater Manchester Green Summit which was hosted by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham.

The theme of the summit was ‘taking climate action today, tomorrow, together’ and featured interactive sessions around the natural environment, transport, low carbon, sustainable consumption and production, and sustainable lifestyles.

This unique event was a fantastic opportunity for speakers, exhibitors and delegates to come together to consider how they can all collaborate on innovative solutions, accelerate action against the Greater Manchester five-year environment plan and rise to the key challenges the city-region faces.  There was also a youth-specific strand to engage young people around climate change.

As well as being an official partner, the Natural Course team hosted an exhibition stand and interacted with attendees about the work of our Greater Manchester River Ecology Project.  The focus of the stand looked at the recent survey of invasive non-native plant species that was conducted for the first time – and covered the whole of the Irwell catchment.  We were able to tell the scale of the problem and share results that revealed there are over 2000 cases Japanese Knotweed; over 700 cases of Giant Hogweed; and that Himalayan Balsam is now found across the whole catchment.

This project is a great example of partnership working, and we were joined throughout the day by volunteers from Bradshaw Brook Fly Fishers, Groundwork and the Irwell Catchment Partnership group.

We were also able to premiere a new video about the survey work.