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Favour (Nigeria)
Favour started a nature group to increase student activism on her campus at University of Benin and has organised countless activities such as community litter picks, awareness-raising events and outreach to local schools. View
Muhammad (Pakistan)
Muhammad is a student of Forestry at University of Haripur where he is involved with afforestation and aims to increase the diversity of plants on campus. He has successfully campaigned to get his university to make a Nature Positive Pledge. View
Avani (India)
Avani is an active volunteer with Familial Forestry at Government College Dungar, Bikaner. She has helped nurture and distribute 75,000 saplings in her community and assists in combatting desertification through native planting. View
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All Case Studies
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Acting for sustainability in human and natural ecosystems in a conflict zone
The Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability at Bethlehem University has developed management plans for four protected areas and restored habitats and protected species. This led to the institute being trusted to lead on creation of the new Protected Area Network (27 areas) for Palestine. The institution has also led the effort to formulate the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. View
Student-run gardens and urban agriculture at McGill
McGill University’s main campus may be in the centre of Canada’s second largest city, but its students, faculty, and staff still find ways to connect with nature and promote biodiversity through a variety of garden initiatives. In addition to cultivating pollinator gardens on both campuses, McGill is home to the Macdonald Student-Run Ecological Gardens and the Campus Crops initiative, which provide local and sustainable produce for the University and the broader community. View
Trinity College Dublin completes pilot biodiversity audit
A biodiversity audit was recently completed to document biodiversity across Trinity’s 47-acre green campus in the city of Dublin. This was a collaboration between staff and students, Estates and Facilities teams, interns and volunteers. The study highlighted that in addition to iconic species such as foxes, trees and swifts, there is a wealth of hidden biodiversity in the form of plants, insects, fungi and other creatures. This was one of the first tasks of the newly appointed Vice President for Biodiversity and Climate Action and will feed into the Biodiversity Strategy which is being developed to encompass all of Trinity’s operations. View
Expressing appreciation for nature through dance forms in Calicut
The Department of Botany at Providence Women’s College, University of Calicut in Kerala have used innovative ways to communicate an appreciation for nature. Nrityaangan uses Indian classical dance to encourage students to appreciate and express the importance of nature and the explore the UN sustainable development goals on their campus in Kerala, India. View
Students commemorate World Clean Up Day in Lagos
Students from several Nigerian Universities joined together with their local communities to commemorate #WorldCleanUpDay2022 and #LeaveNoTrace campaign by organising several clean up events in September 2022. Litter pick events took place at Kontagora market, Lagos, and Uselu market, Benin City, Nigeria. Friends of Nature student group, University of Benin co-organised the events, which raised awareness and demonstrated opportunities to restore degraded areas of land and build pride in the local environment. View
Familial Forestry, Bikaner, Rajasthan, India
The Government Dungar College in Bikaner, Rajasthan has developed an Institutional forest on six hectares of land on their college campus. This forest has 3000 trees of 100 varieties as well as grasses and herbs native to the Thar desert. It is also rich in avian diversity. Institutional forests are intended to restore previously degraded or abandoned land to a balanced habitat by engaging students and the local community in sustainable forest management practices. There is also a public nursery in the forest that provides quality saplings free of cost to the students and local communities. View
University of Exeter achieve Green Lab accreditation (LEAF)
In May 2019 the University of Exeter declared an Environment and Climate Emergency. A key commitment is the implementation of green lab accreditation across all UoE labs. Laboratories are responsible for producing a significant percentage of a university’s carbon emissions, by consuming up to ten times more energy and four times more water per square metre than other academic spaces. They also consume excessive amounts of plastic, and it is estimated that they are responsible for generating around 2% of plastic waste worldwide. View
Green walk at ESTeSC Coimbra, Portugal
As part of its application to be an EcoCampus, ESTeSC have designed a Green Walk to inspire students to explore and discover the variety of native trees present on campus. Each tree has a QR code with information on the tree’s species, history and importance for biodiversity. In addition the Green Walk promotes outdoor learning experiences and overall health and wellbeing of students. View
Bird friendly buildings at UBC, Canada
Vancouver’s shiny, tall, mirror-like buildings are an attractive and much-photographed sight. So too is the local wildlife, with Vancouver boasting one of the highest densities of wintering birds of any Canadian city. Unfortunately, the combination can turn those beautiful reflective glass windows into bird killers. See how UBC community members are flocking together to bird-proof campus buildings. View
Green walls at University of Lincoln, UK
The University of Lincoln’s new Medical Sciences Building was completed in March 2021 and aimed to be biodiversity positive as a build. To achieve this, a 120m2 Living Wall was designed into the building, containing over 5000 plants (of 15 varieties) to provide valuable food for pollinators and birds throughout the year. The external landscaping involved the establishment of wildflower meadows to support pollinators and wildlife. View
University of Oxford publishes biodiversity footprint
A comprehensive assessment was completed of the biodiversity losses associated with activities at the University of Oxford. The 60 activities assessed included the day-to-day running of buildings and transport services; travel (including flights) for students and researchers; construction of laboratories and other buildings; consumption of food and beverages at restaurants and cafeterias; and use of medical supplies and other materials in research labs. View
University of Portsmouth joins Kale Yeah!
The University of Portsmouth has joined a new scheme from Friends of the Earth to help university caterers fight climate change. The Kale Yeah! Kitchens scheme encourages caterers to make their menus more sustainable by serving less, but higher welfare meat, dairy and fish and offering more plant-based options. View
Bioblitz at University of Turku, Finland
The Biodiversity Unit hosted a BioBlitz event on May 21st-22nd 2022. A Bioblitz is an event that focuses on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area over a short time, 24 hours. Scientists, students, teachers, families and other community members worked together to get a snapshot of an area’s biodiversity. View
Vrikshaaropan (वृक्षारोपण) at Providence Womens College, Kerala India
Launched on June 5th 2022, as part of the Environment Day, the Principal, Local Manager and students joined a tree-planting drive. Additionally a new initiative was launched titled ‘Providence Retrieval of Valuable Information on Plants -using Quick Response codes,’ whereby, name boards detailing each plant that was planted, equipped with QR codes, were installed to educate students and visitors about the importance of each plant. Eventually it is hoped to equip each plant on campus, with such boards. View
Blühender Campus, Freie Universität Berlin
“Blühender Campus” (Blooming Campus) is an interdisciplinary initiative started in order to focus more on biodiversity. It unites projects and actors who have the aim to encourage biological diversity on campus. The focus of the work is the upgrading of the green and lawn areas that were mowed up to nine times a year in 2019. The mowing of all areas has been significantly reduced since 2020 (depending on the weather and use only about five times) and pauses across campus during the early flowering phase in April. In a pilot project, some very different, species-rich flowering areas are currently being created on around eight hectares. View
Hedgehog friendly campus (UK)
Hedgehogs are vulnerable to extinction in Britain, due to habitat loss, development, roads and garden hazards. There are now thought to be fewer than one million hedgehogs left. City dwelling hedgehog numbers appear to be recovering after a long period of decline but there is more work to be done. Whether your campus is green or urban, you can help to bring hedgehogs back from the brink. View
