About us
Our vision:
To be a global exemplar of how our most precious landscapes can work in harmony with a thriving, economically successful community.
Our mission
The Green Halo brings together organisations from across the public, private and third sectors to:
- Inspire – by promoting best practice in protecting and enhancing natural capital and ecosystem services
- Encourage – by developing and delivering new projects
- Support – by identifying resources for projects and offering expert advice to help deliver them
- Inform – by continuing to promote and publish research on ‘natural capital’, and by communicating its activities to local communities.
Alison Barnes, convener of the Green Halo Partnership
The Green Halo is about growing a joint vision for natural capital and a platform for partnership to realise our vision. It’s exciting to see such a wide range of partners coming together.
About the Partnership
We bring together businesses, public sector, universities, charities and communities to ensure our world class environment in and around the New Forest National Park flourishes as an integral part of our wider area’s thriving economy and society.
The New Forest is one of Europe’s best sanctuaries for nature, situated in the busy south east of England and surrounded by Southampton, Bournemouth, Poole and Salisbury.
Beyond the National Park’s boundaries, from Cranborne Chase to Purbeck, the South Downs to the Solent, much of this part of southern England is internationally valued because of the quality of the natural environment.
Our Partnership wants to ensure that the natural environment is seen as an integral part of how we work and live.
Our ambition is not constrained by administrative boundaries, opportunities can come from all areas and all sectors in and around the National Park – hence the Green Halo.
By recognising the contribution our natural environment makes to the local economy and society, our Partnership wants to ensure that both the National Park and its surroundings work to protect and improve that environment.
Common queries
The benefits we get from nature are not constrained by boundaries, and neither should our ambition.
The idea was born in the New Forest National Park but the partnership wants to identify, value, protect and improve our natural world across a much wider area.
This is why it includes organisations from Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Dorset and Wiltshire. But the ‘halo’ can stretch as far as we want it to.
‘Natural capital‘ is the world’s stock of natural resources which are essential for people: these include geology, soils, air, water and all living organisms.
These assets provide us with a wide range of goods and services which underpin our economy and communities – ‘ecosystem services‘.
These are the gifts nature gives us.
Examples of ecosystem services are:
- economic resources we use such as water, timber or food
- the role plants and trees play in removing pollutants from the atmosphere
- the contribution habitats in the upper catchment of rivers can make to protecting urban areas downstream from flooding
- our income from local tourism
- the health benefits people gain from spending time in the outdoors.
Our journey
Introductory seminar
Chaired by Environmentalist Chris Baines, attendees develop a vision for the Green Halo and hear from speakers including Defra’s Head of Natural Capital Committee Secretariat, Maggie Charnley.
Inaugural conference
Over 100 inaugural partners meet at Ordnance Survey to find out more about natural capital and scope out what the Green Halo Partnership wanted to achieve.
Natural capital assessment of the New Forest published
Fifth anniversary conference: Towards 2030
More than 130 people join the online conference to consider how we can deliver on nature recovery and ‘net zero’ and support people’s health and prosperity at the same time in the context of the pandemic.
The keynote speaker is Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford who chaired the Government’s Natural Capital Committee.
Solent Local Economic Partnership's 10 point green plan
Solent LEP launches its plan 10 point green plan for building back greener across the region post-COVID, echoing the Green Halo themes.
It says: ‘We identify key local actions to adapt to climate change and accelerate the achievement of Net Zero, building on the recently-designated Solent Freeport with its focus on clean growth, green skills and jobs, but also wider activities beyond the Freeport that can support the Solent’s coastal communities and complement the wider levelling up agenda.’
It launches a Building Back Greener Fund allocating £5m of Loan funding for loan applications of between £100,000 and £1,000,000.
Investing in our future conference
Investment is needed in our natural capital and green skills to meet the needs of our local population and meet net zero targets. Over 40 people attend the conference which explores:
- How is the Green Halo Partnership working together, to build a case for investment in our natural capital to create a better future for us all?
- What more do we need to do to be a world-beating and investable proposition with the projects and collaborations that will deliver this?
Research Health Fellow
The first New Forest National Park Authority NHS placement welcomes paediatrician (or children’s doctor) Dr James Alden as a Public Health Clinical Fellow.
James conducted research that estimated the annual value of the National Park to be £27 million in potential healthcare avoided costs – or the equivalent of 999 nurses’ starting salaries.
Greenprint conference
Green Health Hub is launched
The Green Health Hub was established by the New Forest National Park Authority in 2023 to improve health and wellbeing outcomes for people through improved connections to nature, as well as encouraging time spent active and engaging with communities.
The Hub was formed as part of a Green Halo project on behalf of the organisations and groups represented on the site, collectively known as the Green Health Network.
Visit the Green Health Hub.
Wellbeing health fellows
Doctors Laura Pridmore and Jennifer Wyllie explored the impact connections to nature and heritage have on individuals and the communities around them.
Their work built upon their existing specialisms in old age psychiatry, establishing a pilot Health and Heritage Group that met weekly in Lyndhurst, improving a sensory trail for patients and staff at Tatchbury Mount Hospital, and presenting at the Royal College of Psychiatrists International Congress.
Connect and Learn health fellow
Working with its fourth NHS placement, the Green Health Hub has an established role as a prominent voice on the benefits of nature for wellbeing and championing health equity in the New Forest.
This work was led by registered Public Health Practitioner and Public Health Development Manager for NHS England, Phil Godfrey, and included establishing Connect and Learn events for New Forest health professionals, providers, and groups to connect and strengthen green social prescribing in the National Park.
Read about Phil’s time with the Green Health Hub and find out about the Connect and Learn events.
