Carbon Landscape: Shared Vision Across a Post-Industrial Region

Spanning multiple sites across Wigan, Salford, and Warrington, the Carbon Landscape needed more than coordination between well-aligned partners. It needed a shared conceptual framework that could hold together the full ambition of a landscape-scale nature recovery project, from strategic partner engagement to public interpretation and community learning. The landscape itself was rich: post-industrial wetlands, peatlands, and flashes that were home to significant biodiversity and embedded in the region’s industrial and natural heritage. But that richness was not always widely legible, to the communities who live alongside it, or to the two million potential visitors who live in nearby urban conurbations.

Primary schools in the Carbon Landscape area sat next to one of the most distinctive wetland landscapes in England, shaped by a century of mining. The opportunity was to help the next generation see and feel the connection between this landscape and the larger planetary systems it was part of, not as an abstract lesson, but as something immediate, local, and genuinely ‘their own’.

The Carbon Landscape Partnership was a landmark £3.2 million Heritage Fund project led by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust. It aimed to restore and connect wetland habitats, turning post-industrial sites into resilient landscapes for both people and wildlife. The partnership brought together local authorities, environmental charities, community groups, and educational organisations to address the legacy of industrialisation and build a more sustainable future for the region. Their mission was to create a lasting natural and cultural legacy that would benefit local communities for generations to come.

RoundView was woven into the Carbon Landscape project across three interconnected strands.

At the strategic level, RoundView provided the interpretive and conceptual framework for the whole partnership. We installed interpretation boards across multiple sites, helping visitors connect local landscape features to planetary sustainability systems. We facilitated workshops where partner organisations used the RoundView guidelines as a shared compass, building a common language across independent sites and organisations.

Across the sites, we led engagement sessions with local residents, conservationists and public bodies, using RoundView tools to help participants think across scales, explore the long-term significance of the sites, and develop a shared understanding of what the landscape could become.

In schools, we developed and piloted ‘Carbon Clever’. This was a programme combining classroom sessions, outdoor games, and storytelling videos that helped pupils connect the landscape outside their door to wider patterns of sustainability. The aim was as much to kindle a sense of pride and belonging in the region’s rich natural and industrial heritage as to introduce systems thinking. We produced downloadable teaching packs as a resource for teachers, tailored to the local curriculum and environment.

Partner feedback highlighted RoundView’s value in making the landscape’s significance coherent and communicable across the partnership: ‘A powerful unifying theme that has broadened our horizons and our audience… and enabled us to join individual sites together.’ The interpretation boards and community activities created ongoing access points for thousands of people, bringing the framework into the public realm beyond formal workshops.

Near the end of the project, an opportunity emerged that none of the partners had anticipated at the outset. Building on the shared understanding developed through sustained community engagement, and supported by a series of online RoundView workshops, the Wigan Flashes partnership was able to make the case for a major national designation. In 2021, the site became England’s first post-industrial, urban National Nature Reserve. This was a landmark recognition that the long-term work of building a shared vision for the landscape had made possible.

In schools, the Carbon Clever sessions were well received by both pupils and teachers. Teachers reported that the activities helped students connect curriculum learning to their immediate landscape. One Year 6 pupil noted: ‘I enjoyed all the games and the learning because it taught us a lot about nature and wildlife, which is something I care strongly about.’

This project showed the value of integrating big-picture sustainability thinking in project planning and engagement.

The NNR designation has brought new recognition and investment to the region, and has been followed with a second NNR designation in the south of the Carbon Landscape, the Risley, Holcroft and Chat Moss National Nature Reserve.

The legacy of the Carbon Landscape Partnership continues through the ongoing management of restored sites and the use of RoundView framing in local engagement. The Carbon Clever model, combining in-class sessions and outdoor learning tailored to the local story, offers a template that could be adapted for other landscape-scale partnerships.