A toolkit for the use of mapping tools to consider opportunities for health and nature recovery.

Links between nature, environment and health are not always well understood at both strategic and delivery levels and people from different remits can struggle to understand each other’s priorities and language. There is an increasing number of mapped datasets around nature, environment and health, but these data can be challenging to collate without specialist skills. The wide range of mapping tools created for investigating some of these datasets for different purposes can also lead to confusion. This toolkit aims to stimulate collaborative discussions and create a shared understanding of health and environment needs and opportunities. It supports the exploration and prioritisation of individual, organisational and partnership actions to create maximum multiple benefits for people and nature in a local place in England. It is especially aimed at those coming from a health or social perspective, and has been tested with colleagues from the NHS and Public Health. The toolkit leads you through a series of publicly available mapping tools, with a limited number of suggested data layers. Prompting questions, provided at each stage, will guide you to consider needs and opportunities and what local knowledge could be combined with the mapped data to identify potential actions. It is important to refer to relevant local strategies, in particular Local Nature Recovery Strategies and the Nature, Towns and Cities coalition. By the end of the toolkit you should be familiar with using some mapping tools and have identified some areas and options for further partnership work.