Every year HNP and its board select and present an award to a local project that has significantly benefitted the natural environment around the Humber.
2024- Graham Catley
Graham has been a pillar of the conservation community around the Humber since the 1970's. Going above and beyond, collecting bird surveys for Alkborough Flats, Coversands Heath, Waters' Edge, Worlaby Carrs and the South Humber banks. He has been recognised for being a huge wealth of knowledge of the birds surrounding the Humber and has taken great pride and care in the work he has completed. His retirement is well deserved and we wish him well.
2024- Darren Clark
In recognition for all the hard work during his tenure at the Humber Nature Partnership, Darren Clarke has been awarded with a special HNP award. Darren was the manger of the HNP, and it's predecessor Humber INCA for over 20 years, working on countless projects around the Humber such as the South Humber Gateway and Green Investment in Greater Lincolnshire.
2023 - Beacon Ponds Little Tern Project
Beacon Ponds Little Tern Project undertook habitat management to provide ideal nesting conditions for the little tern. Suitable habitat was designed to protect them both from predation and disturbance while they were nesting, with the aim of increasing the population. The fantastic project saw a total of 107 little tern fledged at the colony on the outer north bank of the Humber. This is the highest number of young fledged since records began at the site in 1977.
2022 - Novartis Ings South Humber Gateway Ecological Mitigation Site
Novartis provided the land for a South Humber Gateway Ecological Mitigation site in North East Lincolnshire. The approximately 20-hectare site adjacent to the Pyewipe mudflats at Grimsby was developed by North East Lincolnshire Council (NELC) on land adjacent to and donated by Novartis Grimsby. The award was presented to Novartis Ings in recognition of the hard work and commitment of all involved, in particular NELC, who developed the site
2022 - Operation Seabird
Operation Seabird is a multi-agency partnership to educate the public about the importance of the resident wildlife and the impact that disturbance events can cause. The Humber Management Scheme (HMS) helped bring Operation Seabird to the Humber in 2021. Since 2021, Sgt. Jenna Jones and the Humberside Police Rural Task Force have worked towards addressing recreational disturbance and wildlife crime across the Humber. They've done this by educating the public at events and on social media, holding “Days of Action” and by attending incidents where wildlife crime has been committed.
2021- East Halton RiverCare
Local community programme, East Halton RiverCare volunteer programme is delivered by Keep Britain Tidy, a national environmental charity, in partnership with Anglian Water, and supported locally by Humber Nature Partnership, Able UK, North Lincolnshire Council and Humberside Police. Established on 19th September 2020, the group have cleared over 2,500kg of litter and covered 3.5 square kilometres of the designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) as of 2021. Before the RiverCare team set their sights on caring for the area, it was easy to find rubbish that had been left behind along the foreshore at East Halton Skitter. These items posed a risk to wildlife and local residents alike, as well as being unsightly.
2019 - Croda
Croda Cowick Hall headquarters hosts 125 acres of land which supports locally important habitats and species. In 2017 they formed a biodiversity committee to enhance current habitats on site and restore lost habitats which are absent in the wider geographical area. This included wildflower meadows, scrubland and aquatic areas. In partnership with the local community, independent specialists and employees they aim to enhance valuable wildlife refuge areas for native and migratory species, thus contributing to ecosystem resilience and safeguarding the services they provide. They took measures to better understand their energy usage and planned to install 16 Electric Vehicle Charging points for employees. The company’s Hull operations abstracts water from the River Hull and worked closely with the Environment Agency to install eel safeguarding in their infrastructure. They have also carried out projects at Hull to encourage biodiversity, including native tree planting and re-establishing marsh and pond areas on the site.
2018- Whitton Island RSPB
Whitton Island lies in the middle of the Humber Estuary near Blacktoft Sands and is part of the Humber Wildfowl refuge as well as being an RSPB reserve. A project was developed to add standing open water habitats to the Island in the form of lagoons and ponds. The new habitat benefitted some of the Humber Special Protection Area’s key bird species with breeding avocet being a main driver but also bittern, bearded tit and wintering and passage wildfowl and waders. In 2018 the site supported 18,000 pink-footed geese roosting, use of the lagoons and ponds by a host of species including roosting curlew, ringed plover and nesting avocets.
2017 - Youth in Nature
The Youth in Nature Project which is a partnership between Probe (Hull) Limited, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Child Dynamix and EMS Ltd, brings together not-for-profit and charitable organisations and has a significant impact across the area both in terms of enhancing the life chances of young people and improving the natural and built environment in and around Hull. The project aimed to create a centrepiece wildlife corridor and has already developed a number of satellite wildlife zones in partnership with local communities.
2016 - The Humber Wader Ringing group
The work of members of the Humber Wader Ringing Group who ring between 500 and 800 birds each winter is incredibly important in providing information on the connectivity of sites around the Humber Estuary, by allowing individual birds to be identified and their movements tracked.