Manchester’s Wildest Festival After waiting for three years, the Manchester Festival of Nature finally returned to Heaton Park. Alan Wright celebrates the day.
creatures that live here and to show them how to get involved with the many conservation organisations that operate within the region. It also explains how their own actions, like recycling, gardening and feeding the birds make a difference. So the day came and as we were setting up for a noon start, we realised that families were already getting involved. One of the rules of MFoN is that every one of the 20 stalls needs to offer an activity, and they were already busy at 11am!
In 2019, 7,000 people turned up for the first Manchester Festival of Nature at Heaton Park. We had such high hopes of building MFoN into one of biggest nature festivals in the UK, then all of our worlds came crashing to a halt with the pandemic.
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hile there have been two virtual festivals, MFoN 2022 was our target for in-person engagement again or, in layman’s terms, telling everyone what an amazing place Manchester is for wildlife. MFoN is an opportunity to introduce people to the diverse plants and
LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE
Thousands of people poured into the festival garden to the soundtrack of the amazing Solar DJ and the Flat Cap 3 band, and took part into more than 30 different activities, to introduce them to the wonderful nature of Manchester. Right at the centre of MFoN was the super talented mural artist Venessa Scott (above right), creating a beautiful pathway through the park garden with the help of many budding young artists.
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