Nature Recovery Fund Appeal
Donate nowYour donation will go straight into our Nature Recovery Fund, and help create new nature reserves
Our natural world is in danger, and we need your help to save it. Watch our new animation featuring actor and The Wildlife Trusts supporter David Oakes.
We're launching our new fundraising appeal to bring wildlife back to Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull. This is our most ambitious plan ever and reflects the urgent need to act now!
We need your help to raise £3million.
We have set this target to support local action on the three biggest threats that our planet has ever faced; the ecological crisis, the climate crisis and the human health crisis, particularly the desperate disconnection of people with nature.
Our Nature Recovery Fund will enable us to do many things: buy land of low wildlife value, improve this land by restoring lost habitats and reconnect people with nature at a scale we have not done before. It will also help us help others to do the same on their land, but we think we need to take the lead. So our target for the Trust? To play our part in bringing about a Wilder Warwickshire we will double the land we manage for wildlife by 2030. Where in the past we have saved special places, this new land will be for the creation of special places.
Thanks to some substantial recent donations and legacies left to the Trust, we are delighted to already have £1.5 million in our Nature Recovery Fund.
Can you help double this and create a £3 million fund to bring back Warwickshire’s wildlife?
Please support our Nature Recovery Fund Appeal
In January 2021, the One Planet Summit saw 50 countries pledge to protect 30% of land and sea for nature in a bid to tackle the unravelling of our delicate ecosystems, halt the mass decline in wildlife and combat climate change. The UK is part of the coalition but was ahead of the curve, with the Government committing in September 2020 to restoring 30% of the UK to nature by 2030.
The Wildlife Trust’s CEO Craig Bennett, whilst welcoming that Government commitment,
“warned that we now need to see a much greater level of urgent action on the ground to deliver on the ambition set out by the Prime Minister, and to put nature into recovery.” And so, on the ground, the Wildlife Trusts are preparing for action.
Here, we want a Wilder Warwickshire where 30% of our land is managed for wildlife by 2030 [30by30] in ways that see our delicate and damaged natural systems begin to heal.
Find out more
To keep you up to date with more details about our fundraising appeal, why it is so important and the need to act now, we are running a series of three webinars throughout 2021, focusing on a different topic each time.
Our second webinar, focusing on the climate and health crises, is now available to book onto:
Donate
The average price of land in Warwickshire is approximately £10,000 per acre and we need to buy at a large enough scale to create new, connected habitats for our wildlife. Large or small, your gift will help to bring wildlife back. Donate today and be part of nature’s recovery on your doorstep.
There are multiple ways to give to our appeal...
- Donate online now
- To discuss a donation, call enquiries on 024 7630 2912 or email lindsay.butler@wkwt.org.uk
- To discuss opportunities to work in partnership with the Trust on managing land for nature, call enquiries on 024 7630 2912 or email ian.jelley@wkwt.org.uk
Help us create a £3 million fund
Our ambition
In 1970, when Warwickshire Wildlife Trust was formed, passionate local people came together at a time of crisis to protect and preserve precious wildlife sites under threat from development. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to see the spectacular carpet of bluebells in Ryton Wood, witness a dawn chorus at Leam Valley, catch a glimpse of an otter at Brandon Marsh or see the colourful display of orchids at Draycote Meadows, then you’ll know that these sites are special. The relics of a landscape that was once teeming with diverse wildlife. It’s not enough. Global wildlife populations are continuing to decline, and that decline is accelerating. Here in the UK, and right here in our county, the impacts are felt in our local ecosystems.
It is no longer enough to protect, we need to create. We must act fast, with ambition, and at scale. And to do that we need your help.
Together we can build a better Warwickshire
It took 50 years for the Trust to acquire 1,000 hectares for nature conservation. That was from a standing start and now, in response to even greater crises, we are committed to repeating that over just 10 years through a programme of habitat creation on land which is currently poor for wildlife.
Think of it like a wonderful nature restoration jigsaw puzzle. We manage over 65 nature reserves across the county, but there are missing pieces. We know where new sites that would create homes for wildlife should be located. We also know how to connect them with our existing reserves to create glorious nature recovery networks. Networks that allow plants and animals to move from place to place, creating the corridors and new habitat they need to respond to climate change.
If we do this, we can then go on to manage that land in a way that starts to combat climate change, creating healthy soils for growing food, clean air to breathe and water to drink. Not to mention flood management and helping the land to do its natural job of capturing and storing carbon, so reducing greenhouse gasses.
Healthy greenspaces popping up across the county will give local people the chance to connect with nature on their doorstep, to exercise, to meditate, to learn about the natural world and to show their children what an incredible world we are living in.
Calling on your help
You, our supporter, have already helped your local environment in so many ways. Thanks to you, Warwickshire’s wildlife, though fragile, is in a far better state than it would have been without your support. We now need to call on you again to help us lead the way by donating to our appeal, so we can use the reserves you love and have helped us to create as launch pads to bring wildlife back across the county.
We can't do it alone
Our target of £3million for new land for nature will get us off to a flying start, meaning the Trust can start to work towards managing 2,000 hectares for nature’s recovery...it’s a significant amount but well short of the 30% needed. To achieve that we have to continue to work in partnership with others to deliver even greater results for nature and reach that all important percentage.
We are therefore also calling on members to use their networks to help us to identify opportunities where the Trust can work with local authorities, farmers and landowners, communities and businesses to achieve more for nature. We believe that local action will galvanise change on a larger scale, inspiring a behavioural shift that recognises that the environment must be integral to every aspect of our lives, from the things we buy, to the decisions we make in business and politics.
We cannot hope to solve the climate crisis unless we put nature into recovery, and we cannot hope to fix the ecological crisis unless we address the climate emergency. To be better prepared we need to do both.Warwickshire Wildlife Trust
Al Boardman
Watch Stephen Fry's short film supporting 30 by 30
Thank you for your support!
