While protecting and enhancing green spaces is never without its challenges, it’s good to reflect of what we’ve accomplished for wildlife together with our members and supporters.

A significant woodland regeneration project has continued to go from strength to strength over this past year. Through Wilder Woodlands, we’ve been improving the habitat and increasing biodiversity at our Goblin Combe nature reserve and surrounding areas, especially for species such as lesser and greater horseshoe bats, barbastelle bats and dormice. Thanks to funding from the Natural England Species Recovery Programme Capital Grant Scheme, alongside your kind donations, so far we’ve:

• Created 875m of woodland ride and enhanced a further 450m
• Veteranized 30 trees for bats
• Installed 150 dormouse tunnels, 30 dormouse boxes and 31 bat boxes
• Surveyed around 1000 trees for potential roost features
• Thinned 7.12ha of plantation woodland
• Installed 6900m of stock fencing, 20 gates and six troughs as a new water supply

We’ve been lucky to have a lot of support from the Avon Bat Group, with volunteers helping us to conduct species surveys. After installing bat boxes in April, our first checks of them in September showed a promising 19% occupancy rate, with soprano pipistrelles, common pipistrelles and natterer’s bat. Through bat trapping surveys, we also saw two of our target species – greater horseshoe and barbastelle bats – along with brow long-eared, noctule, natterer’s, daubenton’s, whiskered and soprano pipistrelle. It’s wonderful to see bats thriving in these woodlands and to have so many volunteers engaged in protecting these fascinating creatures!

There’s also been positive signs through our dormouse tunnel surveys, and when our dormouse boxes were first checked in September we found two males living in them! These results shows presence of dormice in previously unrecorded areas and contributed to the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) National Dormouse Monitoring Programme.

There have also been great surveying results for this project outside its target species! There are a population of at least four adders now known to be at the site, and 2024 was the best year yet for Goblin Combe’s annual bird survey, with 28 species recorded. Thanks to your support, we can continue to improve this site and more for the benefit of local wildlife.

This year also saw us connecting more people with the nature on their doorstep. In February we launched the Warmley Nature Action Zone (NAZ), in partnership with South Gloucestershire Council. The NAZ is an area where streets and neighbours come together to make their own Community Nature Reserve, created through people’s gardens, allotments, window boxes and balconies, and where council-owned public spaces have been improved for wildlife too. Together, the UK's gardens are larger than all of our National Nature Reserves combined, making them as important for wildlife as they are for our own wellbeing! Thank you so much to everyone in Warmley who has signed up so far, attended our planting events or spoken to us about what we can do for nature together while we’ve been out in the community.

We’ve also been celebrating the success of our Nextdoor Nature projects. Initially working with community in Bristol, this year has seen this community-based approach spread its wings to the Somer Valley. The feedback they’ve had speaks for itself:

It's also been a busy year for the Really Wild Lockleaze project! Working with the Lockleaze Neighbourhood Trust, we’ve improved 19 areas for nature including eight community greens. Alongside residents and volunteers, we’ve planted 1500 square meters of wildflower meadow, over 4000 pollinator friendly bulbs, over 1000 trees and created three ponds!

Working with other organisations in the community has also been essential, such as the Lockleaze Sports Centre. Local resident Martin got in touch with us when he spotted an opportunity to enhance the land around the sports centre for wildlife. We already knew that Lockleaze Green Gym had a community wildlife garden by the sports centre, so we set out to meet them, along with the sports centre, to hatch an ambitious plan! Together we have since planted 239m² of wildflower meadow, 309 trees including 12 standalone fruit trees, 250 wetland plants (from our very own Grow Wilder), cleared a lot of bramble (whilst retaining some!) and dug a 3x3 meter pond (as advised by our Team Wilder Ecological Advisory Service) - much to the enjoyment of the local gang of starlings who now like to bathe there! As well as newts and plenty of dragonfly larvae.

To ensure the success of particular butterfly species we know are in the area, we’ve planted their foodplants to help them spread throughout our urban landscape, including kidney vetch for the small blue butterfly and alder buckthorn for the yellow brimstone. These butterfly species rely on their specific foodplants, so we were very excited when we saw a yellow brimstone butterfly caterpillar munching on the alder buckthorn we had planted!

Butterflies and other pollinators are vital parts of our ecosystem. We’re doing more to connect, create and improve pollen-rich habitats through our Pollinator Pathways project, which launched this year. To reverse the decline of pollinators, the project will focus along the Biodiversity Lines (‘B-Lines’), which are a national network of pollinator friendly habitats envisioned by the charity Buglife. We’ve been offering guidance to landowners, businesses, farmers, and community groups in the project area to access support with surveys, and receive habitat management advice. We’ve also been recruiting Pollinator Pathways Placements, to offer a route into the conservation sector for young people looking to start their career without needing a university degree.

Find out more about the project here

Another way we’ve been working with communities to come together for the benefit of people and wildlife this year is the Somerset Moor Futures project. Working with FWAG South West, we’ve been bringing farmers and landowners together to explore how land management could change in order to protect our precious peatlands. Somerset Moor Futures is one of 13 lowland agricultural peat water discovery projects being delivered across the country, funded by the Environment Agency.  It will be focussed across five deep peat moors in the North Somerset, Axe-Brue and Parrett catchments.

By creating groups known as Moor Associations, there will be a space for members to discuss key issues and make decisions, as well as communicate with key partners across the farming, water and environmental sectors. So far, three Moor Associations have been successfully set up across this area, and we’ve been bringing in experts to answer their questions as they engage in new techniques for work together and contribute to the national discussion about the future use of their peatland. We’re excited to see how these Moor Associations develop – peat is one of the most carbon-rich ecosystems on Earth, so it is vital we come together to save it.

Having advocates for wildlife based in the community they know and love is essential for creating a chain-reaction of people taking action for nature. Our Wildlife Champions programme has been doing exactly that, and we now have 30 Champions based across 12 postcodes in Avon, with more planned in the future. Our Team Wilder Ecological Advisory Service has brought free expert advice directly to people’s doorsteps, allotments and more, with advice given on 257ha land since it started back in April 2023 – we’re hoping to grow the support we’ll be able to provide over the coming years!

We’ve also been busy inspiring the next generation of nature-lovers! This year we’ve worked with over 1800 school children and over 300 young people, deepening their connection to nature and inspiring them to take action for the future! We’ve also started a three year project in partnership with Action for Conservation and Heartwood Social Farm, to develop a climate resilient vision for the brownfield site near Grow Wilder. We’ve recruited a Youth Leadership Group who are going to be in charge of dreaming up that vision, informed by the local community and the site’s history. We’re excited to see what they come up with!

2024 has seen us raise our voice for nature as well. We’ve been standing up for Yew Tree Farm and walked with people from across the country at the Restore Nature Now march ahead of this year’s general election. Along with the rest of The Wildlife Trust movement, we’re ready to hold to new government to account when it comes to protecting our green and blue spaces!

This year also saw us saying a fond farewell to Ian Barrett, who served as our Chief Executive for eight years. Ian led the charity through the incredibly challenging Covid pandemic and saw us begin to build our Team Wilder movement of people taking action for nature. We wish him all the best for the future, and now welcome Nigel Wilson as our Interim Chief Executive while we recruit a permanent replacement.

None of this would have been possible without your support. Whether that’s through membership, taking on fundraising challenges, being a part of Team Wilder, or donating to our appeals. We’re in this together, and I can’t wait to see what we’re able to achieve for nature in 2025.

Thank you!