Donate Today: Land Purchase Fund

Herefordshire Wildlife Trust currently manages 55 nature reserves across the county. These are important places where wildlife can thrive and where we can illustrate how habitats from wildflower meadows to ancient woodlands can be best managed for wildlife. They are open to the public and offer visitors somewhere to connect with nature and watch wildlife.

We want to ensure our Estate is as effective as it can be for wildlife and this means following the principle of: "more, bigger, better and joined”. This means we need more nature reserves, those we have need to be as large as possible, they must be as good as they can be for wildlife and they need to be part of a network of nature reserves - close by, connected by green or blue corridors such as hedgerows and rivers and with no significant impediments to the movement of wildlife between the spaces (such as motorways).

This prevents nature reserves becoming isolated fragments of habitat from which populations of species cannot travel to find food, shelter or breeding partners, leaving the populations vulnerable and ultimately unsustainable.

(Read more about this approach here: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/about-us/vision-and-mission/living-landscapes)

When land which fits these principles becomes available we want to be able to secure it for wildlife so we have opened a land purchase fund. This will allow us to act quickly when opportunities arise. 

Our most recent land acquisitions have been a field adjacent to our land holdings at Common Hill, allowing us to significantly extend the nature reserve and land at Oak Tree Farm below Dinmore Hill which will provide a key 'stepping stone' linking together other wetland habitats within the Lugg Valley. On both occasions we were fortunate enough to have time to run fundraising appeals and also benefitted form a number of grants. This is not always the case, however, so it is key that we build funds now to support potential future acquisitions.

While nature reserves are not the only places where nature can thrive - and we work on projects across the county outside our reserves on private and public land - dedicated nature reserves owned and managed by the Wildlife Trusts is a key way to ensure Herefordshire's wildlife-rich places are kept secure for the future.

If we are to achieve our goal of 30% of land and sea in recovery for nature by 2030, it is essential we start today, Please donate to this fund if you can and help us to put nature into recovery!