Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust has welcomed a major funding boost for three species recovery projects that will benefit wildlife in Nottinghamshire and beyond, including ambitious work to restore water vole populations and prepare for the return of wild beavers.

The funding, announced through Natural England’s Species Recovery Programme as part of the government’s Wild Again: Restoring England’s Wildlife initiative, will support targeted action for some of England’s most threatened plants, animals and fungi.

The Trust has secured support for all three projects in which it is directly involved. It will lead two major initiatives: Nottinghamshire Water Vole Recovery – the Final Frontier and Preparing for Beavers Across the Humber catchment, the latter in partnership with multiple other organisations across the catchment. 

Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust will also be a named partner in a Natural England-led research project assessing the genetic structure of reintroduced water vole populations.

Nottinghamshire Water Vole Recovery – the Final Frontier

Nottinghamshire Water Vole Recovery – the Final Frontier will substantively accelerate our county-wide mink eradication work, with a target date of March 2029 to complete this challenging process, building on our successes to date.  This programme will be matched by funds from Severn Trent to support habitat creation, restoration and reintroduction activity to give water voles the best possible chance of recovery across Nottinghamshire. 

The Humber Beaver Project

The Humber Beaver Project will enable the Trust to continue leading and expanding the Humber Beaver Partnership across the whole Humber River Basin, which drains around 20% of England. The project will support partner collaboration, stakeholder and landowner engagement, education resources, mapping of suitable release sites, habitat creation, beaver releases and shared approaches to coexistence management across nine counties.  All the Wildlife Trusts in those Counties are partners, as are Natural England, Forestry England, the Environment Agency and many more organisations from every sector, including other NGOs, representatives of farmers, landowners and utility companies. 

Together with funding already secured from the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, the new support is expected to help bring wild beavers back to Nottinghamshire within the next 18 months.

The genetics research project, led by Natural England with Nottingham Trent University and Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust as named partners, will build on previous work to understand the genetic diversity of reintroduced water vole populations. The research will help demonstrate how reintroductions can strengthen remaining populations and support healthier, more resilient metapopulations.

Water vole Appeal

This funding complements vital donations from Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust members and supporters to the current water vole appeal, which will enable us to deliver more habitat creation work for water voles, so that as they recolonise through the County, they can build a resilient, healthy meta-population. 

Together, public support and grant funding strengthen the case for species recovery and can help unlock further investment from government initiatives and other funders, including grant-making trusts.

Janice Bradley MBE, Director of Nature Recovery at Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, said:

“This is fantastic news for some of Nottinghamshire’s most important and threatened wildlife. With this support, we can bring water voles back from the brink in our county, accelerate the work needed to make landscapes safer for them, and take another major step towards the return of wild beavers.

“These projects show what can be achieved through strong partnerships, good science and practical action on the ground. Recovering keystone species such as beavers and water voles will not only help those species directly but will also benefit many other plants and animals that depend on healthy wetlands and river systems.”

Through its history of partnership working and its role convening the Nottinghamshire Species Recovery Working Group, the Trust expects the county to benefit from wider Species Recovery Programme projects, including work on adders, white-clawed crayfish and potential future reintroductions of species for which the River Trent was once a stronghold.

Speaking about the funding programme, Natural England Chair Tony Juniper said:

"For decades Natural England's vital species recovery work has revealed how even the rarest of the rare can be brought back from the brink. The red kite, lady's slipper orchid, pool frog, beaver and large blue butterfly are among examples that demonstrate the many opportunities at hand and what can be achieved for nature and wider society.

“We know that good science and effective partnerships can help restore species to favourable status, and this funding will enable us to support many initiatives to help halt and reverse the decline of our wonderful wildlife."

Over the past three decades the programme has helped protect over 1,000 species and prevented the national extinction of at least 35 species.

This announcement builds on the government's commitment to reverse this decline and meet legal targets set out in the Environmental Improvement Plan, committing to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030 and reduce species extinction risk by 2042 against 2022 levels.

Defra will invest £60 million over the next three years, plus a further £30 million dedicated to species recovery on the national forest estate, bringing the total government commitment to £90 million.

The investment comes alongside the creation of three new national forests and approval of the first wild beaver releases since they were hunted to extinction around 400 years ago.