Wilder Future

It’s not too late to bring our wildlife back

We're campaigning to see a wilder future, so everyone can benefit from and enjoy wildlife near them. We work with local communities to look after special places for wildlife and help nature to recover. We want to see at least 30% of our land and seas recovering by 2030.

Sadly, since we first met Badger and friends in 1908, the UK has become one of the most nature-depleted nations in the world. The Wildlife Trusts have created an animated trailer of The Wind in the Willows, which brings to life the 21st century threats that would face the much-loved characters from Kenneth Grahame's children's classic in today's life.

On watching it, we hope that you'll agree that we've reached a point where our natural world is in a critical condition and needs our help to put it into recovery. We know it's not too late to bring our wildlife back, but we must act now.

Join our Wilder Future campaign and receive simple actions you can take for nature’s recovery.

Kenneth Grahame wrote Wind in the Willows just over a hundred years ago. Since then, many of the UK’s wild places and the plants and animals that depend on them have been lost. For example: 97% of lowland meadows and the beautiful wildflowers, insects, mammals and birds that they supported have disappeared; 80% of our beautiful purple heathlands have vanished - with their blaeberries, sand lizards and stunning nocturnal birds, nightjars.

Kenneth Grahame’s Ratty – the water vole – is the UK’s most rapidly declining mammal and has been lost from 94% of places where they were once prevalent, and their range is continuing to contract. Toad is also finding that times are very tough: he has lost nearly 70% of his own kind in the last 30 years alone – and much more than that in the last century.

Let's give wild spaces and wildlife across the UK the "happy ever after" they deserve... 

We need your help to make this a reality. Using your views, we will influence new land-use policy across the UK. We'll share your story with politicians through a message book. People in power can't ignore our collective voice.

Your words will add weight to our call for proper mapping to show where existing wildlife needs protecting, where wild spaces and species levels can be restored and where we need more. 

Add your voice

A bit more about the Wilder Future Campaign

The Wilder Future campaign is about building support for new laws that not only protect wildlife but help to put it into recovery.  It is also about people taking individual action where they live.  We want to put wildlife back on the map.

We launched The Wind in the Willows film trailer on 28th March 2019 to inspire more people to get involved and build momentum towards a #WilderFuture. The Wildlife Trusts want to create a tipping point of 1 in 4 people taking part.

The campaign is calling for Nature Recovery Networks to protect existing wildlife sites and map out where wildlife ought to be.  This will join-up important places for wildlife and also allow more people to live closer to nature.

Nature Recovery Network maps must be required by law and the campaign is calling for:

• The Westminster Government to put this in its upcoming Environment Bill
• The Welsh Government to do this through a Sustainable Land Management Bill
• The Scottish Government to pass its own Environment Bill including a National Ecological Network