Our work for wildlife

We've been fighting for wildlife's recovery for over 50 years.

Working across Cheshire, Halton, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Warrington and Wirral, we protect more than 30 nature reserves with habitats ranging from wildflower meadows, to coastal dunes, to ancient woodland.

We use our expertise to influence and advise landowners, farmers and councils on how to practically look after their land in the best way possible. Planting trees, reseeding wildflower meadows and reintroducing species plants and animals are just some of the ways we help each and every day. Working in collaboration with landowners means we're able to protect huge swathes of land across the region.

With the weight of our 13,000 members, we lobbying local politicians to create the policies and laws needed to allow nature to recover across the UK. We've already been successful in getting areas of the Irish Sea protected for the first time ever. Now we must focus on lobbying our MPs to create legislation once we leave Europe in the form of robust Agriculture, Fisheries and Environment Acts. 

Cheshire Wildlife Trust also defends wildlife against unsustainable developments by responding to hundreds planning applications each year, as well as lobbying the government to stop and rethink HS2.

Doing all this across our region whilst working in collaboration with neighbouring Wildlife Trusts, we're in the unique position to be able to create the large scale networks needed for nature's recovery.

Could you join the fight for nature's recovery?

Cheshire Wildlife Trust believes in a future Britain where nature is a normal part of childhood and where wildlife thrives across the landscape. Where our urban spaces are green jungles and our seas are bursting with life. Where seeing a water vole or toad is an every day experience. 

Here are our proposals for a Nature Recovery Network to put space for nature at the heart of our farming and planning systems; to bring nature into the places where most people live their daily lives. We need new laws, including an Environment Act passed by the Westminster government, to ensure this happens. In it, local Nature Recovery Maps would be produced to achieve key Government targets for increasing the extent and quality of natural habitats, turning nature’s recovery from an aspiration to a reality. 

Our roads

Major roads are impassable barriers for many species.

We want green bridges that allow wildlife to shift as the climate changes.

Our homes

Many of our streets are now sealed under tarmac and concrete.

We want plants and trees that improve the street atmosphere and help reduce flooding.

Our cities

The sheer mass of concrete in cities heats them up in the summer.

We want green roofs and spaces that absorb heavy rain and cool things down.

Our public spaces

Two-thirds of amenity grassland is close-mown.

We want grasslands to be allowed to bloom, benefiting people and wildlife.

Our farmland

Grazing on riverbanks erodes soils and destroys water vole habitat.

We want simply fencing off the stream bank allows the clough woodlands to return and stabilise the bank.

To make this happen we are creating the plans and maps necessary to make evidence based decisions and working with landowners, councils and organisations to implement the changes. 

We also need a new Environment Act, passed by a Westminster Parliament. This would commit future governments to increasing the diversity and abundance of our wildlife, making it a bigger part of everyone’s daily lives; and to improving the health of our air, soils, rivers, seas, and consequently, people.This Act would build on the foundations of existing wildlife laws. It would be about nature’s recovery and rebuilding society’s connection to the natural world.  It will need to ensure that regulation, investment, public spending and practical action work effectively together.