Charities

The RSPB are working hard to restore our freshwater wetlands. These habitats are amongst our most important natural resources in the UK.  They store and filter water and help control and buffer the effects of flooding.  They provide us with food, fuel and plant fibre; they capture and lock-in carbon from the air and support a wealth of fascinating and uniquely adapted wildlife.  They also form living landscapes that provide important areas of green space for people to enjoy and experience a stunning array of wildlife at first hand.



Despite this, a long history of drainage, development and pollution have meant a dramatic decline in these important habitats across the UK.  As a result, our impoverished and fragmented wetlands are struggling to survive, just as we are beginning to understand how vital these habitats will be towards helping people and wildlife adapt to an uncertain future.  Their demise has led to worrying population declines in many of the wildlife species that depend upon them, and in some cases, it has sadly led to species extinctions on a regional level.

The RSPB are committed to helping reverse this worrying trend by working with other landowners and conservation groups to increase the area of wetlands, and by restoring and enhancing existing wetland sites across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales through their nature reserve network.  The work that they carry out is underpinned by scientific research in order to identify best practice management techniques and the charity has many years experience delivering successful wetland management. 

This work is wide and varied but includes:

• Restoration of floodplains
• Blocking drainage channels to raise water tables and increase wet area
• Reinstating sustainable management by reintroducing cattle to graze wetland vegetation
• Re-profiling water edges to benefit wildlife
• Removing invasive vegetation that threatens to dry-out the wetland area
• Clearing water channels within wetlands to improve the flow of water
• Reinstating meanders to water courses that have previously been artificially canalised
• Digging pools and scrapes to create additional habitat favoured by wading birds

This management benefits a whole range of plant and wildlife species, providing vital, strategic wetland ‘oases’ that help to check and reverse the trend in habitat and species declines.  In particular the work will benefit a variety of wetland birds such as lapwing, snipe, curlew, water rail, kingfisher and reed bunting, a host of endangered invertebrate and amphibian species and wetland mammals such as otter and the water vole – which is believed to be the fastest declining mammal species in the UK.

Find out more about the work being done to preserve our wetlands and the animals that inhabit them.