COMMUNITIES in West Somerset and the Wellington area are being asked to support an appeal to help maintain 68 nature reserves across the county.
Somerset Wildlife Trust has been making an annual Nature Reserves Fund appeal since 2016 to help it care for and maintain its reserves.
The nature reserves provide safe havens for a variety of wildlife species and represent some of Somerset’s most precious habitats, including areas of ancient woodland, flower-rich meadows, and peatlands which are now essential in the face of climate change for storing carbon.
The reserves are also vital in helping to build a strong and resilient nature recovery network across the county which can endure the challenges which lie ahead and to help achieve a goal of 30 per cent of land and sea being managed positively for nature.
The cost of looking after the nature reserves rises each year and the trust estimates it now costs more than £2,600 a day to maintain them, meaning that raising funds has become more important than ever at a time when funding has fallen by nearly 25 per cent.
This year’s appeal is focused particularly on raising funds to replace out-of-date, broken equipment, which makes the job of delivering basic maintenance work more time-consuming than it should.
An example being a 23-year-old compact tractor, which through its age, lack of power, reliability, and compatibility with other ancillary equipment was now unable to carry out the simplest of grassland tasks.
Senior nature reserves manager David Northcote-Wright said: “Since I started working at the trust almost 34 years ago, I have seen an enormous amount of change.
“Not just changes in species abundance, but the changes in our climate and the habitats we manage, and also huge changes in the practical way we manage and care for the reserves, from the conservation approaches we take, to the equipment and machinery that is needed to support our reserves teams.
“Doing things manually simply is not an option any more, so giving our staff and volunteers the right modern equipment to manage our grasslands is absolutely critical in keeping on top of the basic maintenance from season to season.
“We have tried to extend the working life of what we have, but we are at the point now where we desperately need the funds to replace and modernise some key pieces of equipment like the tractor to stay on top of things and reduce our longer-term costs.
“We really hope that the appeal will help us do that and appreciate any and all donations, large or small, that the public can spare, at what we know is a difficult time economically for many.”
The Nature Reserves Fund can be supported online here or by calling Zoë on 01823 652429.