The Somerset Wildlife Trust issues urgent appeal: Help us save the Somerset Levels

Bordering Wells and a number of our outlying villages, the historic Levels and Moors are steeped in myth and legend as a renown place where nature's beauty shines against the timeless backdrop of Glastonbury Tor.

The wildlife-rich farmlands of the levels have declined dramatically over the last 65 years with industrial scale peat extraction and farming resulting in the wide scale draining away of the life-giving water.

The Somerset Wildlife Trust is calling on local residents and businesses to help raise £100,000 to restore the equivalent of 26 football pitches of former peat diggings back to a lush wetland where all our wildlife from majestic birds of prey to the smallest plants and insects can flourish.

This kind of habitat restoration is a huge undertaking for a local charity and will include:

•    Creation of reed beds and traditional rhynes

•    Eradicating alien species that blanket the landscape and stop native plants growing

•    Smoothing out the bath-tub shaped holes left by peat extraction

•    Stemming the flow of water so our wetland nature reserves don't dry out

•    Improving access for local people to enjoy native wildlife

Vice President of Te Wildlife Trusts, Sir David Attenborough said: 

"The last time the UK's wildlife faced a challenge on this scale was at the end of the last ice age. We need to find ways to help our wildlife become more resilient to the trials it faces in the 21st century. We must now work on a landscape scale if we are to give wildlife a chance and allow future generations to enjoy nature as we have."

If you would like to find out more, please see the website or email enquiries@somersetwildlife.org