Climate change in Beds, Cambs and Northants

Climate change is a long-term shift in temperature and weather patterns. As a result of human activity, one is currently taking place which is resulting in an increase of the global average temperature. This, in turn, is contributing to nature's decline, and the loss of wildlife and habitats.  

The Wildlife Trusts, as a movement, has long campaigned for change to halt and reverse this trend. Our position is that all relevant national policies should be contributing to restoring nature, NOT degrading it. This means better protecting what we already have, and expanding it.

In 2020, we launched our ambitious 30 by 30 appeal, calling for at least 30% of our land and sea to be connected and protected for nature’s recovery by 2030. 

This year, during COP26, we took part in the Global Action Day for Climate Change march in Cambridge. Thousands of people here in our region, across the UK and around the globe are sending a clear message to world leaders: nature and people need tough action now!

The headlines focus on the melting ice caps and rising sea levels, and this may feel far removed from our everyday reality but here in our three counties climate change is already affecting wildlife and disrupting fragile ecosystems:

• milder, wetter winters making our nature reserves more difficult to manage for people and nature in spring,
• species moving northwards and new non-native species migrating into the area,
• food availability for young chicks under threat.

This will lead to wildlife population migration and/or decline, which will in turn affect habitats. 

But there is hope: we can combat climate change and even reverse it. 

The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire has been at the forefront of this work and continues to pioneer research in this area. 

At the Great Fen, for example, we’re pioneering a new way of farming that locks in carbon for generations to come, and in Bedfordshire our Banking on Butterflies project is trialling new ways to create habitats to help insects survive as our climate changes. 

More projects

Peatland is a very effective nature-based solution to climate change: it covers only 3% of the world’s land surface but hold 25% of the global soil carbon. Besides storing carbon, healthy wetlands also slow the flow of water, cleaning it naturally and reducing flood risk downstream.

However, over 80% of the UK's peatlands are damaged.

At the Great Fen, we have been working on a several projects to restore the peatland through wet farming. This is a land management technique to cultivate commercially interesting crops on wet or rewetted peatlands under conditions that maintain the peat body, facilitate peat accumulation and sustain the ecosystem services associated with natural peatlands.