Wildlife Group Launches £30,000 Wetlands Appeal in the Face of Climate Change Threats

Published on: 3 Nov, 2026
Updated on: 3 Nov, 2026

Thirty water voles have been released at the Thundry Meadows nature reserve, Elstead

Surrey Wildlife Trust (SWT) is asking people to support a new fundraising drive this winter to help restore and rewild wetland habitats that are suffering serious effects from climate change.

SWT says this summer’s drought reduced water levels so severely that wildlife habitats were pushed to breaking point.

All donations to the £30,000 winter appeal will help the Trust create healthier, greener and wilder wetlands that will make Surrey more resilient against fire and flood and restore the conditions hundreds of species need to thrive.

Rivers and ponds, wet woods, grassland and heathland are all vital for Surrey’s wildlife and for the health of our landscapes. SWT says this summer’s drought had a serious effect on habitats, with many ponds on nature reserves drying up completely and fires breaking out across heathland areas. The increasing threat of winter floods as the climate becomes more extreme also demands urgent action to increase Surrey’s landscapes’ ability to hold back water.

Sarah Jane Chimbwandira

SWT’s Chief Executive Officer, Sarah Jane Chimbwandira, said: “This summer’s terrible drought brought water levels to a point none of us have experienced in our lifetimes, with 60-plus days without rain pushing wildlife and habitats to breaking point. This could be just the beginning – and it’s our duty to act now.

“To secure our quality of life, our economy and our precious wildlife, we must build climate resilience into Surrey’s landscapes. From rewetting areas of heathland to making riverbanks more secure against erosion we’ll make our wetlands part of the fightback – acting as firebreaks, cooling the wider landscape, filtering out pollutants and providing habitable spaces for all life.”

The Trust is also working to bring back species that act as “ecosystem engineers” – creating more wildlife-friendly ponds, marshes and riverbanks, and helping hundreds of other species, including frogs, newts, fish, dragonflies, grass snakes, kingfishers and potentially otters, to thrive across Surrey.

This September, 30 water voles were released at the Trust’s Thundry Meadows nature reserve in Elstead, part of a wider project led by the National Trust to restore these endearing rodents – whose grazing and burrowing greatly improve bankside biodiversity – throughout the River Wey.

The Trust also hopes to release Eurasian Beavers into selected sites across Surrey, helping enrich habitats on a much bigger scale and making a potentially enormous contribution to flood, drought and fire resilience.

How donors can help

According to Surrey Wildlife Trust, here’s what donors’ money could do:

£60 pays for a pair of chest waders to help volunteers clear up a wetland habitat.
£200 pays for a lab test to check the impact of runoff from roads.
£500 funds a day’s work on a Wetlands Inventory, helping the Trust’s ecologists map Surrey’s key wetland sites and what lives there so wildlife can be protected more effectively.
£1,000 supports a volunteering session clearing overgrown bankside vegetation and helping light reach life-giving aquatic plants.
£3,000 funds the creation of measures to slow the flow of a watercourse, reduce flood risk downstream and create perfect spawning conditions for fish and invertebrates.

The winter appeal is all part of the £1 million Save Surrey’s Nature campaign, designed to kickstart the big changes that are needed to restore natural processes.

Surrey Wildlife Trust is also backing calls for more local control and ownership of water companies, so that local environmental issues like pollution and excessive discharges are taken seriously, and tackled as a priority.