Wilder Kent Blog

Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) are developing a spatial plan for nature and environmental improvement that will underpin England’s emerging Nature Recovery Network.

Those of you who have been following the development of the Blue Influencers Scheme being delivered by Kent Wildlife Trust may recall that KWT successfully bid for funding from The Ernest Cook Trust and the #iwill Fund and were awarded £20,000 a year for three years. This enabled the recruitment of Jenny Luddington to the role of Blue Mentor, who will be responsible for recruiting young people to become ‘Blue Influencers’.

How do you combine business and biodiversity? Can we create a new way of collaborating which benefits wildlife and people? Conservation at a landscape-scale needs everyone involved; no one person or organisation can tackle the challenges our natural spaces face alone, and the Blean is no exception. This concept has initiated our Blean Business and Biodiversity Network.

It seems we too often forget that nature isn’t a ‘nice to have’, but an absolute necessity if us humans want to survive as a species.

This year, Kent Wildlife Trust, in collaboration with Wildwood Trust and Sussex Wildlife Trust, Ashdown Forest and Forestry England, is beginning to explore the social and ecological feasibility of reintroducing pine martens to Kent and Sussex, while co-developing a ten-year strategy with a wide range of stakeholders to restore the species in the South East.

James Millsom-Mills, Operations Manager & Data Protection Officer, explores how the rapid advancement of technology provides a solution to the unique challenges of modern-day conservation.

Chalk grassland – also known as chalk downland or lowland calcareous grassland – is an increasingly rare habitat and one of the richest in Western Europe. In England, it’s mostly found on the North Downs but there are also patches scattered along the East Kent coast.