Godmanchester Nature Reserve, Island Lake 1

The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire (WTBCN) is a registered charity which manages 126 nature reserves covering . It has over 35,000 members, and 95% of people in

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council wa ...

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

and

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

live within five miles of a reserve. In the year to 31 March 2016 it employed 105 people and had an income of £5.1 million. It aims to conserve wildlife, inspire people to take action for wildlife, offer advice and share knowledge. The WTBCN is one of 36 wildlife trusts covering England, and 46 covering the whole of the United Kingdom. In 1912

Charles Rothschild Nathaniel Charles Rothschild (9 May 1877 – 12 October 1923), known as "Charles", was an English banker and entomologist and a member of the Rothschild family. He is remembered for The Rothschild List, a list he made in 1915 of 284 sites acros ...

formed the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves to protect sites considered "worthy of preservation". The society worked to secure statutory protection, and this began with the

National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which created the National Parks Commission which later became the Countryside Commission and then the Countryside Agency, which became ...

. In 1959 the society took on a coordinating role for local wildlife trusts, which covered the whole of Britain and Northern Ireland by 1978. The society changed its name to the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts in 2004, and it operates as

The Wildlife Trusts The Wildlife Trusts, the trading name of the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, is an organisation made up of 46 local Wildlife Trusts in the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and Alderney. The Wildlife Trusts, between them, look after more than 2, ...

. In 1956 the Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely Naturalists’ Trust was founded, and it was followed by the Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire Wildlife Trust in 1961, the Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust in 1963, and the Peterborough Wildlife Group in 1987. The Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire trusts merged in 1990, and a further merger produced the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire and Peterborough in 1994.

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...

was dropped from the name (but still covered by the trust) in 2011. Fifty-two reserves are

Sites of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

(SSSI), six are Ramsar wetland sites of international importance, six are

Special Protection Area A Special Protection Area (SPA) is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and cert ...

s under the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds, two are national nature reserves, four are

Nature Conservation Review ''A Nature Conservation Review'' is a two-volume work by Derek Ratcliffe, published by Cambridge University Press in 1977. It set out to identify the most important places for nature conservation in Great Britain. It is often known by the initial ...

sites, one is a

Special Area of Conservation A Special Area of Conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the ''Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora''. They are to protect the 220 habitats and ap ...

, two are in the

Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty The Chiltern Hills is a chalk escarpment in England. The area, northwest of London, covers stretching from Goring-on-Thames in the southwest to Hitchin in the northeast - across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Bedfordshire. T ...

, one is a

Geological Conservation Review The Geological Conservation Review (GCR) is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee and is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological a ...

site and eighteen are local nature reserves. The largest site is

Ouse Washes Ouse Washes is a linear biological Site of Special Scientific Interest stretching from near St Ives in Cambridgeshire to Downham Market in Norfolk. It is also a Ramsar internationally important wetland site, a Special Protection Area for bird ...

at , which is internationally significant for wintering and breeding

wildfowl The Anatidae are the biological family of water birds that includes ducks, geese, and swans. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on all the world's continents except Antarctica. These birds are adapted for swimming, floating on ...

and

wader 245px, A flock of Dunlins and Red knots">Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflat ...

s. The smallest, at , are

Chettisham Meadow Chettisham Meadow is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of Chettisham, north of Ely in Cambridgeshire. It is managed by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. The site is grassland on cal ...

and Stoke Wood End Quarter, both of which are SSSIs.

Nature reserves

Key

Designations

*CAONB =

*GCR =

*LNR = Local nature reserve *NCR =

*NNR = National nature reserve *Ramsar = Ramsar wetland site of international importance *SAC =

*SPA =

under the

Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds *SSSI =

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

Public access

*NO = No public access *PP = Public access to part of the site *WTPR = Wildlife Trust permit required for access *YES = Public access to all or most of the site

Bedfordshire reserves

Cambridgeshire reserves

Northamptonshire reserves

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire website
{{featured list Environment of Bedfordshire Environment of Cambridgeshire Environment of Northamptonshire Wildlife Trusts of England