We were thrilled in June to launch a report, which for the first time gives an accurate insight into how the whole of Yorkshire’s nature is faring – and, crucially where action is now needed to create healthier, resilient and more abundant landscapes. 

The headlines were striking;

• Two-thirds of all British species are found in Yorkshire
• Our county is the only place in the country where Yorkshire sandwort and thistle broomrape are found, along with 21% of UK’s willow tits.
• Yorkshire is home to some nationally-rare habitats, including our limestone pavements and great white coastal cliffs.

However, nearly 2,000 species have already gone extinct in Yorkshire in the last 200 years, and another 3,000 species are at risk. We are losing the species that make Yorkshire special – and are in danger of becoming like everywhere else.

This evidence is now shaping our work, as well as conservation and policy right across Yorkshire.

Read the State of Yorkshire's Nature report

The Wild Ingleborough programme team are restoring wildflowers and habitat on and around Ingleborough. Their work this year has gone from strength to strength.

75 wild spiked speedwell plants were nurtured from seed for the first time in Yorkshire, helping to turn the fortunes of one of the UK’s rarest wildflowers.

To secure the plant’s future, and as part of the Wild Ingleborough programme to restore plant and wildlife diversity across the Ingleborough area, seeds were collected last year with a special licence that allowed the team to safely collect the seeds from the exposed cliff edge. Some of the seeds were sent to Kew Gardens’ Millenium Seedbank, the most northerly spiked speedwell seeds in their collection.

The Wild Ingleborough team intends to plant out even more spiked speedwell plants and other species in 2025 across Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s reserves in the area and Natural England’s Ingleborough National Nature Reserve. Other species carefully cultivated in the nursery this year include bloody cranesbill, globeflower, and a variety of montane willows; with purple saxifrage, baneberry, grass-of-Parnassus and roseroot hopefully germinating from collected seed next year. Hardworking volunteers at the first of the nursery’s dedicated work parties potted on 4509 seedlings in just 3 days.

Find out more about our Wild Ingleborough appeal

Our #TeamWilder Community Engagement Team have supported 60 community groups, local organisations, youth groups, places of worship and educational establishments to get action for nature going or really growing. Sharing the stories of these groups has kickstarted a spectacular ripple effect through which a further 530 individuals have been inspired to sign up to be a part of #TeamWilder.

This year:

• Kippax Wildlife Corridor have created a green street, allotment and car park;
• The Green Hand Gang youth group in Bradford have created a network of trails between their local green spaces and planted their own community garden;
• West Hull ARFLC have changed the way their rugby grounds are managed to create a wildflower meadow and a nature plan leading to 2030;
• The Dene Road Residents’ Group in Cottingham have sown a wildflower meadow by scarifying and seeding yellow rattle, and planted alder buckthorn to encourage brimstone butterflies

Feeling inspired? Find out more about #TeamWilder in Yorkshire

Did you know Yorkshire Wildlife Trust is involved in river restoration projects on the Foss, Hull, Esk, Swale, Wiske, Derwent and Aire?

This year we have:

• Upper Aire: Fenced off 1452km of beck to protect it from stock grazing and poaching, and delivered a project in partnership with the Wild Trout Trust to re-naturalise just under 1km of Otterburn Beck, removing revetments and reconnecting the floodplain to create 3.7ha of enhanced wetland habitat.
• Swale: Restored three ponds adjacent to the Swale, and created areas of new wetland along the river;
• Foss: Worked with 10 landowners in Oulston, Crayke and Stillington on the Foss, as well as with the Foss Internal Drainage Board to reprofile a section of the main River Foss near Stillington;
• Hull: Continued to work on restoration and improvement works along several stretches of our nationally important chalk streams that form part of the river Hull headwater;
• Esk: And over winter 2024-25 we will be delivering 5100 new trees, 3287m of hedge and riverside fencing, creating 2 ponds, planting 1158m of hedge, and restoring 2ha of species-rich grassland – all on the river Esk as part of the BEACH Esk project.

Our Invasive, Non-Native Species team have also treated around 30km of rivercourse for Japanese knotweed, American skunk cabbage and giant hogweed, and volunteers surveyed 70km of canal for floating pennywort, Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed and water fern.

This year marked the 15^th anniversary of Yorkshire Peat Partnership, hosted and led by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust which focuses solely on upland peatland restoration.

For the last 15 years they have been coordinating restoration across the Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors National Park and Nidderdale National Landscape, raising over £36 million. An area the size of Bradford is now under recovery - and as a result will prevent the loss of almost 13 million tonnes of carbon emissions by 2050.

Wet habitats like peatlands were singled out in the Trust’s State of Yorkshire’s Nature report as one of three key habitat types where immediate and dedicated action - including protection and restoration - could have an enormous impact for biodiversity and our native species.

Find our more about Yorkshire Peat Partnership's work

Pioneering restoration project, Wilder Humber - a partnership of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and Ørsted - broke new ground this year by trialling remote setting, an innovative restoration method never before used to restore native European flat oysters in the UK.

Wilder Humber is collaborating with The Nature Conservancy and The Oyster Restoration Company to reintroduce 500,000 oysters into the Humber estuary over 5 years.

The new remote-setting method – allowing oyster larvae to settle and bind to scallop shells, and then to grow on in the oyster nursery at Spurn Point until they are big enough to be released – should improve project success and reduce costs. If the trial is successful, this method has substantial potential for creating larger native oysters reefs in the Humber and around the UK.

Find out more about Wilder Humber

• The first mass flowering in living memory of shy slender sedge at Askham Bog;
• Our first bee orchids at Spurn in 30 years – and the first-ever record of a white-letter hairstreak – in the same week;
• Two ospreys were spotted at Ripon City Wetlands on the osprey platform – hopefully prospecting for nests!
• Our first ever reptile survey at Grass Wood nature reserve revealed an abundance of slow worms to monitor for the coming years;
• A brand new nature reserve in Doncaster beside the iPort;
• A brand-new hide and accessible viewing platform at North Cave Wetlands, as well as the purchase of Dryham Farm at the centre of the reserve;

We wished our Chair Jo Webb a warm farewell after four years as Chair, and eight years on the board as Trustee. Vice Chair Nick Perks was welcomed as the new Chair of Trustees, and the charity’s members voted Professor Alastair Fitter in as the new Vice President.

We were utterly delighted when Alastair Fitter was awarded the Cadbury Medal by the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts in recognition of 50 years of service to nature conservation and the instrumental role he played in saving Yorkshire's natural crown jewel, Askham Bog.  

Our volunteers are the lifeblood of the work we do – without them, none of it would be possible. Our 1,609 volunteers put in 52,761 hours of hard work – that’s the equivalent of six calendar years – across a huge range of different roles, from practical conservation work on our reserves and checking over our livestock to surveying for different species, helping with our events programme, and even assisting our admin staff.