About Us - Severn and Wye Valley Nature

Severn & Wye Nature is an alliance of environmental groups working across the Severn, Wye and Warwickshire Avon River catchments – a nationally significant landscape that’s in crisis. The alliance includes 9 Wildlife Trusts, The National Trust, RSPB, Woodland Trust, Severn Rivers Trust, WWT and the Heart of England Forest. Our alliance was established in response to the environment crisis. It’s a vehicle for new approaches to nature recovery.

The partnership lets us work at bigger scale – creating schemes that run over county boundaries or link England and Wales.

By thinking bigger, we can make it easier for government, impact investors and business to back ambitious schemes that make a difference. We’re developing projects where helping nature also delivers for the people who live, work in or visit our landscapes, improves the water systems and strengthens the farmers who manage the land.

The potential for nature’s recovery

91.5%

of waterbodies in the Severn basin lack a ‘good’ ecological condition, leaving huge potential for nature’s improvement

88%

of floodplain meadow in the Severn and Avon Vale is now lost or in decline, offering significant opportunities to restore these valuable habitats

10%

of the UK’s freshwater and wetland species face extinction and two-thirds are in decline. Working together we can turn this around.

Jonny Gios – Unsplash

Where We Work

We are working for nature recovery at the heart of England and Wales, along nationally important river systems.

The Severn and its tributaries shape the heart of the British landscape. The longest river in the UK, its tributaries cross 2 countries and 8 counties. Its catchment serves a vast population, with 12.5 m people living within 20 minutes of its boundary.

It’s a landscape for people, with Birmingham on our boundary, Bristol to the south and Coventry, Stratford, Telford and Gloucester inside the catchment.

It’s a landscape that connects, linking peaty mountains in Wales, flat floodplains and rolling limestone hills. It’s a place filled with potential, with nature at its core.

Working with farmers

Farming is at the heart of our landscape.

Farms and small holdings drive food production and shape the environment for all. But many are under financial pressure. And with the climate also changing, our farmers are facing increasing challenges every year.

20,000

the number of farms and small holdings in our catchments

We’re committed to listening to farmers. By understanding their needs and listening to their experience, we can build sustainable, climate-resistance practices together – ensuring that nature and farming can thrive.

Image: William Edge/Shutterstock.com

Tree planting on tennant farmland at Lodge Park, Gloucestershire

©National Trust/Paul Harris

Partnering with funders

Our landscapes are filled with businesses and organisations that drive prosperity and deliver vital services. Many impact on nature or rely on it for their success.

Nature recovery work costs money and we believe therefore that nature schemes should offer wider value to those who live in, visit or operate in the landscape.

By listening to investors and building programmes which store more carbon, attract more visitors, deliver measurable biodiversity gain or improve our water systems, we can help businesses operate sustainably. We can deliver more for nature.

Work with us

Members of our alliance

Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust