Take a look, through some of the common species of wildlife that live in the South Yorkshire area around Sheffield and Rotherham.
A recently extended patch of heathland and woodland, neighbouring Wyming Brook.
Help stop the badger cull coming to Sheffield and Rotherham!
Unveil the hidden world of insects in Sheffield & Rotherham with the newest issue of Kingfisher magazine.
Think of a number and multiply it by ten. This could be the value of your gift to local wildlife.
It might sound too good to be true, but your donation can be the key to unlocking funding worth thousands of pounds to make a huge difference to local wildlife.
For example, if you give £100, it could release funds of up to £1,000 – it’s as simple as that!
Our Acorn Fund is a pot of money allocated specifically to help release funds from the Landfill Communities Fund. If we are able to raise £10,000 each year for this fund, it will enable us to unlock potential funding of up to £100,000 annually to benefit our nature reserves across Sheffield and Rotherham.
Landfill site operators pay tax when they bury waste. Some of this money goes into the Landfill Communities Fund, which we can then apply for to support vital nature conservation work in Sheffield and Rotherham.
Competition for these grants is high, and even when we secure an offer there can be one last hurdle to jump. These grants frequently require additional funds (otherwise known as a Third Party Contribution) to unlock them – usually an extra 10% from supporters – and this is often required within a tight deadline.
We aren’t allowed to use the Trust’s existing funds for this contribution and without it, the offer is taken off the table.
Please consider giving a gift to our Acorn Fund to unlock future funding.
• Landfill operators receive a 90% tax credit against payments to organisations like us – so we can fund projects that meet agreed criteria.• To unlock the funding, we need a third party to contribute the missing 10% tax.• The third party must be completely independent from us.• Entrust, the Landfill Community Fund Regulator, allows us to collect these funds on your behalf (unfortunately gift aid cannot be claimed on these gifts).• For every £100 we receive, we will be able to unlock £1,000 of funding
Unfortunately gift aid cannot be claimed on these gifts
I want to Gift Aid any donations I make in the future or have made in the past 4 years to this charity. I am a UK taxpayer and understand that if I pay less Income Tax and/or Capital Gains Tax than the amount of Gift Aid claimed on all my donations in that tax year it is my responsibility to pay any difference. We will claim 25p on every £1 you donate.
The word Ings literally means water meadow or marsh (from the Old Norse) and provides a clue to its past as a floodplain of the River Don. However, these days the Ings are disconnected from the river due to the presence of a vital floodbank that helps protect communities from flooding.
If funding is successful we will make part of the site wetter and make space for nature by working with an existing watercourse and series of ditches, scrapes and ponds.
Wading birds such as snipe and lapwing will benefit from the wet, rushy habitat and scrapes, as well as damsel and dragonflies. The long term aim is for the return of water vole, which haven’t been seen on site since 2007.
The Rivelin Valley is a beautiful and popular area of Sheffield. With funding, we will increase the resilience of the area by planting a greater mix of tree species that will be resilient to climate change. In addition, we will create more wet features such as leaky dams to act as natural flood management.
We also plan to improve access so that even more people can enjoy the benefits of nature and green spaces; improving surfaces and steps as well as new maps and signage to inform and educate visitors.
In early 2024, thanks to support from Acorn Fund donors, we were successful in securing a grant of £35,775 from the Biffa Award to support our Greno Woods Nature Reserve. This project has enabled us to safeguard the future of this ancient habitat rare birds like the pied flycatcher and woodcock.
Thanks to this funding, last year’s Biffa Award was focused on building resilience at Greno Woods. A woodland track was resurfaced allowing fire engine access to the heart of the reserve, water bars were installed on bridleways to catch and direct water flow back into the woodland, sycamore, cherry laurel and rhododendron were removed and leaky dams were built to help prevent flooding. Read more