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.
Discover why knowledge is power
In a nutshell, Evidence-led Conservation is the practice of collecting and using data to inform conservation actions.
At Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust, we’re always working to make our local area better for both nature and people. To do this as effectively as possible, it’s important for us to use the best and most up-to-date evidence to guide our efforts. We also believe in regularly collecting our own data to evaluate our work, so we can keep improving and making a positive impact.
As a charity working with a wide range of people, animals, plants, and nature, we collect and consider a huge diversity of information! This includes everything from ecological survey results, soil samples and climate data to membership surveys, volunteer hours, event feedback and our community impact. We use all of this information to regularly review and assess our many projects and areas of work. To help guide this process, we follow an approach called adaptive management, which allows us to make continuous improvements.
To ensure we are making the differences we want and hope to be having for both the human and natural communities in Sheffield and Rotherham, it is important that we can clearly assess our work. Any decisions need to be justified based on the best available evidence and knowledge (e.g. from Conservation Evidence for the effectiveness of actions) and any assumptions need to be critically examined. Once we have reviewed the best available evidence, we can make sure that this is applied in our work plans.
Once we’ve crafted evidence-based plans, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and bring them to life. But our work doesn’t stop there. Conditions and external factors are constantly evolving, which can shift the relevance of the evidence we used at the planning stage. That’s why we must stay proactive—by monitoring our efforts as they unfold, we can capture real-time data and insights that directly reflect the impact of our actions, ensuring we stay on track and adapt as needed. It is also important to look at the wider evidence-base of effectiveness of actions at regular intervals as we can learn a lot from others tests of actions.
Once we’ve gathered a solid foundation of evidence through our monitoring efforts, it’s time to evaluate our progress. We dive deep into the data to assess how effectively we’ve met our goals and uncover any unexpected challenges or additional benefits that may have emerged. This is where we aim to extract every possible insight from our work, ensuring that each project becomes a stepping stone for the next. By continuously applying the lessons learned by ourselves and others, we can refine and improve our approach, turning the knowledge gained into a powerful tool for future success.
Conservation Evidence also shares new research into the effectiveness of actions in its open-access journal, Conservation Evidence.
Signing up as a Conservation Evidence Champions means that we have committed to ensure that evidence is included in the decisions we make about how we manage our nature reserves.
Being Conservation Evidence Champions means we have committed to ensuring that evidence is included in the decisions we make about how we manage our nature reserves.
Conservation Evidence (CE) is a free, trusted resource that helps people make informed decisions about protecting and restoring biodiversity. It provides summaries of scientific studies on the effectiveness of various conservation methods, such as managing habitats and species. The goal of CE is to bridge the gap between scientific research and conservation practitioners. It summarizes data on different conservation actions, rates them based on their effectiveness, certainty, and potential harm, and offers a database tool to help with decision-making.
CE does a lot of work synthesising existing published research into easy to digest summaries, making it easier for us to incorporate into our conservation work. It also works with practitioners, funders and others to provide a free to use Evidence Toolkit, made up of tools, processes and resources to help us embed and generate evidence in our work.
Being Evidence Champions also gives us access to workshops and advice for our staff and provides regular networking and sharing opportunities across the Evidence Champions network.
Learn more about Conservation Evidence
Our Evidence-led Conservation is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund.