Thank you for protecting rare heathland habitats
Your kind donations have helped us to raise a huge £47,849 towards making our lowland heathlands more resilient for the future.
We are no longer accepting donations for this appeal, but we would be grateful if you could consider donating to our current Living Waters appeal, to help protect and improve our waterways across Sheffield and Rotherham.
Why heathlands matter
In just 200 years, we have lost a devastating 85% of the UK’s lowland heathland. This unique and important habitat is now even rarer than tropical rainforests (Natural England). Yet the UK is currently home to 20% of the world’s remaining lowland heathlands – which means we have a responsibility (and a real chance) to protect them.
Heathlands are places of wonder, rich with life and home to many threatened and declining species. From the churring call of the mysterious nightjar, the flicker of a green hairstreak butterfly, or the quick dart of a common lizard, these special landscapes are alive with wildlife. But without action to protect them from climate change, invasive species, and habitat fragmentation, we risk losing these species completely.
Species at risk
How your support has helped
At Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust, we care for several important heathland areas, including Blacka Moor, Wyming Brook, Fox Hagg and Greno Woods. Thanks to your donations, we will:
Build climate resilience:
Use natural flood management techniques to create wetter, richer habitats like ponds and bogs, which help wildlife thrive and reduce the risk of flooding downstream.
Increase biodiversity:
Improve the health of our heathlands by controlling scrub, restoring native plants like heather and bilberry to support species such as the bilberry bumblebee, and re-connect fragmented habitat.
Clear invasive species:
Remove bracken, brambles and non-native species that outcompete and restrict the growth of our native flora like heather.
Engage our community:
Share our knowledge and welcome volunteers and members of the local community to get hands-on and take action.
Update June 2026:
- At Greno Woods, more than 20 volunteers helped clear 0.5 hectares of bracken on our heathland creation site, while a further 1.5 hectares of heathland has benefited from scrub management, including the removal of young trees and ring-barking larger ones to keep the habitat open and suitable for breeding birds.
Encouragingly, this spring we recorded two male nightjars establishing territories within the area – a promising sign that these restoration efforts are making a difference. - At Wyming Brook and Fox Hagg, we’ve continued clearing bracken and scrub that was encroaching onto heathland, with more volunteer work planned throughout the summer.
During our nightjar survey in May, volunteers were lucky enough to spot three nightjars. - At Blacka Moor, we’ve been restoring heathland alongside a stream where flooding had begun to erode the banks (also supported with funding and volunteers from Vp plc). Using cut scrub from the heathland, we created natural brash bundles to stabilise the banks, helping to reduce erosion, prevent sediment entering the watercourse and safeguard the surrounding habitat for years to come.
Update March 2026:
So far, we’ve been able to improve one hectare of heathland at Blacka Moor nature reserve – including thinning birch saplings to allow heathland plants to thrive.
We’ve also been clearing back scrub at Greno Woods to keep the heathland habitat open (the way nightjar and hairy wood ants like it), so that heather and bilberry can flourish.
This spring, we will be continuing our heathland creation work at Greno Woods by bracken pulling in an area we are working to restore.
The work we are doing will support rare and threatened species that depend on lowland heathlands like nightjar, green hairstreak butterfly, common lizard and even the rare bilberry bumblebee.
Every donation you have given, big or small, will help protect these magical places for generations to come. Thank you.
What your donations make possible:
£25 to £100 could pay for:
- Up to a month’s conservation grazing, keeping the heathland in good condition.
- Training to support volunteers to conduct bird surveys.
£150 to £400 could pay for:
- GPS units for volunteers to use to track a survey route and accurately record wildlife sightings.
- Supporting a team of volunteers to clear invasive species that are encroaching on our heathland.
£500+ could pay for:
- Our Land Team to create new habitat areas for nightjars to feed using natural materials to block ditches and re-wet ground, increasing insect numbers.
- Install fencing to ensure our conservation grazing animals can be safely managed to sustainably maintain habitat.
Support from Charitable Trusts
Many thanks to the JG Graves and Sheffield 1000 Charitable Trusts as well as William Geoffrey Harvey’s discretionary fund for their recent donations to this appeal.
