Durham Wildlife Trust has a vision for a Great North Fen. Restored landscapes where nature can recover and wetland habitats will sequester and store carbon. The Trust has already begun to deliver that vision, with restoration already underway of the Durham Carrs. But we need your help to continue the work. We are hoping to raise £20,000 to purchase new land.

Nature is under threat across the world, and our region is no exception. We already live in one of the most nature-depleted places on the planet, and the United Nations is warning that nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history – what some are calling the 6^th mass extinction event in the Earth’s history. But there is still hope if we act now.

Durham Wildlife Trust has a vision for a Great North Fen. Restored landscapes where nature can recover and wetland habitats will sequester and store carbon. The Trust has already begun to deliver that vision, with restoration already underway of the Durham Carrs.

The Durham Carrs were a relic from the last ice age - a complex of wetlands fed by the River Skerne as it descended from the limestone escarpment in the east of County Durham, and flowed south. The term ‘carr’ means an area of bog or fen in which scrub, especially willow, has become established, so in recent centuries the landscape of the Durham Carrs was not open water, but a mosaic of habitats that would have been home to a wide range of species. Imagine a landscape of wet grassland, fens, ponds and wet woodland that supported large numbers of waders, wildfowl, and other species we associate with wetlands, from plants and invertebrates to mammals like the otter and water vole. Historically, birds such as the crane and marsh harrier, now lost as breeding species in our region, may also have been present. With your support we can bring nature back.

Those habitats, and the species they supported, are now almost entirely gone. The land was drained for agriculture in the nineteenth century and the new drainage schemes continued being delivered into the 1980s. Parts of the Carrs are still being pumped dry today, including areas of lowland peat that are releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

The Discover Bright Water Landscape Partnership began the first phase of the restoration of the Carrs, securing land at Bishop’s Fen to the south of Bishop Middleham. Additional land has recently been acquired at Ricknall Carrs, near Newton Aycliffe. We are now seeking your support to complete the first phase of the Trust’s vision for the Great North Fen by completing the initial restoration of the Durham Carrs.

Durham Wildlife Trust has been given the opportunity to purchase an additional area of land that will complete the initial work.  The Trust has already raised £1,175,000, through Discover Brightwater, to acquire land and deliver habitat restoration. We need a further £200,000 to buy additional land and complete the first phase of the Great North Fen. 

The Trust has already acquired land in the Carrs thanks to support from the Veolia Environment Trust. To access their funding from the Landfill Communities Fund required raising 10% of the cost upfront. To be able to submit a grant application for £200,000 to buy additional land, the Trust first needs to raise £20,000 – we need your support to do that.