COUNTRY LIFE
Your local
Wildlife Trust
The Hampshire and Isle of Wight
Wildlife Trust works to create a better
future for wildlife and wild places
in Hampshire and the Island. As the
leading local wildlife conservation
charity, it looks after 57 wildlife
reserves, has 28,000 members and
1,000 volunteers. The Trust manages its
own land and advises other landowners
how to manage their land with wildlife
in mind. Staff and volunteers also carry
out surveys and gather data to monitor
how our local wildlife is doing.
Beechcroft House, Vicarage Lane,
Curdridge, Hampshire SO32 2DP
Tel: 01489 774400
www.hwt.org.uk
In May 1912, Charles Rothschild, naturalist and
banker, called a meeting to establish a network of
nature reserves. Joining him in the Natural History
Museum at South Kensington were some of the
most eminent naturalists of the day. Together they
established the Society for the Promotion of Nature
Reserves, which grew over successive decades to
become The Wildlife Trusts. That meeting set in place
the foundations of what the Trust does today.
By 1915, the Society had published a list of 284
potential nature reserves ‘worthy of protection’. The
nature reserves proposed for England included the
Purbeck Heaths, Dungeness, the Lizard peninsular
and the East Anglian Brecklands. There were 11
reserves originally proposed for Hampshire and the
Isle of Wight, but only ten made it to the final list.
The New Forest was proposed as a nature reserve, but
this idea was ‘postponed’ after a hostile reception from
the Government’s forestry officers.
How have the 10 proposed reserves fared over the
last century? Reassuringly, all of the sites survive – at
least in some form – and all are recognised as being of
national importance to wildlife through designation
as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs). Parts of
all but one are owned by conservation organisations
and are managed for wildlife. However, many sites
have shrunk, become fragmented and are increasingly
isolated. A history of a just a few of the sites gives a
flavour of what has happened.
Red squirrel by Ian Pratt
www.visitislandlife.com
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