Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT)

About Us

The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) is one of the world’s largest and most respected wetland conservation organisations working globally to safeguard and improve wetlands for wildlife and people.

Founded in the UK in 1946 by the late Sir Peter Scott, today we complement wetland conservation work carried out worldwide with a network of UK visitor centres comprising 2,600 hectares of globally important wetland habitat.

All of our work is supported by a much valued membership base of over 200,000 people.

Why support WWT?

All around the world wetlands are being lost or damaged more rapidly than any other ecosystem. In the last 100 years, half of the world’s wetlands have been destroyed due to land reclamation, changes to agriculture, pollution and other developments.

Such losses are catastrophic for wildlife. This wetland loss is thought to have pushed a third of all amphibians, 15% of water birds, over 40% of reptiles, 30% of mammals and 6% of fish close to extinction.

Loss of wetlands, which store large amounts of carbon and water, will also impact the earth’s ability to cope with climate change and with extreme weather and tides.

WWT is committed to halting, and reversing, this degradation to protect biodiversity, sustain local communities and help our planet meet the challenges of climate change.

How we’ve helped

Among our many achievements WWT has:

helped to increase the Svalbard population of barnacle geese from 300 in the 1940s to 29,000 in 2008

provided refuge for nine of the 16 UK bat species

developed ringing techniques so large birds can be identified without having to be recaptured. Over 250,000 birds from 27 different species have been ringed to study migration routes

established thriving populations of water voles, one of the UK’s most threatened mammals

become recognised global experts in wildfowl diseases including avian influenza

developed and conducted aerial surveys to identify and understand the impacts of off-shore wind farms on wildlife