Management and funding
WWT London Wetland Centre is managed by the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT). For further details about WWT, visit the WLI site profile, 'Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) centres network' and the 'About us' area of this website. The site is leased from Thames Water, London's main public water supplier.
The WWT London is operated as a visitor attraction with about 170,000 visitors per year. Income is from admission fees, WWT membership subscriptions and secondary spend in the restaurant and shop. There is a thriving and growing functions business. The centre operates at a profit which, as a charity, is wholly ploughed back into the centre and into WWT generally.
Founded/opened
Sir Peter Scott, founder of the WWT, always wanted a centre in London. In contrast to other, rural WWT centres, a London site would bring wildlife to the people rather than vice versa, connect the urban populace to nature, and have enormous potential for reaching all audiences from politicians to the public.
In 1989 a site was found in Barnes, southwest London. Four Victorian reservoirs had become redundant with the building of an underground ring main to transport water around the city. WWT entered into a partnership with the reservoir owners, Thames Water, a public water company.
Ten hectares (22 acres) of the site was sold off to the housing developer, Berkeley Homes, who became a third component of the partnership which now encompassed an environmental charity, public utility company and private developer. £11 million from the housing development profits were used to convert the reservoirs into a mosaic of created wetlands. A further £5 million was fundraised from corporates, individuals and grant-giving bodies.
The centre was opened to the public in 2000 by Sir David Attenborough.
Description
The WWT London is a unique blend of conservation centre and visitor attraction incorporating elements of nature reserve, zoo and botanic garden exhibits, museums and interactive science centres, and sustainable gardens.
Most of the 44 hectare (105 acre) site is a mosaic of created UK wetlands including open water, reedbed, grazing marsh, ponds and pools, wet woodland, a wader scrape and riverside flooded meadow.
Visitors enter the centre into the Peter Scott Visitor Centre and courtyard that includes a Theatre running a short film about wetlands and the work of WWT, a Discovery Centre with immersive habitat sets and interactives exploring the values and functions of wetlands, an Art Gallery, and a large glass-fronted Observatory designed as an airport terminal.
There are two main walks around the centre. One, 'World Wetlands', leads visitors through 14 outdoor naturalistic habitat sets featuring global wetland types from frozen Siberian tundra to tropical southeast Asian swamp forests. Each fabricated habitat contains representative captive wildfowl and hidden signs of life. A North American Beaver trappers cabin contains exhibits about to wetland products worldwide. The 'World Wetlands' walk culminates in a walk through created UK ponds and pools with wild wetland biodiversity.
A second walk , 'Waterlife' takes visitors through several UK wetland types and a number of designed wildlife and sustainable gardens. There is a 'Pond Zone' - a thatched roundhouse, that highlights basic ecology, and a 'Wetland Living' cottage featuring UK wetland products and livelihoods.
A number of single, two and three-storey hides (blinds) throughout the site bring visitors closer to nature and are interpreted accordingly.
A wetland-themed immersive playground (Explore) opened in summer 2006.
Key species/features
166 wild bird species visited the WWT London in 2002 including nationally important numbers of wintering dabbling ducks like Gadwall and Shoveler. There are also substantial numbers of dragon and damelflies (19 spp. of which 14 breed), butterflies and moths (respectively 24 and c. 350 spp.), bats (the centre is one of the top 5% of London sites for feeding bats with six spp. recorded) and Water Voles (following a successful captive breeding and release programme). For further information about the centre's biodiversity, visit the Learn fact file 'UK wetlands - 12 case studies'.
A network of sluices allows water levels to be manipulated. Levels may be lowered, for example, to expose mud for waders (shorebirds) to probe in for food, or elevated to, say, flood grazing meadows in winter for migratory dabbling ducks.
General
As part of the WWT family, WWT London adheres to the WWT curriculum, learn for life policy and education guidelines. For details, see the WLI site profiles, 'National wetland centre network'.
Interpretation and exhibitry
The exhibitry has been described above. WWT London is the first WWT centre to be designed from first principles as an interpretation-led centre. Stories are based on the five secrets of wetlands (that wetlands store water, clean and filter water, calm against the excesses of storms and floods, produce numerous products, and are homes to biodiversity), the five secrets of ecology (energy, cycles, conditions, communities, change) , and sustainability (reduce, reuse, recycle, renew our relations with the natural world, and the recreation of nature - literally rebuilding biodiversity).
The interpretation is zoned and layered. From an intensely interpreted core (the Peter Scott Visitor Centre), the interpretation becomes more understated as visitors travel to 'wilder' corners. Different levels of messages are aimed at different audiences and a variety of media are used from graphics and signage to touch screens and interactives. Human interpreters are also used (see below 'Informal (general public) learning'.
Formal (school and university) learning
School programmes are informed by the WWT Curriculum and are based on the slogan of 'WISE UP to wetlands' with the themes of water, ecology, biodiversity and sustainability (WEBS). They are tailored to the English National Curriculum and differentiated by age/ability. The centre also provides tailored programmes for other syllabuses, tertiary students and special needs groups.
Schools may book direct contact sessions with centre educators. These make use of the whole site and avoid the formal classroom setting as much as possible. Sessions are interactive, child-centred , conceptually and educationally robust but fun. Learning support materials are available through this site.
There is an ongoing programme of professional development courses for teachers.
Informal (general public) learning
In addition to the interpretation and exhibitry, the centre produces a guidebook. Appropriate publications are sold in the shop.
There is an ever-changing programme of daily and seasonal events and activities. These range from daily wildlife activities and pond dips to Art Gallery exhibitions, Big Batty walks, Wildlife Gardening Week, Alternative Therapy Weekend, craft displays and workshops (including willow weaving, textiles and spinning), bird watching races, children's art workshops, giant frogs on tricycles with associated environmental games and activities, story tellers, a wetland-related pantomine and much more.
Over 140 volunteers drawn from the local community assist with site management as well as greeting visitors, answering questions and leading the twice-daily guided tours for the public.
Professional
The centre is a nucleus for conservation meetings and activities in London. It consistently holds meetings and conferences for environmental intiatives, launches and organisations at the local, regional, national and international levels. The centre welcomes numerous professionals from around the world from environment ministers and other politicians to senior advisors, policy makers and planners, as well as environmental educators , teachers and scientists at all levels of connection with wetlands from senior government to grassroots levels.
The centre is visited by several international environmental education training networks including those from the National Botanic Gardens, Kew; the Natural History Museum, and the Living Earth Foundation.
The model and example of the centre have inspired similar developments or proposed developments (including the WWT involvement in as consultants and advisors) in several countries including Hong Kong, China, Ghana, Brazil and the USA.
The centrewas awarded the 2002 British Airways 'Tourism for Tomorrow' Global Award for Sustainable Tourism and featured in a 2001 Harvard University Conference about 'Healing Nature' (R. France, in the press).
Staffing
About 40 full-time staff work at the centre, swelled by seasonal employees in the shop and restaurant as needed. The centre is headed by a Centre Operations Manager directed by the Centre Operations Director, the latter of whom is based at WWT Headquarters in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire.
The Education and Visitor Services Department is currently led by the Education/Visitor Services Manager who combines this role (for two days/week) with being the WWT Head of Learning (Resources and Outreach) (for three days/week). The Education Manager line manages a Volunteer Coordinator (with 140 volunteers), Education Officer (with one full-time, one part-time and one summer contract teacher/explainers, and three weekend explainers), and Biodiversity Officer (who, in addition, to coordinating site biodiversity monitoring and recording, also engages in the public understanding of science).
Contacts
Malcolm Whitehead, Education and Visitor Services Manager, LWC, and WWT Head of Learning (Resources and Outreach), WWT London Wetland Centre, Queen Elizabeth's Walk, Barnes, London SW13 9WT
T: (+44) 020 8409 4400
F: (+44) 020 8409 4401
E: malcolm.whitehead@wwt.org.uk.
Stephanie Fudge, Centre Operations Manager, address as above.
T and F as above
E: stephanie.fudge@wwt.org.uk.