We’ve all heard about the tragedy of the commons; but you might not know about the tragedy of the meadows…

Almost 2,000 roads in Britain include the words “meadow” or “dôl” (Welsh for meadow), including Meadow Road, Meadow Lane and Meadow Way. Yet the flower-rich, animal-haven fields they were named after – once a feature of every parish – are now increasingly rare.

In fact, in the UK we have lost a shocking 97% of our wild meadows since the 1930s. Staggeringly, that’s an area one-and-a-half times the size of Wales that has been eradicated. As a result, many iconic meadow flowers such as ragged robin, harebell and field scabious are now hurtling towards becoming threatened in England. and this has led to catastrophic effects for other wildlife, too.

Wildflower meadows provide shelter and food for important pollinators, including bees, and it is no secret that our insect numbers are plummeting. But it isn’t just insects that are suffering from the loss of this habitat: small mammals, amphibians and birds have been hit hard, too.

For small mammals and amphibians, meadows offer a place to nest, forage and travel through, while affording protection from predators. While birds, hedgehogs, and bats, among others, are reliant on the abundance of insects found in these areas. It is no surprise that the loss of the meadows have caused such dramatic and worrying declines in wildlife numbers.

The need for action to create more wild meadows is obvious and urgent. This is why with your help we are planning a wild meadow planting scheme across the country.

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At Natural World Fund, we are passionate about stopping the decline in our wildlife.

The declines in our wildlife is shocking and frightening. Without much more support, many of the animals we know and love will continue in their declines towards extinction. But all is not yet lost.

When you help restore a patch of degraded land through rewilding to forests, meadows, or wetlands, you have a massive impact on the biodiversity at a local level. You give animals a home and food that they otherwise would not have had, and it has a positive snowball effect for the food chain.

We are convinced that this is much better for the UK than growing lots of fast-growing coniferous trees, solely to remove carbon, that don’t actually help our animals to thrive.

This is why we stand for restoring nature in the UK through responsible rewilding. For us, it is the right thing to do. Let’s do what’s right for nature!

Support our work today at https://naturalworldfund.com/ and join in the solution!