This November, The National Lottery celebrates its 25th birthday! To mark this special anniversary, we’re reflecting on some of the amazing things that have been achieved for wildlife, wild places and people across the UK, thanks to the support of The National Lottery.
Since the first draw in 1994, The National Lottery has raised over £40 billion for good causes, including more than 840 fantastic Wildlife Trust projects. This funding has been crucial for projects on land, at sea and within communities all over the UK. Looking at all of these projects together, the positive difference they’ve made for wildlife is huge!
“As we celebrate our landmark 25th birthday, we are enormously proud to have funded hundreds of projects led by Wildlife Trusts across the UK. Through our conversations with National Lottery players, we know that natural heritage is incredibly important to them, and our partnerships with Wildlife Trusts ensure that it will be preserved for future generations, to discover and enjoy for years to come.”
Ros Kerslake, Chief Executive of The National Lottery Heritage Fund
On land
From farmland to forests, scrubland to city centres, Wildlife Trusts are working to ensure every space in the UK is used to help nature. This is the basis of our vision for a Nature Recovery Network, where wild places are connected and wildlife can move freely. This needs us to think big, looking at the health of an entire landscape as well as the individual, precious habitats within it. National Lottery funding has helped many Wildlife Trust projects do just this.
Norfolk Wildlife Trust was able to purchase Pope’s Marsh in 2013, connecting the nature reserves at Cley and Salthouse Marshes to create an 8km stretch of coastline for wildlife! And one of the largest landscape-scale restoration projects in Europe is underway in the north west Highlands. The Scottish Wildlife Trust-led Coigach & Assynt Living Landscape Partnership is bringing a range of environmental and economic benefits through a suite of 28 projects - including expanding and connecting native woodlands, surveying fish in freshwater lochans, and educating schoolchildren about the area’s iconic natural environment.