The herd just got a little bigger! Donate to support the baby bison and create a Wilder Blean.

A few weeks ago, our bison rangers made the incredible discovery that one of the Wilder Blean bison had successfully given birth to a healthy baby bison. As a growing family, they are going to need as much space as possible - we need your help to give these bison a bigger home.

The bison are hard at work, creating a Wilder Blean by restoring the ancient West Blean and Thornden woods, and the baby bison will be joining this team of ecosystem heroes to help create a wilder future. We need your help to maximise the space these bison have to roam, utilising their natural behaviours to allow wildlife to thrive. Your donation will give this bison family the space they need to grow, and help create a bigger, better, more biodiverse home for wildlife in Kent.

Close your eyes and imagine somewhere wild, unspoiled - stretching out in front of you, as far as the eye can see, as far as the ear can hear - somewhere truly natural. This place no longer exists in Britain. It is a dream - but together we can change this.

Our wildlife is in crisis. The UK's natural systems face collapse and wildlife numbers continue to plummet. Species in the UK are declining at their fastest rate for thousands of years; 56% of them are in decline, 165 are critically endangered, and animals that were once synonymous with the British countryside have all but disappeared.

Traditional conservation techniques are failing and human management is not enough to create the kinds of habitat wildlife needs.

Can you join us by donating to create a future where people and nature can thrive together?

In the UK, lack of woodland management is one of the biggest drivers in species decline. Traditional conservation methods in woodlands have created vast monocultures, which lack the resilience and diversity essential for a dynamic and truly wild ecosystem. Current management methods involve significant human effort, can be very slow, and rely heavily on disruptive, loud machinery.

A systemic change is needed for nature-led recovery to the crisis we face; the key to sustainable habitat management is using a wilder approach to create nature recovery networks of bigger, better, joined-up habitat. We need natural solutions.

Wilding is when nature is given the space and tools it needs to recover, creating an abundance of biodiversity at levels far beyond what human management alone can achieve. As a keystone species, bison act as ecosystem engineers, helping nature to recover and restoring the natural biodiversity of a landscape. Their natural behaviours - grazing, dust bathing, eating bark, and felling trees - can all have a really positive impact on the ecosystem, creating space for other species to thrive. The bison are experts in the natural restoration of woodlands, and are the best solution for creating a wilder ecosystem.

We need your help to make sure these bison can restore the Blean!

Ancient woodlands are some of our most valuable natural assets, home to many vulnerable species, but the deterioration of these woodlands threatens their survival. West Blean and Thornden Woods are an incredible example of one of the UK's largest remaining ancient woodlands, with a droveway running through the woods that is almost a thousand years old. These woods are also home to many nationally rare and threatened animals: it is one of the last places in the UK the song of the red-listed nightingale can still be heard; or the beautiful display of the near-extinct heath fritillary butterfly can be seen.

Together, Kent Wildlife Trust and Wildwood Trust have embarked on a flagship wilding project in West Blean and Thornden Woods, introducing bison as natural engineers of restoration. These gentle woodland giants will transform the woods into a lush, thriving, biodiverse environment, and allow us to take a step back from traditional hands-on management practices.

The diverse mosaic of habitats created by restoring natural processes will create a much healthier woodland. Introducing the bison to Blean woods will restore the cyclical relationship between our wildlife and the ecosystem, handing control back to nature. Close your eyes again. Are you ready to make Britain's dream a reality?

Together, we can create a future where there is still hope for wildlife; a wilder future.

David Attenborough, COP26, Glasgow 2021