WORCESTERSHIRE Wildlife Trust has received a £205,000 grant from the National Lottery to help address the impact of Covid-19 on the county’s natural heritage.
As the pandemic and lockdown began, the county’s largest nature conservation organisation moved its face-to-face work online.
Other work, however, was severely impacted with volunteers unable to help in nature reserves even as more people sought access to green open spaces.
Staff also had to deal with anti-social behaviour, fly-tipping and littering at a number of locations.
Helen Woodman, head of conservation, said: “Thanks to the National Lottery and its players, we’re now better able to get back on track and engage even more people.
“The funding will allow us to temporarily employ wardens to visit our reserves more often, engaging people with the wildlife delights that can be found there.
“We’ll also use it to help us to adapt our education programmes for schools to be Covid-safe.
“We’ll also be investing in technology.
“This will provide both software and hardware to improve our home-working capabilities and to help with our online presence that has been so appreciated by our many social media followers and website visitors over the last few months.
“We use many local contractors for our work so some of the funding will be going directly into the local economy.”
Ros Kerslake, chief executive of The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said: “Heritage has an essential role to play in making communities better places to live, supporting economic regeneration and benefiting our personal wellbeing.
“All of these things are going to be even more important as we emerge from the current crisis.”
