The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire has launched a Great Fen Landmark appeal, hoping to raise a record-breaking £400,000.

This is the Trust's biggest-ever appeal, and it hopes to use the money to buy, purchase and restore a pivotal area of land at the Great Fen in Ramsey as part of its Peatland Progress project.

As part of the Peatland Progress project at the Great Fen, the National Lottery Heritage Fund is willing to put in £4 million to secure the area of land, but first, the Wildlife Trust needs to raise the £400,000 ‘deposit’ to unlock the landmark funding.

The land represents the next vital chapter in a 50-100 year vision for the transformation of the Great Fen, as the Trust aims to give the unique landscape a sustainable future.

Kate Carver, Great Fen Project Manager, said: “Peatland Progress tackles some of the biggest challenges of the day – climate change and biodiversity loss – and this land completes the connection between two precious fragments of irreplaceable fenland ecology, Holme Fen NNR and Woodwalton Fen NNR.”

Purchasing 120 hectares of Speechly’s Farm in the landmark appeal completes a fenland jigsaw connecting the land.

For the first time since drainage in the 1850s, connecting the land will create a continuous corridor of natural wet fenland between Woodwalton Fen and Holme Fen National Nature Reserves.

The Hunts Post: A map of the Great Fen and Speechly's farm, the area the Wildlife Trust BCN hope to purchase from the appeal.A map of the Great Fen and Speechly's farm, the area the Wildlife Trust BCN hope to purchase from the appeal. (Image: Wildlife Trust BCN)

The Trust say the link will help fen wildlife thrive, enabling the restoration of even more wet peatland to protect the planet by saving carbon and support the livelihoods and wellbeing of local people.

The work that lies ahead will see the creation of new pools, ditches, grasslands and reedbeds, as well as an expansion of the pioneering wet farming trials, all helping to clean the water that flows into Woodwalton Fen NNR and beyond.

Fen violet, dragonflies, tansy beetles, otters, bitterns, barn owls and endangered water voles will all have more habitats to find a home.

The Trust's online appeal adds: "It will help lock carbon into the ground in wonderful wet peatlands. And it will scale-up pioneering wet farming techniques that can give fen farming a future.

For more information and to make donations, visit www.wildlifebcn.org/landmarkappeal.