Press Releases - June 2020

The GWCT, along with BASC, Countryside Alliance, National Gamekeepers' Organisation, Moorland Association, Game Farmers' Association and British Game Alliance, have sent a joint letter to Ministers highlighting the significant importance and benefit that game shooting delivers to the well-being of the countryside.

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s annual Gun Draw is back. With the draw limited to just 1,000 tickets, there is an excellent chance of winning one of three superb prizes. This year’s ultimate winner will receive a pair of made-to-measure Sovereign side-by-side shotguns from William Powell, ready to use with steel or lead cartridges and worth more than £13,000.

The recent spate of devastating wildfires in England has brought the issue of moorland management into ever-sharper focus. Peatlands are the UK’s largest carbon store and a stronghold for many threatened bird species. How they are managed is crucial to our capacity to achieve climate and biodiversity targets. Now a major new report on peatlands management by the GWCT warns against unintended consequences if policy makers fail to take account of the complexity of moorland management.

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) has launched an Online Premium Membership in response to demand from existing members. This new flexible option offers the same benefits as the GWCT’s Premium Membership, but the regular members’ magazine and Annual Review are sent to members digitally rather than in print. The online membership is being offered at 15% discount on the full Premium Membership price.

While many of Britain’s nature reserves were closed through lockdown, conservation work continued on private land across Britain. Despite that, the men and women working hard to make our much-loved moorland thrive are often overlooked. 

New research shows that creating clean-water ponds in the farmed countryside can dramatically increase levels of freshwater biodiversity, protecting our fragile ecosystems, and almost trebling the number of rare plant species.

The first annual report has been published for the Game and Wildlife Scottish Demonstration Farm at Auchnerran, Aberdeenshire, the Scottish demonstration farm of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust.