WARICKSHIRE Wildlife Trust is launching a £100,000 appeal to help fund its work to restore the county's rivers.

The Wilder Waters Appeal will help the Trust to rewild riverbanks, make homes for wading birds, protect precious amphibians, create nature-based solutions to climate change and conduct important surveys to monitor the health of the rivers.

With 1,469km of rivers and waterways in Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull - greater than the distance from Lands End to John O'Groats - there is plenty of work to be done and a huge amount of support needed.

In the last 100 years, the UK has lost 90 per cent of its wetland habitats and more than 10 per cent of the freshwater and wetland wildlife are at risk of extinction. On top of this, the UK's Water Frameworks Directive states that every river in the county is struggling with water quality.

The Trust recently ran a series of 'Green Conversations' with communities across the county, as well as surveying its members, and the state of rivers and waterways came out on top as one of the issues people were most concerned about. The Wilder Waters Appeal will be the biggest water-focused fundraising effort the Trust has ever launched to try and tackle this issue, affecting both people and wildlife.

Lindsay Butler, the Trust's director of fundraising, said: "Our rivers are Warwickshire's wild arteries, but nature is disappearing from them at an alarming rate. Many species, including frogs, toads, water voles and wading birds, are struggling as their habitats dwindle, nesting sites are threatened, and their environment is polluted - but there is a huge opportunity to help us to change this. This appeal is a chance for everyone who wants to walk along our rivers and canals and be surrounded by nature, to make a real, lasting difference to our waterways across Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull."

Led by science and fuelled by determination, the appeal will allow the Trust to restore and revitalise these important ecosystems by working with local communities, farmers, councils and others to deliver transformational change.