Tawny owl by Beverley Carpenter
Suffolk Wildlife Trust is Suffolk's nature charity – the only organisation dedicated to safeguarding Suffolk's wildlife and countryside.
We make a difference for Suffolk by managing nature reserves - securing a bigger, better and more connected landscape for wildlife and by inspiring the next generation through hands-on experiences with nature.
Find out more about membership
Reserve News Blog
Carlton Marshes Blog
Coastal Reserves Blog
Internships Blog
Lackford Lakes Blog
My Nature Watch Camera Blog
SWT Ipswich Blog
Heritage Fund
Wild LIVE YouTube
By John Ferguson
Events for tots through to teens, wildlife courses for adults, practical conservation volunteering and 49 nature reserves which are free to visit.
Visit a nature reserve
Events for families & pre-school
All events for adults
Wildlife talks
Volunteer at Carlton Marshes
Learning Team Voluntary Internships
Wild Reads
Wild Reads - Meadowlands
Wild Reads - The Overstory
Wild Birthday Parties
Help wildlife at home
Dormouse by Catpaws
Our vision for Suffolk is a joined-up landscape where species can spread out from nature reserves into wildlife-rich countryside, towns and villages.
Flagship species in Suffolk
Great crested newt
Record a hedgehog sighting
Stag beetle
Conservation in Suffolk
Planning advice for local authorities
Planning advice for the general public
Nationally significant infrastructure projects
Current planning applications
Homes for people and wildlife
Planning guidance for hedgehogs
Ecological consultancy
Farmland Wildlife Advice
Suffolk Ponds Group
Jordans Farm Partnership
County Wildlife Sites
Private nature reserves
Community Green Spaces
Catchment Scale Restoration on the River Blyth
North Sea marine conservation
Habitat & species advice
Meadows and grassland
Grassland and scrub
Grassland management for butterflies
Grassland management for invertebrates
Grassland management for reptiles
Grassland management for wildflowers
Woodlands and hedgerows
Woodland by natural regeneration
Woodland creation by planting
Veteran trees
Hedgerow management
Hedgerow planting
Dormouse conservation
Ponds and rivers
Wall plants
Wildlife where you live
Attracting wildlife to your garden
Attracting hedgehogs to your garden
Attracting bats to your garden
Attracting reptiles to your garden
Attracting amphibians to your garden
Compost heaps
Feeding birds
FAQs and useful contacts
UK species explorer
UK habitat explorer
Legacy stories: Arger Fen & Spouse's Vale
Legacy stories: Black Bourn Valley
Legacy stories: Bradfield Woods
Legacy stories: Captain's Wood
Legacy stories: Carlton Marshes
Legacy stories: Church Farm Marshes
Legacy stories: Knettishall Heath
Legacy stories: Lackford Lakes
Legacy stories: Market Weston Fen
Legacy stories: Mickle Mere
Legacy stories: Snape Marshes
Inspiring interest in the natural world and getting children closer to nature is what Suffolk Wildlife Trust is all about - to make nature part of everyday life.
School visits to Arger Fen
School visits to Bradfield Woods
School visits to Carlton Marshes
School visits to Foxburrow Farm
School visits to Ipswich's green spaces
School visits to Knettishall Heath
School visits to Lackford Lakes
School visits to Lound Lakes
School visits to Redgrave & Lopham Fen
School visits to Rendlesham Forest
School visits to the coast
Funded school visits
The Lost Words
Barn owl by Anthony House
Nigel Farthing (Chair)
Nigel is a solicitor and partner at Birketts. He specialises in property law and has a particular interest in countryside issues including rights of way and public access to land. He is currently a trustee of two charitable trusts and a former non-executive director of Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust. He was a trustee at Suffolk Wildlife Trust for six years before standing down in 2012. He has a lifelong interest in natural history and conservation and has for many years been a member of Suffolk Naturalists Society, Suffolk Ornithologists Group and the RSPB.
Stephanie Jones (Vice Chair)
Since graduating from UEA with a first class honours degree in Environmental Sciences, Stephanie has gained experience leading a range of successful environmental and sustainability initiatives. Her expertise lies in behaviour change, communications and PR, as well as project management, partnership working and local government. Stephanie is a committed environmentalist with a professional and personal dedication to protecting the environment, conserving biodiversity, and educating and inspiring others to do the same. Stephanie has volunteered at Carlton Marshes as Wildlife Watch Leader for the past seven years.
James Alexander (Treasurer)
James is an experienced entrepreneur and business advisor. He was a co-founder of Zopa, Europe's largest P2P lender, and former Strategy Director at Egg. Currently James is a Director of FutureAgenda.org and an advisor to a number of innovative finance payers. He advises a number of social ventures and charities including the RSPB and Suffolk Wildlife Trust and is Chair of Gen Community Ventures. James has also worked as a growth strategy consultant where his clients have included Tesco, Eurostar, Save the Children, The Guardian, M&S and Just Giving. James holds an MBA from INSEAD AND was part of a 3-person team who re-discovered three species of bird formerly considered to be extinct.
Philip Newton (Honorary Secretary)
Philip Newton
Philip is a director with a large national health and social care organisation and a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute. His current role includes responsibilities for corporate governance and business intelligence. Following a long career with British Telecom Philip moved into the not for profit sector sixteen years ago. With a lifelong interest in the countryside and wildlife Philip is also a member of the RSPB and the Woodland Trust.
David Alborough
David is Group Property Services Manager for Essex & Suffolk Water and a land agent by profession. For over 20 years he has managed the company's 26,000 acre estate in Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk and Northumberland which includes farms, woodland, Special Protection Areas, Special Areas of Conservation, SSSIs and operational land. His experience supports the Trust with strategic property matters as well as planning and business management.
Joan Hardingham
Since 1981 Joan has run a diverse farming business at Alder Carr Farm, in partnership with her husband and family. The farm has always left space for nature with 10 acres of woodland, including a nature trail for the public, river frontage and a regular programme of tree planting and management. Joan is a member of the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group and has participated in the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, welcoming hundreds of children on school visits to discover how food is produced.
Joan has a keen interest in wildlife and conservation and how farming can co-exist with the natural world. She has been involved as a Council Member of the Suffolk Naturalists' Society having acted as Secretary, Chairman and currently Treasurer. With a Zoology degree and a Teaching Certificate Joan has also taught Rural Science and Biology at Secondary level and understands the need to engage children with wildlife at the earliest age to build a lifelong appreciation.
Martin Hollands
Martin is a professional conservation manager who has lived in Suffolk since moving here to set up the conservation training unit at Otley College in the 1980.
After leaving Otley, but not the county, Martin has worked in international conservation, with Fauna & Flora International & BirdLife International.
His particular interest is in developing sustainable relationships between people, business, and the natural systems they depend on, and advises on policies and practices of the private sector, in particular over tropical commodities, energy and the extractive sector.
Sue Hooton
I started my association with SWT in 1985 as a habitat surveyor. Since then I have helped my local group committee, been a co-ordinator of magazine deliveries, a trustee (before children), now a volunteer conservation adviser and swift adviser and chair of Suffolk Bat Group. As a professional ecologist I can provide strategic advice and support to the Trust on the significant challenges facing Suffolk including infrastructure and planning. I understand the current pressures on the natural environment and hope to provide clear guidance on balancing resources - people as well as money - to deal effectively with these issues.
Robyn Llewellyn
Robyn is Head of Engagement (Midlands and East) for the National Lottery Heritage Fund and has a proven track record of delivering high quality outcomes, building and leading successful teams through change and engaging effectively with key stakeholders and community interest groups. Robyn brings strategic experience and enjoys initiating opportunities to support creative partnership networking, striving to support people and projects that positively change lives through social impact. Robyn is a Board member of Orwell Housing and Care and is Chair of the Audit Committee and sits on the Governance Committee.
Robyn has lived in Suffolk for almost 30 years and, being a member of Suffolk Wildlife Trust for most of that time, understands how important nature and landscape is to the story of the county and how much it means to its people and the communities in which they live.
Anna Saltmarsh
Anna has a Master's degree in Conservation from University College London, and a research Masters in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology from Montpellier University reflecting her dedication to understanding the natural world and helping to protect wildlife and the natural environments that enable us all to thrive. Anna previously worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew where she managed the Digital Collections Unit and Kew's key partnership role in several international projects aimed at increasing access to the valuable information contained within preserved plant collections.
Before returning to live in her hometown of Bury St. Edmunds in 2017, Anna worked for the Zoological Society of London, supporting conservation projects primarily in the Thames estuary region. She is a regular conservation volunteer at Lackford Lakes, is involved with a variety of botanical survey projects and has helped to coordinate Suffolk Wildlife Trust's seed collection partnership with Kew's Millennium Seed Bank in recent years.
Calum Thomson
Calum is a chartered accountant and a former partner of Deloitte LLP. He is currently non-executive director and audit committee chair of a number of public companies in the financial services sector and is the chairman of trustees of the Tarbat Historic Trust, a museum situated in the North of Scotland. He has been a member of Suffolk Wildlife Trust for over thirty years and assists his wife who runs a small farm dedicated to nature situated in Dunwich Forest near RSPB Minsmere and Dingle Marsh. The farm includes a range of habitats including, acid grassland, alder carr, riverbanks and woodland supporting a wide range of wildlife and has benefitted over many years from advice provided by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust and the RSPB. He has also recently taken up bee keeping. He hopes that his experience in finance combined with knowledge gained from running the farm as a nature reserve will assist the Trust meet its objectives in the coming years.
Tim Woodward
Tim is a regional surveyor for the Country Land & Business Association (CLA) providing advice to CLA members across nine counties on a wide variety of land management matters. A RICS-qualified rural surveyor with an MSc in Advanced Farm Management, Tim has practised as a land agent in various parts of the UK for over 35 years.
One of Tim's previous roles involved leading a team of professional land management advisers for National Trust properties in the region, including sites maintained for nature conservation such as Orford Ness, Blakeney Point, Northey Island and Hatfield Forest. He has a keen interest in the countryside and in environmental matters generally and, having lived near Bradfield Woods and Bull's Wood for thirteen years, Tim knows both reserves very well.
Honorary Officers
The Lord Tollemache (Patron)
Honorary Patron of Suffolk Wildlife Trust
President - William Kendall
William Kendall is an environmentalist, entrepreneur and Suffolk organic farmer. He has built up several well-known food & drink brands including The New Covent Garden Soup Company, Green & Black's and Cawston Press – and been a director of a number of family businesses including Adnams. He has been a trustee of Fauna and Flora International and an advisor to The Cambridge Conservation Initiative and to Client Earth.
Lord Deben
The Rt. Hon John Gummer was the longest serving Secretary of State for the Environment during which he introduced payments to farmers for conservation and the UK's first environmental tax - landfill tax. He has been Chairman of the Marine Stewardship Council and Chairman of the International Commission on Sustainable Consumption. Locally he is creating species rich meadows on former arable land at his home near Debenham.
David Barker MBE
Chairman of 'Suffolk Creating the Greenest County' and former Chairman of SWT, Suffolk NFU and Suffolk FWAG. His family farm has won national awards from FWAG and NFU and David was awarded the MBE for services to conservation.
Sir Kenneth Carlisle
A trained barrister Sir Kenneth has had a distinguished twenty year career in Parliament where he was both Under-Secretary of State and a Minister. He has a lifelong love of nature and, as well as being a former Chairman of Suffolk Wildlife Trust, he has been a trustee for the World Land Trust, RSPB and RHS.
His family farm in Suffolk encompasses his conservation principles and the 170 acres of ancient woodland provide firewood coppice to heat the farm's Leaping Hare restaurant and shop. He is passionate about the need to spread good conservation practice widely in the countryside.
Former chairman of SWT and former trustee of RSNC. Several of the Trust's most important nature reserves are as a result of Peter's outstanding generosity.
Dawn Girling
Dawn has had a long relationship with SWT as a volunteer across all aspects of the Trust's work from delivering its magazines to being Chairman. She brings her experience as a trustee of local and national charities covering the environment, legal, health, social and arts sectors.
You can contact Trustees via our main office:
Suffolk Wildlife Trust,
Brooke House,
Ashbocking,
IP6 9JY
info@suffolkwildlifetrust.org
A guide to how we are Governed
Memorandum & Articles of Association
Membership Offer Terms & Conditions
Suffolk Wildlife Trust is part of a UK-wide network of Wildlife Trusts. It is the only charity dedicated wholly to safeguarding Suffolk's wildlife and countryside.
Suffolk Wildlife Trust: Registered charity number 262777