"The last time the UK's wildlife faced a challenge on this scale was at the end of the last ice age. We need to find ways to help our wildlife become more resilient to the trials it faces in the 21st century. We must now work on a landscape scale if we are to give wildlife a chance and allow future generations to enjoy nature as we have."
Sir David Attenborough
Climate change threatens to cause massive waves of species extinctions around the world. Those waves will be felt in Shropshire as surely as they will in the Arctic or the Amazon. Finding ways for wildlife to adapt to the effects of this changing climate is now vital, urgent and a huge part of Shropshire Wildlife Trust's work.
The reduction, deterioration and fragmentation of habitats in recent years, due to the intensification of agricultural practices over the last half century, urban development and even neglect, has already made many species vulnerable. Reversing those changes and creating secure landscape-scale habitats for wild creatures and plants is one of the best ways we can help these species prepare for the challenges a changing climate will pose. This doesn't mean turning the whole of Shropshire into a nature reserve. What it will involve is working with a wide range of landowners, both public and private, to restore networks of different habitats linked together via well-managed hedgerows, verges, river valleys and other connecting wildlife corridors. 
This is nothing new. Projects such as Back to purple, the heathland restoration scheme on the Stiperstones, have been working to achieve this for years. The Wrekin Forest project is starting in this direction now. But we need to extend the idea to include areas such as the Meres and Mosses region in north Shropshire and the Oswestry Hills and to continue the excellent work achieved in south Shropshire through the Blue Remembered Hills project. We are also currently working on a regional scale plan with other Wildlife Trusts in the West Midlands.
The argument is over on climate change and international treaties are at last being thrashed out to reduce emissions. But it's a painfully slow process, involving much wrangling and resistance, and further climate change is almost inevitable. The work we are doing now is helping to prepare our wildlife for those changes that have already begun.
