Plantlife’s Impact

Celebrating Plantlife’s Achievements

At Plantlife, our aim is to make lasting positive change for wildflowers, plants and fungi. Our goal is to help mitigate the impact of climate change while rebuilding biodiversity within our ecosystems. We regularly join forces with others to ensure our money, influence and impact can go further. By working together, we can protect the vital habitats which so many plants and animals call home.

Helping Threatened Species

We work to protect and restore temperate rainforests, meadows and other environments for the benefit of rare and threatened species. This has had a major impact over the years, with many plants increasing in number as a direct result of our work.

2025/26

• Our Ranscombe Farm Nature Reserve has a central role in the newly designated North Kent Woods and Downs National Reserve. The 250-hectare farm is helping to restore nature across the surrounding landscape.
• In Wales, we restored over 200 hectares of grassland by tackling invasive vegetation and improving how we manage land. This is creating healthier habitats for wildlife and helping these rare landscapes thrive for future generations.
• Fen Orchid was downlisted to Near Threatened following decades of habitat restoration, monitoring and research, showing what partnership work over the long term can realise. Some 60 local volunteers helped survey 17 remote sites across Scotland, gathering evidence on several of the country’s rarest plants and mosses. The information they collected contributed to Red List assessments of One-flowered Wintergreen, Tufted Saxifrage, and Aspen Bristle Moss.
• The Breckland Flora Group celebrated its 10th anniversary this year. Over the last decade, the group has surveyed 70 sites, collecting records for 37 rare and scarce species across the Brecks.
• We supported farmers and landowners to better understand the range of options available for growing and improving grasslands through the Realising Grassland Potential toolkit. Developed with farmers and conservation organisations, the resource provides practical guidance on grassland management.
• More than 1,700 species have been recorded in the 10 years that the National Plant Monitoring Scheme has been running. Plantlife is a founding partner of the scheme which, since it launched, has grown to include more than 5,000 survey plots across the UK, with over 1,000 volunteers monitoring them.
• The Peat-Free partnership, which is led by Plantlife and funded by Esme Fairbairn Foundation, secured public commitments from ministers to legislate to end peat sales in all four UK nations.
• As one of England’s newly designated Responsible Bodies, we secured six Conservation Covenants, covering more than 200 hectares of land.
• We worked with the Global Fungi Conservation Network to complete the first ever dedicated strategy for fungi conservation. The strategy will be used to guide and influence policies and actions to conserve and sustainably use the world’s fungal diversity.
• A total of 43 organisations signed our open letter to Defra, calling for them to establish a Grassland Taskforce to stop the decline of species-rich grasslands and accelerate their restoration.