Badger, Ratty, Mole and Toad strike out for a wilder future

Badger, Ratty, Mole and Toad strike out for a wilder future

Stars speak up for wildlife in a new film trailer – hitting cinemas this weekend!
Sir David Attenborough, Stephen Fry, Catherine Tate, Alison Steadman and Asim Chaudhry have backed a new campaign from The Wildlife Trusts that calls for nature’s recovery in the UK.  The conservationist and actors have starring roles in a new The Wind in the Willows film trailer which brings to life the 21st-century threats facing the much-loved characters from Kenneth Grahame’s children’s classic. The animated trailer calls on everyone to help bring our wildlife back before it’s too late, so that we can all enjoy a wilder future.
 

Watch the film trailer here and share it with your friends

Kenneth Grahame wrote The Wind in the Willows just over a hundred years ago. Since then, many of the UK’s wild places and the plants and animals that depend on them have been lost. 97% of lowland meadows and the beautiful wildflowers, insects, mammals and birds that they supported have disappeared; 80% of our beautiful purple heathlands have vanished – with their choughs and nightjars, too. Rivers are in deep trouble: only 20% are considered as healthy and 13% of freshwater and wetland species in Great Britain are threatened with extinction.
 
Kenneth Grahame’s Ratty – the water vole – is the UK’s most rapidly declining mammal, having been lost from 94% of places where it was once prevalent: and its range is continuing to contract. Toad is also finding that times are very tough: he has lost nearly 70% of his own kind in the last 30 years alone – and much more than that in the last century.

These losses have led to the UK becoming one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.

Stephanie Hilborne, CEO of The Wildlife Trusts, says: “We are a nation of nature-lovers, yet we live in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. If we want to put nature into recovery we have to create a mass movement of people calling for change. Our film is a sad version of The Wind in the Willows – showing how Ratty and Toad have hit the buffers – but it ends with a message of real hope. It’s not too late to create strong laws which will help our wildlife make a comeback – and it’s not too late to establish a Nature Recovery Network which will enable us to plan a wilder future.”

Join our campaign for a #WilderFuture and take action with us to help nature recover. 

Watch and share the new film trailer