Publications

The State of Nature in Surrey

Written by Mike Waite and published in 2017, The State of Surrey’s Nature provides a current stock-take of the county’s biodiversity. The report aims to quantify our most threatened wildlife but also celebrates why Surrey’s biodiversity is so special.

Research publications

Read some of the publications produced by Surrey Wildlife Trust's researchers and partners.

2026

A case for re-wilding in Surrey: setting out a more ambitious approach to landscape and nature recovery

It is clear that the scale of the climate and nature emergency requires far more ambitious action from conservationists, land managers and policymakers.  To help meet this challenge, the Surrey Wildlife Trust publication A re-wilding case for Surrey: finding the local ecological ‘sweet-spot’ presents a case for a new approach to nature restoration and land management in Surrey.  Its key premise is that more of the county should be managed for - or restored to - nature on large-scale or landscape level, allowing fuller ecosystem functionality, better connectivity between habitats, greater bio-abundance and biodiversity and enhanced resilience against the effects of climate change.

To achieve this, conservationists and public and private land managers across the county could work together to deliver an approach that relies more on the wider restoration of natural processes than on the concentrated stewardship of specific pockets of land for nature. As the Trust implements its Transition Plan to 2030, this position paper considers how, over time, the Trust might work alongside partners to help implement management plans that take into account the specific geographic and demographic characteristics of the county's key landscapes.  

This position paper has been authored by Mike Waite, Director of Research and Monitoring at Surrey Wildlife Trust, with input from long-experienced practitioners in Surrey's nature conservation.