Annual Report & Accounts 2025-26: Our Year for Nature, People and Climate

About

Ulster Wildlife manages 21 nature reserves and works with farmers and landowners, through the Environmental Farming Scheme and its new Farming with Nature approach, to build Nature Recovery Networks across Northern Ireland. Its restoration work ranges from the cross-border PEAT+ peatland project and temperate rainforest at Lenamore Wood to native oysters in Belfast Lough, alongside recovery work for barn owls, red squirrels, pine martens and hedgehogs. People are at the heart of it all, through ShoreNI citizen science, the Let Nature In wildlife gardening campaign, the Bog Meadows community hub, Wildlife Watch clubs and programmes for young people, including a residential Duke of Edinburgh programme at Binevenagh.

Key Metrics

Key Outcomes

• 150 hectares of peatland were restored and 29,000 native trees were planted at Lenamore Wood as part of temperate rainforest restoration.
• Around 2,000 adult and more than 30,000 juvenile native oysters were deployed in Belfast Lough, with more than 190 species identified at native oyster sites.
• ShoreNI citizen science involved 245 participants who submitted more than 6,000 photos documenting 1,187 species; the Wild Youth project concluded in 2025 having reached 2,695 young people over its lifetime.

Geography

Northern Ireland