Kent Wildlife Trust (KWT) is a conservation charity in the United Kingdom that was founded in 1958, previously known as the Kent Trust for Nature Conservation. It aims to "work with people to restore, save and improve our natural spaces" and to "ensure that 30% of Kent and Medway â land and sea â is managed to create a healthy place for wildlife to flourish". In 2023, they have reported over 30,000 members and an annual income of ã8 million. KWT manages over ninety nature reserves in Kent, of which thirty-seven are Sites of Special Scientific Interest, three are national nature reserves, five are Special Areas of Conservation, four are Special Protection Areas, six are local nature reserves, thirty-eight are in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and one is a scheduled monument.
Kent is a county in the southeastern corner of England. It is bounded to the north by Greater London and the Thames Estuary, to the west by Sussex and Surrey, and to the south and east by the English Channel and the North Sea. The county town is Maidstone. It is governed by Kent County Council, with twelve district councils: Ashford, Canterbury, Dartford, Dover, Folkestone and Hythe, Gravesham, Maidstone, Thanet, Tonbridge and Malling and Tunbridge Wells. Medway is geographically part of Kent but is a separate unitary authority. The chalk hills of the North Downs run from east to west through the county, with the wooded Weald to the south. The coastline is alternately flat and cliff-lined.
The Wilder Blean project, headed up by the Wildwood Trust and Kent Wildlife Trust, introduced European bison to a 2,500-acre conservation area in Blean, near Canterbury. The reintroduction to the UK in 2022, the first time in 6000 years, consisted of a herd of 3 females and 1 male. Unknown to the rangers, one of the females was pregnant and gave birth to a calf in October 2022, marking the first wild bison born in the UK for the first time in millennia. The herd's matriarch gave birth to a male calf in winter 2023. In October 2024, the two younger females of the herd gave birth to an additional two female calves, increasing the herd's numbers to 8 animals in total. In January 2025, the project was recognized as one of The Big IssueâÂÂs top Changemakers of 2025.
The Chough Reintroduction Project, a partnership between Kent Wildlife Trust, Wildwood Trust and Paradise Park, Cornwall, reintroduced the red-billed chough to South East England where it had previously been extinct for over two centuries. The first of several releases took place at a secret location in Dover in July 2023, releasing eight choughs which came from a zoo-based breeding programme coordinated by Paradise Park in Cornwall. By October 2023, the released choughs had been spotted flying as far as Dover Castle. In May 2024, the first wild red-billed chough chick to be born in Kent for generations was discovered at Dover Castle and was reported to have fledged successfully the following month, but went missing during strong winds in early July. A second release of six female choughs into the wild took place in July 2024. By September 2024 an additional six male choughs had been released into the wild, increasing the total number of wild red-billed chough in Kent to nineteen animals.