Thank you for visiting Kemerton Conservation Trust's website. We hope you find it enjoyable and informative. Please explore the site using the buttons on the left.

KCT is run by a board of governors who donate their time and professional expertise.  Many of them have links to conservation organizations such as the RSPB, FWAG, WildCRU, and Plantlife International. From 1989 until 2001 the Trust employed a full-time Conservation Officer to carry out its activities.  Since then, restricted funding has meant that the Trust has undertaken core work with part-time staff.  The Trust currently employs John Clarke as a Conservation Advisor but hopes to supplement his efforts by the re-employment of a full-time Conservation Officer.  The staff and registered offices are located in the village of Kemerton.

In addition, the Trust is indebted to a dedicated band of volunteers who lend their support to conservation projects.  It has recently begun training a Volunteer Co-ordinator to carry out fundraising and to enlist more volunteers for habitat maintenance.  For more information about volunteering, please see our How you can help page.

The cost of running the Trust’s core programmes is £30,000 - £35,000 per year.  We rely mainly on the support of grant-awarding institutions and charities, with additional funds coming from private donors and local businesses.  Since 2004, Natural England has provided generous assistance through the Aggregates Levy Support Fund, however this source of funding is likely to expire in March 2008.  For more information on donating to the Trust please see our How you can help page.

Kemerton Conservation Trust (originally named Kemerton Trustees Limited) was founded in 1989 by Adrian Darby  (former chairman of the RSPB, Plantlife International and the UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee), in response to the catastrophic national decline in farmland biodiversity.  It grew out of the pioneering conservation work carried out on his farm, the Kemerton Estate in Worcestershire, from 1980 onwards.  The Trust is particularly indebted to John & Pamela Clarke, the estate’s Conservation Officers from 1983 to 1986, who laid the foundations for so much of the work that has followed since.

The Trust’s early work focused on developing ways to maintain wildlife habitat within the modern farming environment.  Its pioneering studies into the use of chemically-untreated arable field margins helped to bring about a change in government policy, which led to the widespread adoption of this practice.  For more information, please follow the link to our Practical arable wildflower conservation paper.

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