Preston Wilderness is a place-based nature recovery and landscape protection initiative working to safeguard one of Preston’s most ecologically important environments — the Fishwick floodplain, wet woodland edges and connected ancient woodland corridors that form part of a wider and increasingly vulnerable ecological network.

Working at the intersection of conservation, research and community collaboration, the project brings together local knowledge, ecological evidence and long-term landscape management to protect habitats that quietly support both wildlife and people.

These landscapes form part of a wider ecological network linking river systems, floodplain habitat and ancient woodland — environments that are increasingly rare within urban settings yet critical for climate resilience, biodiversity recovery and public wellbeing, nationally as well as locally.

This work is being built now because landscapes like this are often lost quietly — through fragmentation, pressure and under-recognition — and once gone, they cannot easily be replaced.