The River Dee’s Salmon Crisis – and the Unlikely Hero
In the cold, fast-flowing waters of Scotland’s River Dee, a silent crisis is unfolding. Atlantic salmon, once thriving in these rivers, are now teetering on the brink of extinction. Rising water temperatures, caused by climate change and deforestation, have pushed the salmon’s fragile ecosystem to the edge. These remarkable fish, famed for their epic journeys from ocean to river to spawn, are facing a future that’s warming too quickly to survive.
But there is hope and it comes from the trees.
As The Guardian reports , ecologists, landowners, and conservationists are turning to reforestation as a lifeline for Scotland’s salmon. By planting native trees along riverbanks, they're creating “green shade” to cool the water, prevent erosion, restore habitats, and rebalance local ecosystems. In the River Dee catchment, this is more than an experiment. It's a race against time.
Nature’s Interconnected Web
The project in the River Dee is a powerful reminder of nature’s intricate balance and the role trees play in stitching it back together. Trees are not just carbon sinks or scenic backdrops. They are habitat architects, hydrologic regulators, and climate buffers. When planted with purpose, they can transform ecosystems from the roots up.
That’s the kind of change LettsSafari is built to support.
How LettsSafari Helps – One Tree, One Habitat at a Time
At LettsSafari, we’re restoring wild spaces across the UK, one small rewilding project at a time. Like the River Dee initiative, we believe the answer to our biodiversity crisis is to work with nature, not against it. Every time a LettsSafari subscriber supports a rewilding project, they help us plant native trees, protect rivers, and rebuild wildlife habitats. Whether it’s in a city park, a country estate, or a suburban garden.
Our work may not yet be as vast as Scotland’s great glens, but it’s deeply connected to the same mission: cooling rivers, restoring habitats, and giving endangered species from birds and bees to salmon and voles a fighting chance.
Collective Action Starts with Us
The lesson from the River Dee is clear: nature has the tools to heal itself if we give it space, time, and support. Rewilding isn’t just about saving species in remote landscapes. It’s about how we manage every piece of land, including our own. It’s about restoring shade, shelter, and song back to our rivers and our lives.
LettsSafari is here to empower that action.
Whether you subscribe, gift a membership, or simply follow along—you're helping to bring trees back to riverbanks, life back to the land, and balance back to our ecosystems.
Let’s rewild together, before it’s too late.
Subscribe to LettsSafari
Support our rewilding parks, get exclusive content of our projects and even receive expert tips to transform your garden, community, public or work spaces into a wildlife haven.
🌱 For every 10 new subscribers we plant a tree a year.
🦔 For every 100, we release an endangered animal.
🌳 And for every 10,000 we create a new rewilding safari park a year!
Make A Difference: Together We Can Rewild To Restore Nature.
Sign up TODAY
!
A recent feature in The Guardian delivered a stark warning: insects are vanishing. Insects, the often-overlooked foundation of our ecosystems, are in deep trouble – and their disappearance threatens food systems, pollination, birds, and life as we know it.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. The article offers 25 simple actions that individuals can take to help, from planting wildflowers to avoiding pesticides. At LettsSafari, we believe it’s going to take collective, coordinated action – and we’re proud to say that our rewilding efforts tick many of the boxes in this action plan.
Insects are vital for:
Pollination
Decomposition and soil health
Bird and mammal food chains
Biodiversity balance
Yet studies show insect numbers are falling fast – due to habitat loss, chemical use, climate change, and monoculture farming. The solution? Restore diverse, natural habitats.
At LettsSafari, we transform parks, gardens, and green spaces into miniature wild havens – perfect for bees, butterflies, beetles, and bugs.
Here’s how our projects align with
The Guardian
’s insect-saving actions:
We plant native wildflowers and grasses that support pollinators.
We avoid pesticides entirely.
We restore hedgerows and deadwood areas , giving beetles and solitary bees homes.
We create insect water sources and leave parts of our landscapes "messy" , because wild is good.
We reintroduce native flora and fauna , increasing the complexity of the food web.
We teach people how to rewild their own outdoor spaces , giving nature a boost right at home.
From subscribing to LettsSafari (which directly supports our insect-friendly rewilding sites) to applying our tips in your own garden, balcony or community patch, you can join the movement.
Together, we can turn the tide on insect decline – one wild patch at a time.
Subscribe to LettsSafari
Support our rewilding parks, get exclusive content of our projects and even receive expert tips to transform your garden, community, public or work spaces into a wildlife haven.
🌱 For every 10 new subscribers we plant a tree a year.
🦔 For every 100, we release an endangered animal.
🌳 And for every 10,000 we create a new rewilding safari park a year!
Make A Difference: Together We Can Rewild To Restore Nature.
Sign up TODAY
!
At LettsSafari, we talk a lot about biodiversity but sometimes, it’s the overlooked creatures that hold the most surprising power. Enter the humble moth. These often-misunderstood insects were recently given the spotlight they deserve by composer Ellie Watson in her new piece " Moth x Human" , aired on BBC Radio 3. The piece will be presented for the first time at the two PRSF New Music Biennial events at the Southbank Centre, London, and in Bradford as part of its UK City of Culture celebrations.
Inspired by real-world moth activity data from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Watson transformed spreadsheet figures into soaring soundscapes. Using information from automated moth monitoring stations - which use light, camera, and AI to track species - she composed a musical response to the nocturnal rhythms of nature. The piece is written for tow violins, cello, trombone, piano, synths, electronics … and moths. The result is both beautiful and alarming: a tribute to creatures in peril.
Moths are vital nighttime pollinators, just as crucial as bees and butterflies. They feed bats, owls, and birds, and they help sustain entire ecosystems. And yet, like so many insects, they’re in steep decline - victims of habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change. Out of the 2,500 moth species in the UK, many are under threat, even though only a few nibble on your jumpers.
Ellie Watson’s composition reminds us that moths - though hidden from view - are not absent from impact. Their story is our story too.
At LettsSafari, we’re working to reverse this decline. Our rewilding parks, gardens, and wild spaces are carefully planted to support nocturnal pollinators, creating safe havens for moths through native wildflower meadows and pesticide-free zones. We believe the night deserves just as much protection as the day - and that includes the creatures who keep it alive.
Because when we restore nature, even the smallest wings make the biggest difference.
Whether you're managing land, living in a city flat, or simply care about the planet, you can be part of the rewilding revolution.
Subscribe to LettsSafari
Support our rewilding parks, get exclusive content of our projects and even receive expert tips to transform your garden, community, public or work spaces into a wildlife haven.
🌱 For every 10 new subscribers we plant a tree a year.
🦔 For every 100, we release an endangered animal.
🌳 And for every 10,000 we create a new rewilding safari park a year!
Make A Difference: Together We Can Rewild To Restore Nature.
Sign up TODAY
!
A former opencast mine near Wigan, along the M6 motorway, has been transformed into the Sandyforth Green Gateway : 34 hectares of species-rich grassland, wetlands, walking trails, and public access - all carefully designed to enhance biodiversity and community wellbeing.
LettsSafari champions initiatives exactly like Sandyforth. Here’s how we’re scaling these successes:
Sandyforth Green Gateway is tangible proof that restoration can ride alongside infrastructure, not against it. Environmental value becomes a legacy heritable by future generations. LettsSafari is translating these lessons into action: embedding resilient, biodiverse landscapes within national infrastructure. Our goal: green corridors that outlast construction - and connect people to nature’s rebirth.
Subscribe to LettsSafari
Support our rewilding parks, get exclusive content of our projects and even receive expert tips to transform your garden, community, public or work spaces into a wildlife haven.
🌱 For every 10 new subscribers we plant a tree a year.
🦔 For every 100, we release an endangered animal.
🌳 And for every 10,000 we create a new rewilding safari park a year!
Make A Difference: Together We Can Rewild To Restore Nature.
Sign up TODAY
!
In the past month Prince William unveiled a sweeping 20‑year Dartmoor restoration programme in partnership with the Central Dartmoor Landscape Recovery project. This initiative stands out for its scale, holistic vision and its striking alignment with LettsSafari’s mission to support biodiversity through landscape-level transformation .
LettsSafari empowers exactly this kind of ambitious, community-rooted ecological change. Here’s how:
The Dartmoor plan offers a bold model: scalable, climate-smart, and socially inclusive. At LettsSafari, we’re proud to echo its ambitions - ready to support similar programmes across the UK and beyond. With shared vision, shared expertise and community-first implementation, we can restore landscapes to both nourish nature and sustain rural livelihoods.
Whether you're managing land, living in a city flat, or simply care about the planet, you can be part of the rewilding revolution. Subscribe to LettsSafari and join a growing movement of everyday rewilders.
Across Britain’s uplands and wet grasslands, something is missing - life. As George Monbiot highlights in a powerful Guardian piece, swathes of our countryside have become what scientists call “dead zones” - expanses overrun by one plant: purple moor grass. It’s beautiful to look at, but biologically barren. No flowers. No bees. No food for birds or mammals. And no room for the rich mosaic of life that once thrived there.
These monocultures aren’t natural. They’re the result of long-term mismanagement: overgrazing, burning, drainage, and a lack of investment in nature’s recovery. They offer little carbon storage, almost no biodiversity, and virtually no resilience to climate impacts.
At LettsSafari, we exist to challenge exactly this kind of ecological silence. Our network of smaller-scale rewilding safari parks, gardens, and wild spaces is designed to restore what’s been lost - by bringing back diverse, native ecosystems.
Instead of grasslands stripped of meaning, we plant woodlands, flowering meadows, hedgerows, and wetlands. We rewet drained soils, protect pollinator corridors, and create habitats that invite life back in - birds, butterflies, badgers, beetles and beyond.
This is the quiet but powerful work of restoration: not just letting nature go wild, but helping it recover what it’s lost.
You can be part of the answer. By subscribing to LettsSafari, you support real-world rewilding projects that reverse Britain’s biodiversity crisis - one wild, vibrant, humming patch of land at a time.
Nature doesn’t want to be a dead zone. It wants to come back. Let’s help it. Subscribe TODAY!
What does it mean to rewild for a thousand years?
The Global Rewilding Alliance’s new initiative, the Thousand Year Trust, dares to ask that question and answer it boldly. It’s a vision not just for short-term nature recovery, but for enduring ecological resilience. A legacy that outlives us. A gift to generations we’ll never meet.
At LettsSafari, we’re deeply inspired by this long-view thinking. We believe it’s time to match today’s ecological urgency with equally ambitious, generational solutions.
The Thousand Year Trust aims to support rewilding initiatives across the globe - funded not just for the next few years, but for the next few centuries. It’s a bold idea rooted in the belief that when we protect nature long-term, nature gives back far more than we invest.
LettsSafari shares that mission. While our projects may not span a thousand years (yet), our rewilding efforts in parks, gardens, and wild spaces across the UK are built for lasting impact. Every sapling we plant, every hedgerow we restore, every pollinator habitat we protect, it’s all designed to kickstart a self-sustaining ecosystem that thrives long after we’re gone.
The Thousand Year Trust model recognises that rewilding isn’t just about funding, it’s about continuity, guardianship, and community stewardship. That’s why LettsSafari:
Our work, whether in a city park or a rural wetland, is designed with permanence in mind. Because just like the Trust, we don’t believe in quick fixes. We believe in living legacies.
While the Thousand Year Trust may be global in scale, LettsSafari is proving that even smaller-scale, hyper-local rewilding can punch above its weight.
By combining practical restoration with community action and digital transparency, we’re building hundreds, soon thousands, of "mini trusts" across the country. Together, these become a powerful movement.
Because the truth is, rewilding the planet doesn’t just start with billion-dollar funds or vast landscapes. It starts with people. It starts with you.
LettsSafari makes it possible. Join us in building a legacy of wildness, one garden, one tree, one thousand years at a time. Sign up TODAY!
We've written before about our friends at Chiswick House & Gardens in London and their smaller-scale rewilding project "Letting the Light In". Well, in an art-meets-nature, stars-in-alignment they've just unveiled a new artist studio complex - a beautiful blend of creativity, heritage, and nature!
Justine Simons OBE, Deputy London Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries, cut the ribbon on the complex, developed in partnership with the charity Artist Studio Company. The studios will provide affordable creative workspace for up to 50 London-based artists and makers.
Nestled in the historic grounds, these studios are more than just workspaces. They’re an invitation to reconnect with the land, engage with the public, and celebrate the role of artists in shaping our understanding of the world around us. The artist and maker studios have been created in historic outbuildings set around the tranquil beauty of the site’s Kitchen Garden, with the first artists and makers due to take up up residence later this summer.
At LettsSafari, this resonates deeply. The idea of embedding creativity into green spaces mirrors what we’ve built through our own rewilding parks and what our sister venture, LettsArt, enables online.
Key themes from the Chiswick launch:
This is exactly the ethos behind LettsSafari’s outdoor art installations and LettsArt’s digital-first galleries. Our Devon Sculpture Park integrates wild nature and sculpture, while LettsArt empowers artists to own their gallery space and sell directly to collectors - without middlemen.
What Chiswick has launched physically, LettsArt mirrors digitally, and LettsSafari complements through rewilded landscapes that inspire creativity, reflection, and ecological restoration.
As more spaces like Chiswick fuse heritage, biodiversity, and creativity, the opportunity is clear: nature and art belong together. And together, they offer a path to regeneration, not just of landscapes, but of how we live and create.
Ready to rewild your view of art and nature?
Explore our wild spaces at LettsSafari.com, or create your own gallery with LettsArt.com - where your work can thrive on your terms.
In a powerful reminder of nature’s resilience, a remarkable rewilding project is underway in the Howgill Fells, nestled in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Once dominated by centuries of sheep grazing, these "ghost woodlands" are being brought back to life. Thanks to the determined efforts of local communities, ecologists, and the Woodland Trust, the landscape is transforming - lush with native trees, buzzing with wildlife, and inspiring similar movements across the UK.
At LettsSafari, stories like this reinforce our belief in practical, community-based rewilding. They show that restoration is possible—even in places once considered ecologically exhausted. And they offer a hopeful blueprint for a greener future.
The Return of the Ghost Woodlands
Over the past 12 years, more than 300,000 native trees, including rowan, birch, oak, and holly, have been planted across 128 hectares of hillside that had been heavily grazed for generations. These weren’t just any trees. They were carefully chosen to reflect the species that once flourished there before overgrazing and deforestation stripped the land of its natural cover.
The results are already striking. Where once only hardy grasses clung to steep slopes, there are now woodlands humming with bird calls and seasonal wildflowers. Birds like redstarts, tree pipits and cuckoos are returning. Bluebells and bracken bloom beneath the canopy. A ghost woodland is no longer a memory. It’s alive.
The regeneration isn’t just about trees. It’s about rebuilding an entire ecosystem from the soil up. Trees help stabilise the land, reduce flooding risk, store carbon, and provide shelter for countless species. Over time, the biodiversity multiplier effect kicks in: when nature is given a chance, it comes back in waves.
Why This Matters - And What LettsSafari Is Doing About It
At LettsSafari, we champion this kind of pragmatic rewilding. It’s not about locking up land and waiting for magic - it’s about intelligent intervention, local partnership, and ecological knowledge.
Our own safari-style rewilding parks, like Dawlish Park, combine habitat restoration with community access, education, and the arts. We plant native species, reintroduce wildlife, and restore wetlands, grasslands, and woodlands - all while offering spaces for people to explore, learn, and connect with the natural world.
But we also empower individuals. Through our subscription model, we help garden owners and balcony growers rewild in their own backyards. Because restoring biodiversity shouldn’t be confined to remote national parks. It should start at home.
Stories like the Howgill Fells inspire us to go further. They prove that even ecologically degraded land can be reborn. They show that community-led rewilding works. And they remind us that the solutions to biodiversity loss and climate change are already in motion - we just need to back them.
A Blueprint for the Future
The transformation in the Yorkshire Dales is not just a local success story. It’s a national example of what’s possible. As the UK faces biodiversity collapse, extreme weather, and rural economic pressures, the need for scalable, proven rewilding models has never been greater.
LettsSafari believes that by connecting policy, people, and purpose, we can replicate this across the country - on large estates, in city parks, and even in neighbourhood gardens. Nature wants to return. We just need to open the door.
Whether you're managing land, living in a city flat, or simply care about the planet, you can be part of the rewilding revolution. Subscribe to LettsSafari and join a growing movement of everyday rewilders.
Because when ghost woodlands return, so does hope.
At LettsSafari, we believe nature and creativity go hand in hand. So we’re thrilled to share that our sister venture, LettsArt, has just reached a major milestone: 1,000 artists and gallerists are now using LettsArt’s powerful tools to share, promote, and sell their art online.
From emerging digital artists to regional museums and retired professionals reigniting their creative spark, LettsArt empowers a diverse global community to thrive and we couldn’t be prouder.
But this celebration isn’t just about art online. It’s also about art outside.
One of LettsArt’s most inspiring galleries showcases the outdoor art at Devon Sculpture Park(DSP), nestled in one of LettsSafari’s own rewilding estates. This unique location blends open-air art with the living, breathing textures of nature. As Britain’s leading outdoor art park for ecological art and rewilding, DSP brings together artists, conservationists, and visitors who understand that creativity can help reframe our relationship with the natural world.
At LettsSafari, we restore wild spaces, from gardens to parks, through rewilding. LettsArt, on the other hand, helps creatives restore cultural space by making art more visible and accessible. When these missions align, something beautiful happens.
Art tells the story of change. Nature shows the change in action. Together, they inspire us to care, to protect, and to reimagine our world.
Whether it’s a sculpture nestled among wild grasses or a digital gallery exploring climate themes, these shared spaces between art and nature are powerful platforms for expression, dialogue, and regeneration.
LettsArt and LettsSafari are part of a broader vision: to support creators, whether artists or land stewards, and help their work thrive in harmony with the planet. So today, we raise a leaf (and a paintbrush) to LettsArt and its vibrant community of 1,000 galleries. Here’s to the next thousand and to a world where creativity and conservation grow side by side. to start your own online gallery!
Want to see art and rewilding in action? Subscribe to LettsSafari to support rewilding or sign up to lettsart.com to start your own online gallery!
