How you helped make a difference in 2024

Since in 2022, the Seagrass Ocean Rescue project has been restoring lost seagrass meadows to the north Wales coast and looking to provide a blueprint for large scale seagrass restoration in the UK and potentially globally. 

With the support of local volunteers, the project aims to plant over five million seagrass seeds over an area of ten hectares by the end of 2026 – equivalent to over ten rugby pitches of seagrass off the Welsh coast. 1.2 million seeds were collected in North Wales in 2024 alone.

Project Seagrass, with WWF support, are developing and trialling innovative technology and restoration methods to make it easier and more cost effective to restore seagrass meadows at scale. In 2024, they trialled a mechanised planting sled towed by a boat that directly injects seeds into the seafloor. During the trial, over 300,000 seeds were planted, representing the largest mechanised subtidal seagrass seed planting effort in the UK to date.  

A single healthy meadow can be home to over 100 species of wildflowers, which in turn supports other meadow wildlife, including bees, butterflies and other pollinators – insects that we rely on to pollinate our food. Established wildflower meadows can even help to mitigate floods and store carbon.

But sadly, they’re at risk. Since the 1930s, we’ve lost almost all our lowland wildflower meadows in the UK, which is a staggering amount. Together with Air Wick, a brand of our partner Reckitt, WWF set out to restore 20 million square feet of wildflower habitats in the UK, by 2024.

On National Meadow Day (6th July), we celebrated that through working together with Air Wick we'd beat our target for wildflower meadow restoration in the UK! We've now protected and restored over 27 million square ft of wildflower habitat in the UK.  

Freshwater species populations have collapsed by 84% since the 1970s, with all 6 remaining river dolphin species considered Endangered or Critically Endangered.

With funding from the UK Government’s Darwin Initiative programme, WWF-UK partnered WWF-India and WWF-Pakistan to trial an innovative solution to bycatch - attaching acoustic ‘pingers’ to fishing nets - which showed promising results. Zero river dolphin deaths due to bycatch occurred during the trial.

Based on learnings from the pinger trials in Asia, WWF-Brazil, in partnership with the Society for Research and Protection of the Environment (Sapopema), tested the pingers from June 2023 to June 2024. In the first phase of testing, in an experimental setting, there was a 40% success rate in reducing damage to the fishing nets and a threefold increase in the amount of fish caught, positively impacting families' income and food supply. There were also no incidents of river dolphins becoming tangled in the fishing nets and communities reported an improved perception of river dolphins.

In the second phase, which included use of pingers by fishermen in their daily activities, the increase in the amount of fish caught was decreased to 50%. These results are still positive, and WWF-Brazil will continue to work with communities to test the pinger technology and scale up the trials with new communities.

Snow leopards, the world’s most notoriously elusive big cat, live in one of the most harsh and unforgiving habitats on the planet. For the first time ever, scientists in India conducted a comprehensive national survey revealing an estimated 718 of these cryptic cats reside within the country’s boarders – all roaming the rugged, mountainous terrain of the Himalayas.

With support by WWF-India, and other partners, the field work for ‘Snow Leopard Population Assessment in India’ took place between 2019 and 2023. The survey was an enormous undertaking, spanning over 10 million acres of high-altitude snow leopard habitat. About 2,000 camera traps were deployed, producing thousands of photos. Results analysis was completed in 2024.

As an apex predator in the Himalayas, snow leopards play a vital role in maintaining a balanced ecosystem. These findings provide a vital baseline for understanding the status of snow leopards and their habitat, offering essential data for future conservation and management efforts. 

Kenya’s black rhino population has made an amazing comeback, surpassing 1,000 black rhinos this year. 

The iconic, critically endangered species was on the brink of extinction in Kenya with fewer than 400 individuals left in the 1980s. They face relentless threats to their survival from poaching, habitat loss and increased frequency of droughts driven by climate change. 

Thanks to ongoing conservation efforts in Kenya, the population of black rhinos has more than doubled to over 1,000 individuals today. This incredible rise in numbers means Kenya is now halfway towards its goal to reach 2,000 black rhinos by 2037.

WWF has supported black rhino conservation in Kenya since the early 1960s and has supported the development of Kenya’s Black Rhino Action Plan for 2022-26, which will continue to guide conservation efforts in the coming years.