Bill Oddie salutes Wildlife Trusts for 100 years of conservation

Naturalists Bill Oddie and Simon King joined schoolchildren to celebrate the centenary of British nature conservation.

The Wildlife Trusts charity was founded in 1912 by banker Charles Rothschild and was originally called the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves.

There are about 60 reserves in London run by the trusts’ London branch, which fights to protect, maintain and restore the capital’s woodlands and wetlands.

Sir David Attenborough, vice-president, said: “The countryside of Britain is much better for the work of the wildlife trusts — and I believe that work will become increasingly important.”

The TV presenters were joined by pupils from Cavendish Primary School in Chiswick at the nearby Gunnersbury Triangle nature reserve to mark the centenary.

This week the Standard reported how botanist David Bellamy and actress Rula Lenska were fighting an eight-storey development of 124 flats which they claim would shatter the peace of the Triangle.