Wildlife conservation’s heroes and heroines – announcing the Finalists of the NBN Awards for Wildlife Recording 2024

Wednesday 25 September, 2024We are delighted to announce the 35 individuals and organisations who have been short-listed as Finalists of the NBN Awards for Wildlife Recording 2024. The winners will be announced on Thursday 21 November, at the NBN Conference in Liverpool.

This year there are two new categories of awards – the NBN Lifetime Achievement Award and the NBN Verifier's Award – and we were pleased to receive 60 nominations spanning all seven Award categories:
NBN Lifetime Achievement Award 2024
NBN Verifier’s Award 2024
NBN Award for Terrestrial Wildlife Recording 2024
NBN Award for Marine Wildlife Recording 2024
NBN Group Award 2024
NBN Newcomer Award 2024
NBN Young Person’s Award 2024 (open to individuals aged 11-20)
Lisa Chilton, CEO of the NBN Trust, says:

“We can’t overstate the importance of the work that wildlife recorders and verifiers do! Monitoring how different species are faring in different parts of the country is vital to our conservation efforts and reversing biodiversity loss.

“Many wildlife recorders and verifiers are unpaid volunteers, who give their time and expertise freely, and also encourage others to get involved. The NBN Awards are our way of saying a heart-felt thank you to the ‘unsung-heroes’ of the UK’s wildlife recording community.

“We also thank the people who took the trouble to nominate these incredible individuals and wildlife groups for the various NBN Awards – without these nominators, we’d have no awards. Finally, a big thank you to our Award Sponsors - whose support is hugely appreciated.”

Finalists of the NBN Lifetime Achievement Award 2024Lin Baldock (from Dorset, England)Charlotte Bolton (from Dorset, England)Graham Calow (from Leicestershire, England)Stuart Crofts (from South Yorkshire, England)Roger Morris (from Surrey, England) and Stuart Ball (from Northamptonshire, England)Finalists of the NBN Verifier’s Award 2024Mark Cubitt (from West Lothian, Scotland)Alyson Freeman (from Lincolnshire, England)Stuart Roberts (from Wiltshire, England) and Matt Smith (from Berkshire, England)Barry Warrington (from East Yorkshire, England)Finalists of the NBN Award for Terrestrial Wildlife Recording 2024Katty Baird (from East Lothian, Scotland)Dave Bentley (from Greater Manchester, England)Rebecca Lewis (from Midlothian, Scotland)Paul Taylor (from Ceredigion, Wales)Lisa Williams (from Staffordshire, England)Finalists of the NBN Award for Marine Wildlife Recording 2024Lin Baldock (from Dorset, England)Charlotte Bolton (from Dorset, England)Nic Coombey (from Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland)Steven Farquhar (from County Antrim, Northern Ireland)Diane Westwood (from Norfolk, England)Finalists of the NBN Group Award 2024Amphibian and Reptile Groups of UK (ARG UK) – UK-wideHeartwood Forest wildlife monitoring group – from Hertfordshire, EnglandMammalWeb – UK-widePenwith Wildlife Recorders’ Group (PWRG) – from Cornwall, EnglandTrent Valley Wildlife Recording Group – from Staffordshire, EnglandFinalists of the NBN Newcomer Award 2024Karen Fry (from Nottinghamshire, England)Charlotte Shenkin (from Jersey, Channel Islands)Margaret Stevens (from Leicestershire, England)Helen Whitehead (from West Midlands, England)Kayleigh Woodhouse (from Nottinghamshire, England)Finalists of the NBN Young Person’s Award 2024 (open to individuals aged 11-20)Henry Colnet (13 years old, from Suffolk, England)Holly Doherty (19 years old, from Inverness, Scotland)Max Loraine (14 years old, from Midlothian, Scotland)Aoife (18 years old, from County Down, Northern Ireland)Niamh (16 years old, from County Down, Northern Ireland)Ben Rumsby (18 years old, from Essex, England)Sponsors of the NBN Awards for Wildlife Recording 2024

This year we are indebted to seven organisations for their generous support:RSPB for sponsoring prizes for the NBN Lifetime Achievement Award and for the NBN Verifier’s Award.Opticron for sponsoring prizes for the NBN Young Person's Award and for the NBN Newcomer Award.Habitat Aid for sponsoring prizes for the NBN Award for Marine Wildlife Recording, the NBN Award for Terrestrial Wildlife Recording and the NBN Group Award.Field Studies Council for sponsoring the prize in the NBN Group Award.William Collins for sponsoring prizes for the NBN Young Person’s Award, the NBN Newcomer Award, the NBN Award for Marine Wildlife Recording and for the NBN Award for Terrestrial Wildlife Recording.British Wildlife magazine for sponsoring a prize for the NBN Newcomer Award.Natural History Book Service (NHBS)
for sponsoring a prize for the NBN Young Person’s Award. /Ends.
For more information, for photographs and to arrange interviews with individual NBN Award Finalists please contact Purba Choudhury, NBN Trust Communications Officer, via: p.choudhury@nbn.org.uk or on: 0115-850 0172.Notes to Editors:National Biodiversity Network TrustWe’re a small charity with a big plan – to make data work for nature. For more than 20 years we’ve been making wildlife data accessible, to support better decisions about the natural world and to connect people with nature.

We manage the NBN Atlas, the UK’s largest repository of publicly available biodiversity data – holding over 300 million records of 50,000 plus species – from ladybirds, red squirrels and toads through to rare lichen, fungi and endangered insects.

We also manage iNaturalistUK, as well as supporting the National Biodiversity Network – the UK’s largest partnership for nature. It is a collaboration of around 200 organisations committed to sharing UK wildlife data and making it easily available – using the NBN Atlas: nbnatlas.org

Members of the National Biodiversity Network include some well-known organisations, such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the National Trust, Butterfly Conservation and the Woodland Trust, as well as lesser-known groups such as Longhorn Beetle Recording Scheme, Riverfly Partnership and Outer Hebrides Recording Group, to name just a few.

The one thing that unites everyone involved in the Network is their desire for high-quality wildlife data to provide a robust evidence base for environmental decision-making. Data providers share their biodiversity data via the NBN Atlas: nbnatlas.org

2.  By “wildlife recording” we mean the surveying of wildlife in one’s local area and submitting records of these sightings to a local or national wildlife organisation or relevant app.

3.  Background of the NBN Awards for Wildlife RecordingThe National Biodiversity Network Trust set up this national award scheme in 2015, in partnership with the Biological Records Centre and the National Forum for Biological Recording. It was called the UK Awards for Biological Recording and Information Sharing and has evolved into the NBN Awards for Wildlife Recording that we have today.

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