This year, Big Wild Walk participants can create their own adventure, whether that’s by walking, running, cycling, wheeling, or swimming, offering flexibility for getting involved. Every little helps, and funds raised will go towards your local Wildlife Trust to help wildlife recover and contribute towards The Wildlife Trusts’ goal of protecting 30% of UK’s land and sea for nature by 2030.
The Wildlife Trusts are leading a swathe of projects across the UK to reintroduce keystone species such as beavers, restore habitats, and create bigger, buffered and better connected spaces for nature. In Wiltshire, Wiltshire Wildlife Trust is restoring precious chalk landscapes and chalk streams to provide much-needed havens for threatened wildlife, from rare butterflies such as the Duke of Burgundy and marsh fritillary, to the elusive water vole and the beautiful lapwing.
This autumn, The Wildlife Trusts have also teamed up with multi–Academy Award®-winning animation studio, Aardman Animations, to co-create Timmy Time materials to encourage families with young children to take part. The specially created Hedgehog Walk is designed for pre-school and Key Stage 1 pupils, who can choose their own Timmy Time themed character fundraising pack, including Apricot the hedgehog and Stripey the badger, to complete the challenge with. The challenge is to walk 3km in a week, the same distance a hedgehog travels each night.
The Big Wild Walk takes place during half term from Monday 16th to Monday 30th October 2023.
This year’s Big Wild Walk is set to be the most exciting yet with its new ambassador Rhiane Fatinikun backing this year’s challenge, founder of Black Girls Hike. Rhiane is an award-winning outdoors advocate and community organiser. She founded Black Girls Hike (BGH UK) in 2019 to challenge the stereotypes and lack of representation in the outdoors.