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Volunteering
Volunteering with Natural England
We encourage people from all walks of life to take an interest and to be active in supporting nature conservation where they live and work.
What do our volunteers do?
A wide variety of roles are undertaken by our volunteers. Here are a few of the common roles:
- Voluntary Warden
- Guided walk leader
- Survey and monitoring
- Practical habitat management
Thinking of volunteering or gaining work experience with Natural England?
Already a Natural England volunteer/student?
Spreading the word
Our volunteers are ambassadors for nature. They help to spread the word about us and the special sites and species we protect.
Volunteers bring a huge range of new skills to Natural England. We are also able to increase the amount of time spent on protecting nature. We have estimated that, in total, our volunteers give around 29,000 days of support per year!
The true value of volunteering
Many environmental organisations depend on the support from committed and enthusiastic volunteers but new research by Natural England has revealed the true value of their help.
Volunteer Investment and Value Audit (VIVA) is a recognised performance management tool in the voluntary sector, being well tried and tested by many charities and voluntary groups since 1996. The Volunteer Investment and Value Audit for 2011: (266kb)
discovered 3000 volunteers provided over 29,300 working days, which has a market value of over £3.5 million.
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Natural England’s inaugural ‘Volunteer of the Year’ award
(8 February 2013) To recognise and celebrate the invaluable contribution that volunteers make to our work, we asked our staff to put forward their nominations for our new ‘Volunteer of the Year’ award. The results are now in.
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“Thank you” to all the Shapwick Heath volunteers for over 2,000 hours of great white egret work
(10 October 2012) Over 40 volunteers recently joined Natural England Board Member Doug Hulyer at a barbecue to say thank you for their work on the great white egret project.
