Exmoor river restoration wins international award

6th October 2025
SRA

A pioneering river restoration project on the National Trust’s Holnicote Estate in West Somerset has won a Silver award at the Global Good Awards 2025.

In the River Aller and Horner Water catchments on Exmoor, the National Trust has been creating new waterscapes and wetlands to help reduce flooding and improve habitats.

The Trust’s wide range of partners in this endeavour has included Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA), which has funded or part-funded 15 individual schemes.

The River Aller restoration site, with a view down to Allerford, Bossington, Porlock and the sea.

Recognition for the Trust’s overall ‘Resilient River Corridors’ project came in the Wild World: Recover, Regenerate, Rewild category of the Global Good Awards 2025. Gold in this section went to an organic, regenerative agroforestry project in Honduras; another silver award went to the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve community buy-out scheme in Scotland; bronze to the reintroduction of wild bison in the Southern Carpathians of Romania.

Simon Larkins, general manager for Somerset coast and countryside at the National Trust, said: “A massive thank you to my team and all our partners and farmers who have worked to make it all possible. The work has included reintroducing water vole and beavers, Stage Zero river schemes and thousands of trees being planted and much, much more. The biggest winner is nature.”

Earlier this year the National Trust’s Holnicote project also won the 2025 UK River Prize for Catchment Restoration.

A ground-level view of the River Aller restoration site, where locally-felled timbers have been used to help create a wetland habitat that slows the flow of water downstream.

Other funders and supporters have included the Environment Agency, Natural England, Interreg 2 Seas Co-Adapt, Defra’s Green Recovery Challenge and Species Survival funds, South West Peat Partnership, Round 1 of the UK government’s Landscape Recovery Scheme and several philanthropists. Partners have included tenant farmers, ecologists, hydrologists, archaeologists, universities and local people.

The Global Good Awards were set up in 2015 to “reward businesses, NGOs, charities and social enterprises of all shapes and sizes around the world, that are blazing the trail for purpose-driven sustainability and ethical leadership. They recognise leaders who are achieving practical, real-world impact that is both scalable and replicable – and who have inspiring stories to tell”.