Planning permission is being sought by Susan Aglionby for a temporary classroom at The Croft, Houghton. Natural England has agreed to fund 90% of the cost of this temporary feature, which will benefit the school groups that visit this organic farm each year. Susan Aglionby, who owns and runs The Croft, has secured the funding so she can offer better facilities to the pupils who visit her organic farm. Up to 50 visits are made to the farm each year for educational purposes.

Each year millions of old mobile phones are either pushed to the back of a drawer or thrown away to add to the landfill burden. The North West Wildlife Trusts are asking anyone with an old mobile phone to recycle it to benefit the environment and wildlife.

Four rare-breed ponies have joined eight existing ponies living on a Cumbrian nature reserve.

The Exmoor ponies have been given a new home at Cumbria Wildlife Trust’s Drumburgh Moss National Nature Reserve, near Carlisle. The nature reserve has one of the last remaining peat bogs on the Solway Plain and the wet heathland area needs constant grazing to keep rank grasses from encroaching on the delicate heather species. The new ponies will be chomping their way through the unwanted molina grasses and silver birch shoots, greatly assisting the practical work that staff and volunteers on the nature reserve have been carrying out.

Pupils at Beaconside Primary School are celebrating this week after one of their classmates won Cumbria Wildlife Trust’s 2008 Christmas Card Competition. Sophie Austin, four, produced a skillful design of two blue tits amongst berries and leaves.

For the first time, nine ospreys were spotted resting and feeding at Foulshaw Moss Nature Reserve, near Witherslack, at the end of August. This is a sure sign that Cumbria Wildlife Trust’s restoration work there is bringing wetland birds back to south Cumbria.

10 Junior and Infant Schools in the Cockermouth catchments have been funded with educational membership to the Cumbria Wildlife Trust by Cockermouth Round Table. Membership of this organisation will enable the schools to tap into a wealth of expertise and resources that will benefit the schools, the teachers and the pupils.

Greggs the bakers has sold 2,200 limited edition iced ginger biscuits in shops throughout Cumbria, to raise money for Cumbria Wildlife Trust’s work to protect the red squirrel. Greggs generously donated 12.4 pence from every biscuit sold, raising a fantastic £275.

Local charity, Cumbria Wildlife Trust has won a public vote to win the title of Optimist Charity of the Week.

Cumbria Wildlife Trust is asking primary school children to get out their glitter and colouring pens to design a Cumbrian wildlife Christmas card. Squirrels, owls, oak trees and red deer are just some of the things that you could draw: so get creative!