Communities Fund has provided £150 of match funding
Help save Oxfordshire's Black Poplar
Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
Your donation unlocks match funding
Boost your impact
Your donation unlocks match funding
Aim
Our iconic Black Poplar trees are on the bring of extinction. Donate to our campaign to restore these trees to our river and floodplains.
Oxfordshire’s iconic Black Poplar trees are on the brink of extinction.
The Black Poplar is one of the UK’s most distinctive native trees; a species once common on our riverbanks and floodplains.
We are working with communities and landowners to save this magnificent tree.
But decades of felling, land drainage and habitat loss have pushed the Black Poplar to the brink. Throughout Britain there are only an estimated 7,000 left. Nowhere is this decline more stark than along the river corridors of Oxfordshire, where fewer than 50 trees are thought to remain.
But there is hope.
Your donation could help us identify and gather seeds from remaining mature Black Poplar, grow trees in community nurseries and support volunteers to plant them on land where they will be cherished and protected.
💚💚 If you make a donation it will be TREBLED by match funding from the Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment up to the first £10,000 raised and by the Aviva Community Fund upto £25,000 raised.
With your support, a partnership of conservation organisations, local communities and landowners, are working to reverse this decline, restoring Black Poplars to their natural floodplain habitat, increasing genetic diversity and giving this remarkable species a future in Oxfordshire and beyond.
Why Black Poplar trees Matter
Black Poplars are more than just trees.
They hold a rich and enduring place in British culture, taking centre stage in arguably Britain’s most famous painting – The Hay Wain, by John Constable.
They are part of the character and ecology of our river valleys, growing alongside rivers and streams and forming part of the natural mosaic of floodplain habitats. They provide habitat and structure for wildlife, help connect fragmented landscapes and are a living link to the historic character of our river corridors.
Reintroducing these trees back into the landscape will have additional benefits too. Trees help water seep into the ground, where it is temporarily stored, slowing the flow downstream, helping to reduce flooding. The trees themselves can live for 200 years locking up carbon, producing oxygen and improving air quality whilst they are alive.
The Black Poplar is the food plant for the caterpillars of many moths, including the hornet, wood leopard, poplar hawk and figure of eight. The catkins provide an early source of pollen and nectar for bees and other insects, and the seeds are eaten by birds. (ref www.woodlandtrust.org.uk).
Our Vision
We want to see Black Poplars once again growing along Oxfordshire’s river corridors, the Thames, Evenlode, Windrush, Thame, and Ock.
Our vision is to create a healthy, genetically diverse population of Black Poplars, reconnecting surviving trees with restored floodplain habitats and ensuring the species can thrive for generations to come.
This means:
⦁ Finding and protecting the Black Poplars that remain.
⦁ Understanding the genetic diversity of the surviving population.
⦁ Growing and establishing genetically diverse new trees.
⦁ Working with landowners to identify opportunities for new planting.
⦁ Restoring the floodplain habitats that Black Poplars depend upon.
⦁ Involving local communities in the recovery of this iconic species.
What our partnership has already achieved
With funding from West Oxfordshire District Council and Vale of White Horse District Council, we have begun surveying known and potential Black Poplar sites along the River Thames.
We are also using environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques to investigate the genetic diversity of the remaining population. This work will help us understand what genetic resources survive today, and how we can use them to build a stronger population for the future.
But finding the trees is only the beginning.
Your support can help turn this knowledge into action.
How Your Donations Help
Every donation will help us move from surveying and understanding the remaining population to actively restoring the species to our landscape.
Your support can help fund:
🧬 Surveying and Genetic research — helping us understand and protect the genetic diversity of Oxfordshire’s surviving population.
🌱 Propagation of new trees — growing genetically diverse Black Poplars from the trees that remain in dedicated 'living library' nurseries.
🌳 New planting — establishing Black Poplars in suitable floodplain locations.
💧 Habitat restoration — improving the riverside and floodplain habitats that these trees need to thrive.
🤝 Working with landowners and communities — creating a landscape-scale recovery effort rather than isolated pockets of planting.
This is a long-term project, but every new tree represents another step towards a future where Black Poplars are once again a familiar sight along Oxfordshire’s rivers.
About Us
This project is being led by Sw~Ox — Swindon to Oxford: Regenerating the Thames and its Tributaries, a new landscape partnership dedicated to delivering projects that work across the landscape as a whole.
Sw~Ox brings together organisations with a shared commitment to restoring nature across the Thames catchment. Partners include Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust (BBOWT), the National Trust, Cotswolds Rivers Trust, Oxfordshire County Council and Long Mead Foundation.
Match funding and administration support is being provided by the Trust for Oxfordshire's Environment, whose mission is to help find funding to protect and restore nature and habitats across the county.
Help Us Give the Black Poplar a Future
There may be fewer than 50 Black Poplars left in Oxfordshire.
But there is still an opportunity to change their story.
With your help, we can protect the trees that remain, restore their genetic diversity and bring Black Poplars back to the rivers and floodplains where they belong.
A donation today will help give one of Oxfordshire’s most distinctive native trees a fighting chance. Helping to ensure that future generations can experience Black Poplars as a living part of our river landscapes and benefit from the nature and landscape restoration needed to fight climate change and nature loss.
Please donate and help us bring the Black Poplar back from the brink. Thank you.
NOTE : Match funding from Aviva Community Fund is limited to one matched donation per person with a single donation maximum of £250.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 25th November 2026 at 5:53am