Around 50,000 animals, including water voles, grass snakes, adders and great crested newts had to be moved to new habitat as part of the Futurescapes project.

The UK's wildlife will need more than nature reserves to tackle declines in species and climate change, the RSPB warned yesterday as it unveiled dozens of landscape-wide conservation projects. Protecting wildlife under pressure in fragmented "islands" of habitat was not enough to reverse losses and cope with rising temperatures, the charity said.

Aidan Lonergan, manager of the RSPB's "futurescapes" programme said the UK was a "crowded island" and there was a need to find ways to manage land to protect wildlife alongside delivering benefits such as food production, space for recreation, water management and carbon storage.