The badger has survived, looking cooler and altogether more alert than anyone can remember.

Over the decades, the badger's benign features have welcomed thousands of nature lovers to memorable days in meadows and ancient woodland.

Killing him off somehow would be just too cruel a way to mark the anniversary of BBONT (Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Naturalist Trust), the charity that for 40 years has protected the county's wildlife.

Now it is BBONT itself, for all its achievements and past glories, which is not going to make it to the new Millennium - BBONT the quaint and loveable acronym that is.

The trust is most certainly carrying on, and will emerge from its birthday celebrations on Monday with a new name, a spruced-up badger logo and a clear determination to build on what is a remarkable legacy. From next week BBONT's 12,500 members and its 1,500 volunteers will become the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust.

The charity's director Martin Spray says it reflects the urgent need to put BBONT in step with other wildlife groups. "BBONT is an organisation that is loved by those who know it. But I sometimes think we are one of the best-kept secrets in the country. People know us locally but we need to be recognised nationally as a tremendous force as well."

He looks forward to Oxfordshire becoming part of a powerful alliance of 46 wildlife trusts, with a collective membership of 350,000.

What a different planet the wildlife trust's founders occupied as they trooped into the City of Oxford School hall in November 1959. The predominantly academic background of the membership ensured it was more an exclusive acadmeic club rather than a popular movement. But this was long before even the likes of Greenpeace, the Friends of the Earth and the World Wildlife Fund had been born. Today the trust is credited with saving habitats from the Chilterns to the Cotswolds, including 390 hectares of ancient woodland.

Its hunger for new reserves, came close to bringing about financial disaster by the mid 1980s.

Marketing manager, Ms Philippa Lyons, said: "With hindsight, it is easy to see now, that the Trust was overconfident about its ability to manage its growing number of nature reserves."

But the trustees have some right to ask what would otherwise have happened to all those habitats such woodland at Foxholes, in Wychwood, and Bernwood Meadows that are now safe and secure for future generations?

They certainly did not suffer from lack of imagination. The need to manage its grassland reserves led the Trust to buy a flock of hardy rare sheep before launching the Sponsored Sheep Scheme to fund them. For just £1 a week, each sponsor could name 'their' sheep and have their photograph taken with it. Within days all 120 sheep had been sponsored, with the sheep featured on BBC's Six O'Clock News and Blue Peter. The Trust now enjoys a large slice of £870,000 from the National Lottery for 40 UK nature reserves and £200,000 of Landfill Tax money . There was more good news with National Power recently pledging £300,000 towards the cost of the new Didcot Environment Centre, in the shadow of the power station.

At its Littlemore headquarters today founder members and volunteers will join children from Stanford in the Vale Wildlife Watch Group at the anniversary party.

Mr Spray says: "I often say that a robin on a bird feeder on the window of a tenement flat is more important to the occupier than saving the Monkey Orchid," said Mr Spray. "We have now got to be relevant to people."

Story date: Monday 15 November

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