A WILDLIFE television presenter will visit the North Pennines to celebrate the end of a community initiative to keep watch over the area’s animals and plants.

BBC presenter Nick Baker will join in celebrations next month after a successful three year project that has seen more than 700 volunteers sign up.

The project was set up to get more people out and about recording wildlife information in and around the North Pennines in a bid to understand more about the area’s animals and plants.

To date, more than 20,000 sightings have been recorded.

Mr Baker, who is the vice president of Butterfly Conservation, said: “The North Pennines is an amazing place, with abundance of wildlife as this project has proved.

“Galvanising people into getting out and about to record what’s going on on their patch is no mean feat. You have to both enthuse people and educate them – something that WildWatch has done admirably.

“Without these volunteers, not just in the North Pennines but across the whole of the UK, we wouldn’t have the understanding of the natural world that we now do. I’m very proud to be part of this final celebration.”

The North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Partnership’s WildWatch project is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.