The UK's two main herpetofauna charities - Froglife and The Herpetological Conservation Trust (the HCT) - have today merged to form a single new charity called 'Amphibian and Reptile Conservation’. Traditionally, Froglife focused its efforts on awareness and public campaigns, whereas the HCT's emphasis was on rare species conservation and managing 80 nature reserves.

Both organisations were created in 1989, and many observers have hoped for a long time that they would merge one day. They have been converging for some time, and today they formally merged and launched their new website at www.arc-trust.org. The new synergistic organisation aims to provide a single strong vehicle for herpetofauna conservation.