The National Trust has achieved a significant milestone in its nature restoration efforts, restoring over 20,000 hectares of priority habitats across the UK, ahead of its 2025 target. This area, twice the size of Greater Manchester, marks a major success in the organisation’s mission to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss.

The restoration spans a variety of important habitats, including peatlands, woodlands, meadows and heathlands, across the Trust’s extensive 250,000-hectare landholdings. By revitalising these areas, the Trust aims to halt and reverse the decline of vulnerable wildlife and bolster the resilience of these ecosystems against future environmental challenges.

Many of the restored sites, some designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), play a vital role in safeguarding biodiversity and storing carbon—essential for mitigating the impacts of climate change.

Ben McCarthy, Head of Nature and Restoration Ecology at the National Trust said in a media statement: “Our focus on restoring our most important habitats to help our precious wildlife is not only contributing towards national conservation targets but is also a critical response to the challenge of climate change.

“Our approach uses nature-based solutions to both the nature and climate emergencies with a focus on restoring carbon rich habitats such as peatlands and improving or creating new woodlands as well as adaptive approaches to meaning the landscapes we work in, including restoring rivers.”

A flagship area for this work has been the High Peak Estate, in Derbyshire, where the Trust has undertaken an ambitious peatland and woodland restoration programme. The project is also seeing the revival of rivers and the introduction of sustainable grassland and heathland management practices, including conservation grazing of hardy cattle.

The initiative recently won praise from environmental bodies, with Natural England’s chairman, Tony Juniper, hailing the Trust’s collaborative efforts as vital for the UK’s natural and climate resilience. When visiting the High Peak Estate last month, he took to X (formerly Twitter) to say: “Went to see progress on the vision for landscape recovery in the Peak District National Park…huge opportunities for economic and ecological renewal going forward”.

A shift towards more sustainable land management has also seen the Trust curtail intensive practices associated with grouse shooting, which still takes place on some, albeit a significantly reduced area, of the estate.

Burning of vegetation on carbon-rich peatlands has been completely ended; the damaging practice was previously used for cultivating younger, more nutritious heather to be eaten by game birds. The non-therapeutic use of medicated grit, which is deployed to sustain unnaturally and unhealthily high populations of grouse, has also been halted.

Shooting tenants are also no longer permitted to trap and kill stoats, weasels, foxes and corvids for the purpose of maintaining and driving up game bird numbers.

This landmark restoration effort underscores the National Trust’s leading role in protecting natural heritage and sets a strong example for other landowners to follow.

(Image credit: Tom Wheatley)