National Trust members have backed the conservation organisation’s moves to restore nature on the properties it cares for on behalf of the nation.

More than 127,000 of the charity’s members voted on its policies to manage its land in a way which protects and enhances the natural environment at the Annual General Meeting on Saturday.

Of those, 70% rejected a motion to criticise the Trust’s drive to rewet carbon-rich peatlands, expand native woodlands, reverse the decline in biodiversity and acquire more land to expand nature restoration.

Luke Steele, Executive Director of Wild Moors, said: “The world is fast moving in a direction where restoring land for nature, carbon capture and people is at the forefront of solving climate change and biodiversity loss. Today, the National Trust’s members have voted to continue a bold drive of ecological restoration on the land it cares for on behalf of the nation and to consign environmentally damaging practices to the history books.”

While all areas of the National Trust’s properties are the focus of its nature-restoration efforts, the Trust has focused much of its attention on returning its upland estates in the Pennines to an ecologically healthy state. 

At Holcombe Moor, near Bury, a pioneering landscape-scale restoration project has provided a model for maintaining upland sites for flood mitigation. Harnessing the power of healthy peatland to hold back vast amounts of rainwater, the Trust has rewetted the moor by constructing hundreds of peat bunds, blocking drainage ditches and planting sphagnum moss. Early results already show the promising potential of the initiative with properties in the nearby community protected from being flooded during severe storms.

Meanwhile, following a submission by Wild Moors to the Trust’s grouse shooting review held in the spring, the landowner has taken steps to restrict intensive management of its sites in the Peak District for game bird shooting. This includes adopting a complete ban on burning peatlands, no longer permitting the trapping and snaring of predators for driving up game bird numbers for shooting and ending the use of medicated grit by shooting tenants.

The National Trust has also not renewed its grouse shooting lease on the Marsden Moor Estate, nr Huddersfield, although the practice continues on its moorlands in the High Peak, nr Sheffield. Wild Moors, which welcomes the progress, is continuing to encourage the Trust to build on the move by ending its remaining grouse shooting leases altogether.

Luke Steele adds: “As opposition to grouse shooting continues to grow, Wild Moors is calling on the National Trust to truly turn its High Peak moors into a nature reserve where wildlife is left in peace and consign this cruel and damaging practice to the history books.”