The National Trust (NT) is hoping you’ll do just that as part of its ambitious new plans to tackle the climate and nature crises, as well as address the unequal access to nature and cultural heritage in the UK.
The conservation charity’s new 10-year strategy, launched on its 130th birthday this January, includes a new ‘Adopt a plot’ fundraising initiative at six “nature super sites”.
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Anyone with the ready funds will be able to sponsor nature recovery work on a plot of land at sites in the Peak District in Derbyshire; Killerton in Devon; Wallington in Northumberland; Cambridgeshire’s Wicken Fen; Eryri in North Wales; and Divis the Black Mountain in Northern Ireland, where a project to restore up to 133 hectares of peatland is already underway.
Other pillars of the NT’s strategy include creating 250,000 more hectares of nature-rich landscape on its own land and in collaboration with other landowners, farmers and local communities; restore carbon-storing peatland and improve the health of enough soil to provide a habitat for one billion earthworms – enough to ring the earth twice; and support 100 towns and cities to expand their networks of green spaces through a new programme Nature Towns and Cities, to be launched this summer.
The far-reaching 10-year strategy was informed by the results of a public consultation, when over 70,000 people – including members and volunteers – shared their views on the Trust’s work. To pay for it all, the NT hopes to raise more funds in the next decade than it has in the previous 100 years.
NT director general Hilary McGrady said: “Our charity’s founders were passionate campaigners who recognised the threats to our natural and cultural heritage, and, against the odds, did something about it. That same boldness is needed today. The Trust is uniquely placed to do something about these challenges and it’s why we are setting ourselves these ambitious but much-needed goals.”
To encourage more people to get involved, it will create new volunteering opportunities on NT sites and with partner organisations. One opportunity this spring is to volunteer on the two-year, £4.2 million Freshwater Renaissance project that aims to restore a network of biodiverse freshwater habitats on five sites across England, including South Manchester and Norfolk.
Also launching this year is an NT apprenticeship scheme for 130 young people, in careers such as countryside management, IT, finance, gardening and project management; the first round of apprenticeships will open for applications this May.
For the first time in its history, the charity is appointing ambassadors to promote its work and raise awareness; already recruited are author and environmentalist Mya-Rose Craig, classicist and author Professor Mary Beard and historian, broadcaster and film-maker David Olusoga.
New spending on conservation and development will include a £17 million transformation of Bath Assembly Rooms; the £1.2 million roof restoration of a 420-year-old Great Barn at Gawthorpe Hall, Lancashire; the purchase of 78 hectares of land at Lunt in Sefton to support a new network of woodland, woody habitats, wetlands and grassland; and opening the NT’s first site in the heart of Coventry, Grade I-listed, 14th-century former monastery Charterhouse, with a walled garden and green space.
In the centre of Grantham, Lincolnshire, this March the NT is also opening 14th-century town house Grantham House, offering a new community space and café, plus five acres of gardens including formal lawns and a walled garden.