The National Trust has launched a £1bn strategy to protect land in England, Wales and Ireland from damage caused by decades of “unsustainable land management”.

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• Developing new economic models of land use to share with others and champion the role of nature in our lives;
• Working with its tenant farmers to improve all our land to a good condition;
• Working with other organisations to conserve and renew the nation’s most important landscapes.

Trust Chair Tim Parker stressed that the new approach will involve more collaborative work with other organisations.

Helen Ghosh, the Trust’s Director General, elaborated on the need for the strategy, saying, “The natural environment is in poor health, compromised by decades of unsustainable management and under pressure from climate change. Wildlife has declined, over-worked soils are washing out to sea; villages and towns are flooded.

"Millions of people love and cherish the great outdoors, it’s vital to our sense of well-being, our identity and our health. But beyond that nature also supports us in all kinds of other ways, from flood protection to carbon storage. We can't keep taking it for granted."

Ghosh added, "Our strategy calls on the National Trust to respond to these threats and play its part in new ways: achieving a step change in how we look after our own countryside, and reaching out to partners and communities beyond our boundaries to meet the challenges we face at this moment in our history.

"This is a long-term commitment, for the benefit of generations to come: we know that many of our changes will take thirty years or more."

Responding to the announcement, NFU tenants national spokesperson Chris Cardell said, “I would ask that the National Trust work with their tenant farmers… on any key environmental management schemes which they might develop as a ‘whole estate approach’.

"For this strategy to work, the partnership between the National Trust and its tenant farmers is ever more important."

Cardell found it  "Disappointing" that the Trust did not mention more positive work being done by farmers, including "The adoption of good practices… participation in agri-environment schemes and initiatives such as the Campaign for the Farmed Environment."