By GB News (World News) | Created at 2025-01-11 22:21:19 | Updated at 2025-01-12 01:36:35
3 hours ago
The National Trust has unveiled plans to transform 250,000 hectares of land into wildlife-friendly landscapes as part of an ambitious 10-year strategy, a move which farmers have said "desecrate" them.
The target area represents nearly all land owned by the charity, which is currently the UK's largest farm owner.
With more than 1,300 tenant farmers across an estate one-and-a-half times the size of Greater London, the Trust's rewilding initiative marks a significant shift in land management.
The charity plans to achieve this goal through a combination of using its existing estate, purchasing new land, and collaborating with other landowners.
The Trust claimed the land had 'the potential to deliver much more for nature, climate and wider public benefit' as part of a 'corridor for nature'
Getty
"They desecrate good working farms, and food is going to go down," he said. "While it used to produce enough food to feed a large village, it's now producing the square root of not a lot."
George Dunn, chief executive of the Tenant Farmers Association, criticised the Trust for "removing land from the farmed estate unnecessarily for rewilding".
The National Trust's new strategy, launched to mark its 130th anniversary, aims to address what it calls "the new national need: the climate and nature crises".
"For 130 years, the National Trust has responded to the crises and challenges of the time," said Hilary McGrady, the Trust's director-general.
"Today, nature is declining before our eyes and climate change is threatening homes and habitats on a colossal scale," she added.
One anonymous farmer left his land after three decades when asked to reduce livestock numbers by 85 per cent to accommodate rewilding plans
Getty
The initiative aligns with Government post-Brexit policies, which encourage large landowners to undertake tree planting and rewilding across extensive landscapes.
A Trust spokesman said they would focus on "connecting habitats and enabling natural processes to operate" while collaborating with people both on and off their land.
The National Trust maintains that nature-friendly farming and conservation can coexist harmoniously.
"Nature-friendly farming practices have been vital to so much of our work," a Trust spokesman said. "We'll continue to support the network of farmers we work with across the land to be even bigger players in nature recovery and climate resilience."
The spokesman emphasised these weren't "diametrically opposed visions" but rather "two sides of the same coin."
George Dunn offered cautious optimism about the Trust's new direction, noting: "It is good to see that farming and food have been placed at the centre of the strategy, whereas, in the past, talk of food and farming was almost considered inappropriate in many National Trust circles."
