We have set out a vision explaining how we will work, in partnership with others, to protect and make the most of the land we care for in the White Peak for people and nature. Find out more about our plans here.
What is special about the White Peak?
The beautiful expansive open hills and sweeping views in the White Peak are interspersed with hidden dales and interesting rock formations nestled in ravines. The underlying limestone geology supports rare plants and animals across woodlands, rivers and meadows. It also holds some intriguing and important archaeological features.
It’s a place where rural tradition and farming have supported livelihoods for generations and somewhere that is enjoyed by the local community and visitors.
What do we want to achieve?
By working in partnership with farmers and other partners on land in our care, and beyond our boundaries, we want to work at the pace and scale needed to restore nature and ensure the White Peak becomes resilient to climate change.
We’ll create a place thriving with wildlife by ensuring there are more native trees, plants, flowers and animals needed to support the delicate ecosystem in woodland, scrubland, grasslands, rivers and waterways.
We will play our part to ensure the White Peak landscape continues to provide a place for people to live, work and spend time in nature. We will welcome everyone and do what we can to ensure people can access and benefit from what the landscape offers here.
Alongside this, we will continue to care for and learn from the heritage features in the White Peak.
The White Peak landscape now and in the future.
Move the slider to the right to see what the White Peak landscape looks like now, and to the left to see what it might look like in the future.
The mix of woodland, scrub and grassland in the White Peak will be home to more native plants and animals than it is today. Rivers and waterways will meander through the landscape and have an abundance of life in and around them.
There are already pockets of land which are a haven for wildlife and do a great job at storing carbon. We will take what is good here and expand it across the landscape to provide bigger and better homes for nature, help pollinate our crops, improve soil health, reduce the risk of flooding and store more carbon.
To do that, the land needs to be managed to create a mosaic of habitats made up of grassland, healthy rivers, woodland, and scrub. These varied habitats need to blend into one another and connect to ensure they provide a range of routes and options for wildlife to live, feed, and breed.
We’ll be working, in partnership with others, to ensure the land in our care and beyond our boundaries is teeming with life and with healthy ecosystems.
We’ll support the network of farmers we work with to be even bigger players in nature recovery and climate resilience, while producing good food and running sustainable businesses.
We will protect the best of what has been in the landscape for generations at the same time as ensuring nature’s recovery, working in partnership with our tenant farmers, neighbours and other partners.
We’ll connect people with the landscape, play our part to end unequal access, and inspire people to care and take action.
People are proud to live and work in the White Peak, and visitors travel from larger towns and cities to enjoy its beauty. With that in mind, we have an opportunity to inspire them to care for this place when they are here through programming and volunteering.
People play a huge role in shaping the health of the landscape. Equally, the landscape and the environment play a role in the physical and mental health of people. We want to ensure people can connect with the beauty and heritage of the White Peak. One way we will do that is to continue our work to maintain and improve access routes and facilities to enable people to experience the joy of being in the White Peak landscape.
We will also play our part to promote and support sustainable travel options to visitor hubs.
The White Peak has a rich diversity in heritage from the last ice age to the present day, which helps to provide a sense of place. By understanding historical uses of the landscape, what activities which have taken place here, and which plants and other wildlife would have been here, we can share stories of change and adaptation. This also helps us to shape what the future of the place should be.
We’ll ensure people can explore, interpret, and connect to the heritage of the area. We'll also continue to build our knowledge through research and monitoring.
We’ll continue to look after the heritage features which are already in our care and protect and restore more land and heritage features as we connect landscapes.
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How you can help
There is a lot to be getting on with. And it is going to take the skills, insights, detailed knowledge and entrepreneurship of a whole community to make it a reality.
You can help us to make these plans a reality in different ways.
Looking after the landscape when you visit and leave no trace.
Rangers and volunteers in the White Peak have been busy planting trees as part of a project to tackle the effects of ash dieback and create healthy woodlands for the future.
New land in our care at Grindon in the White Peak area of the Peak District will help us protect, connect and develop important woodland and grassland.
We've welcomed Gillian Scotford from AccessibleUK back to Ilam Park, where a second phase of work to ensure more visitors can explore further into the parkland, has been completed.
The nation is currently witnessing the widespread effects of ash dieback. Learn about how the National Trust is tackling this issue in the Peak District.
