Our approach to conservation

Visitors walking through the parkland in autumn at Montacute, Somerset. A large area of grass surrounded with an avenue of trees stretches away towards the house in the background glowing in the autumn sun. — The 16th-century house and parkland bathed in autumn sunshine at Montacute, Somerset | © National Trust Images/John Miller

In 2025, we set out a renewed long-term vision for the National Trust through our People and Nature Thriving Strategy. At its heart is a simple but powerful commitment: to ensure the places in our care continue to enrich people’s lives and sustain nature for generations to come.

As part of delivering that ambition, we have refreshed our conservation approach. This framework guides how we care for the land, heritage, collections and stories entrusted to us.

Conservation in a changing world

For much of our history, conservation was often seen as the art of keeping things the same. But anyone who works closely with the places we look after knows that caring for them has always meant navigating change.

Landscapes shift. Species adapt. Buildings evolve. And the ways people value and experience places continue to grow and diversify. Today, environmental pressures – from climate change to biodiversity loss – mean that change is not only constant but accelerating.

Dynamic and forward looking

We are responding to this reality by adopting a more dynamic and future-focused approach. It builds on more than a century of experience, and on the insight and expertise of colleagues, partners and communities across the nations we serve.

At the core of this approach is a commitment to maximising public benefit. That means protecting what is most precious, while allowing places to evolve so they remain relevant, resilient and life enhancing, recognising the needs of people and places both now and in the future.

What this means in practice

Our conservation decisions are shaped by three key actions:

Maintaining what is truly irreplaceable – whether an ancient woodland, a fragile artefact or a long-established landscape pattern.
Renewing where places must adapt to new conditions, new uses or fresh understandings of their significance.
Innovating where the future calls for different responses, especially in the face of the climate and nature crises.

Principles that guide us

Our new conservation principles ensure our decisions are future facing, informed, dynamic, inclusive, connected, creative and rooted in story, reflecting the breadth of what conservation now requires. They also reaffirm our belief that the Trust’s role is not to stop the clocks but to carry the best of the past into the future with care, wisdom and imagination.