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A decade of joined-up conservation involving more than 135 separate Shropshire community projects and the best part of half a million pounds of investment is paying handsome dividends in protecting and enhancing one of the UK's most valuable landscape gems.

Enabled by £200,000 of locally-raised grants from the Shropshire Hills Landscape Trust since its inception in the summer of 2016, together with match funding and many thousands of hours of volunteer time, the projects have spanned almost every area of conservation across almost a quarter of the county.

They have brought together more than a thousand Shropshire people of all ages to better understand and improve the National Landscape's natural beauty, wildlife and heritage.

In the past three years alone, the volunteer work has extended to an incredibly broad range of activity – from wildflower meadow management, butterfly recovery, curlew and swift conservation, pine marten and dormouse monitoring and wildlife pond creation to road-side verge restoration, veteran tree care, forest school development, youth ranger support, river improvement and heritage building restoration.

The Trust enables local people, businesses and organisations to actively care for the countryside around them across the Shropshire Hills National Landscape, explains Trust chair Rachel Cockett. Behind the statistics lies a whole host of important landscape gains: wildflower meadows created and restored; rare butterflies, birds and mammals protected; young people connected with their natural heritage; historic sites cared for; and habitats improved as havens for wildlife.

These achievements belong to many — to the funders who enable the work, the community groups who develop the ideas, and the volunteers who give their time and energy to turn them into solid gains on the ground.

Over the Trust's first 10 years, small grants have catalysed big changes, with local knowledge and expertise guiding the conservation work as communities come together around shared purposes.

In a number of cases, the Trust's support has acted as seed corn for groups to develop much wider activities and influence, Rachel points out. One small south Shropshire village, for example, began managing local verges positively for wildlife back in 2020. Several other communities have since taken up the idea, and it has grown into the much wider Restoring Shropshire Verges Project (RSVP) initiative, now with buy-in from the county highways team and national recognition.

The funding enabling all these valuable conservation gains comes principally from the Trust's Friends — supporters paying regular subscriptions — and generous annual backing from The Millichope Foundation. This is enhanced by contributions from a number of other grant-giving bodies, businesses, parish and town councils and individuals.

As the Trust celebrates its 10th year, its small group of Trustees and helpers is firmly focussed on the challenge ahead.

The need for conservation funding continues to grow, and applications to the Trust's Conservation Fund consistently exceed what it can provide. This anniversary year, in particular, the Trust is stepping up its efforts to strengthen and extend what it can do.

Anyone able to become a Friend, a business supporter, or to make a one-off donation to mark the Trust's birthday would make a real difference to what can be achieved in the years to come, Rachel adds. Every contribution helps the Trust say yes to more worthwhile projects, getting more people involved in caring for more of the Shropshire Hills so dear to everyone.