Peak District National Park Foundation

The Peak District National Park Foundation is an independent conservation charity with a mission to protect and enhance the Peak District National Park for thriving nature and people, ensuring its special qualities endure for future generations through sustainable fundraising and strategic partnerships. Core values of environmental stewardship, inclusivity, sustainability, and collaborative empowerment drive funding decisions, prioritizing evidence-led projects aligned with the National Park Management Plan. Their impact approach leverages matched resources, convenes cross-sector alliances, and scales landscape-level restoration alongside equitable access, believing systemic change arises from mobilizing public support, local action, and nature reconnection to foster biodiversity resilience and community wellbeing.

They fund habitat conservation and restoration targeting rare threatened moorlands, woodlands, peatlands, and biodiversity hotspots, climate adaptation measures building ecosystem resilience, sustainable access infrastructure like footpath improvements and visitor centres, and inclusive nature engagement programs prioritizing disadvantaged young people, children from deprived urban schools with high free school meal eligibility, people with physical disabilities, low-income communities, and ethnically diverse underrepresented groups. Supported activities include accessible outdoor classrooms and therapeutic outdoor activities for young people with disabilities, environmental education outings and school visits removing barriers for marginalized youth, community-led nature projects enhancing local green spaces, conservation volunteering for peer-led habitat management, and targeted tree planting in farmed landscapes to promote wildlife corridors and carbon sequestration, all emphasizing preventative resilience, community empowerment, and holistic benefits from nature immersion for social isolation, youth development, and mental wellbeing.

They exclude unrestricted core funding, activities lacking direct Park benefits, or projects unrelated to conservation, access, or engagement outcomes. Distinctive for landscape-scale interventions blending ecological restoration with social inclusion, they prioritize seldom-heard urban fringe communities facing deprivation, grassroots parish councils and volunteer groups, and corporate-partnered initiatives amplifying impact for disabled youth, ethnic minorities, and low-income families seeking transformative outdoor experiences in rural-national park settings.