Mend Our Mountains Returns With £1 Million Target

Mend Our Mountains, the award-winning, campaign which raised more than £100,000 to repair Britain’s hills and mountains has returned. This year however, it has set its sights ten times higher.

The Mend Our Mountains: Make One Million campaign launched today and is aiming to raise £1 million for a range of vital path repair projects across all of Britain’s 15 National Parks. The projects will range from the high reaches of the Cairngorms to the gentle coast of the Solent, with 13 ‘primary’ projects across England, Wales and Scotland.

This campaign embraces a sense of collective pride and responsibility towards looking after some of our best-loved landscapes.

lan Hinkes OBE, the only Briton to have summited all 14 of the world’s peaks above 8,000 metres says “It might seem like our hills and mountains are small by world standards but they can foster great achievements and they mean a huge amount to the people who live in these islands. We all have a responsibility to take care of them and Mend Our Mountains: Make One Million is a great way of doing that.”

The Make One Million appeal follows on from the first Mend Our Mountains campaign, a two month crowdfunding drive in spring 2016 that, thanks to the generosity of the outdoor public, raised £103,832 to restore mountain paths across England and Wales. The funds raised in this campaign have since contributed to the positive restoration of seven badly damaged upland sites, and work on an eighth is set to commence next year.

Alongside the financial success of this campaign, it garnered national news coverage for Mend Our Mountains, raising awareness and engaging the general public with of the challenges of looking after our most precious landscapes. The campaign made many more people consider the responsibility we have to ensure that future generations can enjoy these incredible natural landscapes.

Mary Ann Ochota, broadcaster, anthropologist and BMC hill walking ambassador says “today more people than ever are experiencing the joy of the outdoors. More UK adults regularly go hill walking or climbing than regularly participate in golf, tennis and rugby put together. The accumulated benefit of this activity to the heath, happiness and general wellbeing of wider society is incalculable. Taking care of paths is a way of ensuring this huge positive effect is sustainable for future generations.”

For these reasons alongside many others, Mend Our Mountains was voted ‘Campaign of the Year’ by the public in the annual awards run by The Great Outdoors magazine. Its proven positive impact and tangible success has laid the foundations on which Mend Our Mountains: Make One Million seeks to build.

The Make One Million campaign will run over 12 months and hopes to draw in money and support from large businesses, corporate donors and charitable foundations, as well as from the generosity of fellow outdoor enthusiasts.

The appeal will be a team effort from a diverse UK-wide coalition which aims to make a positive difference to the landscapes we all value and the paths we all tread. Overall coordination is provided by the BMC (the British Mountaineering Council) and funding comes from the BMC’s charity (the BMC Access and Conservation Trust), with headline sponsorship provided by Cotswold Outdoor and Snow+Rock, the BMC’s recommended retail partners.

 “To reach our ambitious target we need everyone to do their bit. We all benefit from these wonderful places and we all have a role to play in looking after them” says Dave Turnbull, BMC Chief Executive.

The primary projects featured in Mend Our Mountains: Make One Million are:

• Lake District: Scafell Pike (Total sought: £100,000)
• Peak District: The Great Ridge (£140,000)
• Peak District: Cut Gate (£70,000)
• South Downs: South Downs Way (£100,000)
• Snowdonia: Cader Idris (£140,000)
•  Loch Lomond & Trossachs: Ben Vane (£40,000)
• Cairngorms National Park: Beinn a’ Ghlo (£60,000)
• Exmoor: The Chains (£20,000)
• Exmoor: Great Bradley Bridge (£20,000)
• Dartmoor: Nun’s Cross Path (£40,000)
• Yorkshire Dales: Whernside (£46,000)
• New Forest: The Lepe Loop trail (£25,000)
• Brecon Beacons: Bal Mawr (£20,000)

The National Parks of Northumberland, the North York Moors, the Norfolk Broads and the Pembrokeshire Coast will also receive funding from this appeal, but at a lower level than the projects above.

The campaign has gone live today at: www.mendmountains.thebmc.co.uk

Keep an eye on BMC and National Park media over the course of the year for more information about how you can get involved as the campaign progresses and develops.