Trust's efforts take root in the Dales

The bunting may have long been packed away and the empties taken to the bottle bank, but in Clapham the party is still in full swing for the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust.

A constant theme throughout its life has been tree planting. The Dales is the least wooded of all our national parks with only 3.5 per cent covered by trees, little more than a third of the national average.

David Sharrod, director of the trust says: "It has been at the heart of what we do and this year we will plant our millionth tree, which is a fantastic milestone.

"There has been a historic decline in woodland in the Dales and now there is a strategy to double the woodland cover. It is not just a landscape issue or even one of wildlife habitat. Increasingly it is being seen as something much wider, including as a flood prevention issue.

One way of stopping York flooding is to plant trees round the dale heads and slow the run-off of rainwater into the rivers.

"We've had tremendous support from the public. Individuals dedicate trees for all sorts of reasons, literally from the birth of a new baby to commemorating someone who has died while companies have donated trees to help with carbon offset for their businesses.

"The success has been thanks to landowners coming in to help. We do not own any land but they have been willing to let us use their land. Much of the time it has been entirely altruistic. People generally like trees, and farmers and landowners are no different in that respect. Already some of our earliest planting, such as St Joseph's Wood at Aysgarth, are starting to look like real woodlands with trees up to 20 or 30ft tall.

"The planting will not drastically change the landscape because it is in small pockets or in ghylls. The Dales will remain the same open landscape that people love."

The trust started in 1997 when it was a local arm of the national Millennium Commission, created to channel money from the National Lottery to good causes. The allocation was 4m from the national pot distributed to local organisations to help pay for 347 projects – everything from planting woodlands and rebuilding drystone walls and barns to new village halls.

Even if that had been the end of the trust it would still have been seen as a success with a permanent legacy all over the national park. With the Millennium Commission wound up, the trust tapped into another 3m via the Heritage Lottery Fund.

After foot and mouth disease swept through the Dales in 2001, the trust was the ideal vehicle to distribute government regeneration grants. It now found itself involved with businesses and events, such as the Settle Flag Festival, aimed at luring much-needed visitors back to the area. More recently the trust has been involved in a scheme to attract people who would not normally think of visiting the Dales, including ethnic minorities and the disabled. Some have criticised it as social engineering or political correctness. David says, "Ultimately it is a political decision whether you keep and fund national parks. If we want people to support that they have to care about places like the Dales and they can't care about them if they do not know about them."

More recently the trust has been administering the government's Grass Roots Grants which give up to 5,000 each to help local groups and clubs to develop and foster community spirit. Elsewhere it has been involved with the Dales Sustainable Development Fund aimed at helping people live and work in the national park and which has supported things like local hydro-electric power schemes.

Over the years it has also built up solid backing among those who love the Dales with more than 20,000 individual donors as well as companies who support its work.

David says: "It's been a case of constantly changing and adapting. We have our original role, we manage grants on behalf of others such as the North Yorkshire Aggregate Fund and we run some schemes of our own such as the Haytime Project restoring hay meadows all over the Dales."

Now, however, the trust is facing its toughest challenge yet as the recession makes money ever harder to find. David said: "Thanks to the generosity of our donors we've ridden the first wave of the recession.

"There are going to be big public spending cuts and that is bound to impact on us.

"We've always been very entrepreneurial and on the look out for new funding sources but it has been a hand-to-mouth existence

for 13 years so far and I don't suppose it will change."