Project

Case study: Ryevitalise Landscape Partnership

Identifying aquatic organisms with the community as part of the Ryevitalise Landscape Partnership in North Yorkshire | © National Trust

The Ryevitalise Landscape Partnership in North Yorkshire works with local communities, volunteers and land managers to restore and enhance the River Rye and its tributaries. Discover how the project is encouraging people to reconnect with the history, cultural heritage and wildlife of the area.

The River Rye

The majestic River Rye meanders through a variety of landscapes from moorland and upland farmland, through villages, and the arable and livestock farmland of the lowlands - once a lifeblood for communities, providing clean water, power and supporting an abundance of wildlife, but our connection to the River Rye is gradually being lost. Ryevitalise crosses boundaries: the river does not recognise these.

Ryevitalise Landscape Partnership

The Ryevitalise Landscape Partnership in North Yorkshire works with local communities, volunteers and land managers to restore and enhance the River Rye and its tributaries, as well as encouraging people to reconnect with the history, cultural heritage and wildlife of the area. The whole project area is 413 km2 (approximately 160 square miles). Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) is within the North York Moors National Park area and nearly one-quarter (23 per cent) is in the Howardian Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The remaining 15 per cent is land outside of these Protected Landscapes, mostly arable farmland along the vale of Pickering. There are 532 miles of becks, streams and river!

Delivering educational activities

Supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, North York Moors National Park Authority and other partners including disability groups and the Howardian Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, it is establishing Conservation Agreements with local land managers and delivering education activities to schools and outreach groups. They are also developing projects to improve water quality, training volunteers to undertake practical conservation tasks, as well as developing groups of Citizen Scientists to undertake species and habitat surveys.

This is a case study linked to the Climate and Land Summit hosted by the National Trust at the Wimpole Estate, in Cambridgeshire, on October 12, 2021, before the UN's annual climate conference COP26 in Cornwall in November that year.

Attendees at the summit represented some of England’s largest landowners and managers, and signed up to six guiding principles to commit to collectively working towards the nation’s net zero aims and pressing needs to adapt to a rapidly changing climate. To read the text of the Compact click here.