Nominate your National Park local heroes

UK National Parks are calling for nominations to the Volunteer Awards 2017.

The annual awards celebrate the hard work and commitment of people who regularly give their time to help protect the Peak District and the 14 other national parks in Britain.

Volunteering for the Peak District National Park itself, some 400 volunteers give around 60,000 hours every year to care for the landscape and help others enjoy the area. Many other individuals and community groups take part in local conservation activities from making wellsdressings to restoring dewponds.

Jenny Waller, volunteer development officer for the Peak District National Park, said: “The awards are a great way to recognise the hard work of volunteers who have gone above and beyond the usual expectations of voluntary service in looking after the environment and heritage of their area.

“I’m proud to say our volunteers have won these awards in the past and we know incredible work is being done by volunteers throughout the National Park so it would be wonderful to see more awards recognising their efforts this year. I hope the public will take the opportunity to nominate people and projects.”

Previous Peak District winners include in 2015, the Fit for Work Project which encourages people with difficult personal circumstances to get involved with practical conservation tasks. In 2013, a group of volunteer National Park rangers who deliver Health Walks won the group category, and the individual award was won by Chamu Kuppuswamy who worked with minority ethnic communities in Sheffield to encourage them to visit the Peak District.

Nominations are being accepted until 12 noon on Friday September 22, 2017.

There are four categories – Individual, Young Person (25 years and below), Group and Project.

To be eligible to enter the voluntary service or project must take place within the boundaries of one of the UK’s 15 National Parks.

Nominees need not necessarily be volunteering for a UK National Park organisation – they could be a local community group or an individual person of any age who gives their time to benefit places in the Peak District National Park.

To nominate a deserving individual, young person, group, or project visit: www.nationalparks.gov.uk/volunteerawards.

The group and project winners will receive a £1,000 bursary towards their future volunteering efforts. The individual and young person winners will receive outdoor kit from UK National Parks Partner Columbia Sportswear.

Eoin Treacy, sales and marketing manager for Columbia UK & Ireland, said: “We are delighted to support National Parks UK in celebrating the incredible work volunteers do to maintain and bring to life our shared outdoor space. We hope that together we can raise the profile and celebrate the values of these fantastic people.”

The 2017 National Parks UK Volunteer Awards are supported by Columbia Sportswear and Natural Resources Wales.

Picture caption: Who will you nominate in the National Parks UK Volunteer Awards?