The Peak District is renowned for its beauty. With majestic rivers, striking dales, moors, wooded valleys and uplands, the Peak District should be teeming with wildlife, abundant with wild animals and plants. But it is not. Wildlife is dying out. Nature is under threat.
Being based in the Peak District is fantastic, we get a lot of inspiration for our furniture from the dramatic and dynamic environment. So it was a pleasure yesterday to be invited by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and East Midlands Chamber of Commerce to the Bakewell Agricultural Centre to join other Derbyshire businesses to help play a part in Wild Peak.
  
   
Wild Peak will be a partnership of local landowners, community groups, businesses and organisations; local people who believe in a Peak District fit for the future; a land restored so that Golden Eagles and Ospreys once again soar overhead, Black Grouse and Hen Harriers are back where they belong amidst abundant wildflower meadows rich in insect life and healthy blanket bogs; where Pine Martens, Adders and Red Squirrels are thriving in native woodlands that are expanding and Beavers are restoring and creating new wetlands.
The interactive session was aimed at finding out how we, as local businesses, could become involved in this exciting initiative and help Derbyshire Wildlife Trust with their  vision for the project. Exploring these themes was inspiring to better understand how we could interact more with nature to the benefit of the environment, wildlife and people. Ideas included volunteering days for staff, looking at our own environment whether our gardens or the landscape around our offices and factories and also carbon offset. It was highlighted by us and many of the businesses present that carbon offsetting projects are often seen as greenwashing and indeed not good for the environment long term, but where a project can be seen and visited it becomes more viable. As a local business we can have the confidence that if this last option in a nett zero journey is used, we have some control and a direct influence where the carbon credit is being utilised to help protect the Wild Peak.
    
Building on Lawton’s conservation principles of bigger, better, more and joined up, the programme is working towards creating, restoring and connecting wild spaces across the region – working with and between existing programmes and conservation sites to create a nature recovery network. As well as creating a network of wild spaces, the programme is developing a network of people and communities to facilitate, support and celebrate nature’s recovery across the region. People and communities are at the heart of the Wild Peak programme and we are already witnessing the power that local people and grassroots initiatives have in establishing rewilding gains in the Peak District. Whether you are a landowner, a business, a local authority, a community group or just an interested individual, you can get involved!
