Conservation

Working beyond our boundaries

Re:New Forest

See our joint vision for a sustainable New Forest National Park to 2027 and how we'll work together to achieve it.

Encouraging sustainability

The New Forest National Park is a fragile place, where thriving communities live next to rare habitats. So we work to encourage sustainable living through education, conservation, using green technologies, building in environmentally friendly ways, and producing local food and goods. Find out how we’ve supported sustainable projects through grants, community initiatives and enabling people to travel car-free.

Supporting commoning

The New Forest has a long and proud history of commoning: the system whereby even today certain people have the right to release animals onto the open forest and collect firewood. It has given the forest its mosaic of grazed habitats and influences many aspects of the local communities. The New Forest remains one of the few extensive lowland commons where common rights are still widely practised and a strong commoning culture continues. This section details how we work with partner organisations to enable commoning to thrive alongside rising neighbouring populations, a vibrant and important economy, increased traffic, and higher land and house prices.

Landscape partnership

Our Past, Our Future was a £4.4 million, five-year landscape partnership scheme which ended in March 2021. It was led by the New Forest National Park Authority with 10 key partners. Here you can read about the scheme and what was achieved. Watch films highlighting the work of OPOF on our YouTube channel.