3 easy ways to help us create a more sustainable future on International Mountain Day (and beyond!)
This year's International Mountain Day, Wed 11 Dec, the theme is: “Mountain solutions for a sustainable future – innovation, adaptation and youth”. Here at the BMC we are brimming with nature-based solutions in the mountains that contribute to a more sustainable future, so here are 3 easy ways you can help us right now.
1 Clean it up
Simply pack a plastic bag and some disposable gloves and dedicate your next mountain walk or climbing outing to picking up as much litter as you can. Talk to your local Access Rep if you'd like to arrange a more formal event with more people, like a crag clean up or an area social walk over a certain mountain dedicated to litter picking. The BMC hopes to arrange another Big Clean Up on Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) next year, where 40 BMC volunteers collected 2,765 items of single-use pollution from Wales' highest mountain and analysed the items in partnership with Trash Free Trails.
2 Volunteer
The most rewarding way to give back to the mountains you love to walk and climb in on International Mountain Day is to sign up to a volunteer conservation or footpath repair day. Our Get Stuck In events get volunteers fixing footpaths, digging drainage ditches, clearing invasive species, planting carbon-sinking sphagnum moss and seagrass, all as part of our Mend Our Mountains and The Climate Project campaigns.
So far this year, BMC staff and volunteers have planted over 16,000 sphagnum plugs in the Peak District and repaired over 580m of fragile mountain path through over 840 hours of volunteer work.
There are 1-3 day events taking place most months of the year, with free gear hire if you need steel-toed boots and heavy duty, allowed-to-get-muddy waterproof jackets and trousers. Accommodation is free, and you'll meet some tremendous, like-minded folks and learn a wide range of skills from the National Trust or Moors for the Future event leaders.
Don't take our word for it, find out what the volunteers think about Get Stuck In events here. Sign up to volunteer here.
3 Donate
Donating to the BMC's Access & Conservation Trust (ACT) funds our two campaigns - Mend Our Mountains and new for this year, The Climate Project. Mend Our Mountains is a collection of seven projects across England and Wales that facilitate footpath work, bridge restoration, stile and gate repair and increased accessibility. The Climate Project involves the planting of carbon-locking sphagnum moss and seagrass in the Peak District and North Wales respectively.
The BMC has raised over £1.4 million so far for the Mend Our Mountains Project since it was set up in 2016. That's 50 miles of fragile footpath restored for future generations and 544 miles of upland repaired - the equivalent to over 67,000 double decker buses.
Donate here.
What’s Mend Our Mountains?
Mend Our Mountains is an award-winning campaign from the BMC’s Access & Conservation Trust (ACT) which has raised a total of £1.4 million since its creation in 2016 to repair Britain’s hills and mountains. Since then over 50 miles of fragile footpath has been restored for future generations and 544 miles of upland has been repaired - the equivalent length of over 67,000 double decker buses!
Great Bradley Bridge was funded in the 2023 campaign. This year there are seven projects including:
1 Funding an Access Officer for the Cotswolds AONB
2 Supporting the Fix the Fells rangers in the Lake District
3 Restoring paths on Roseberry Topping, North York Moors
4 Making the footpath to Chanctonbury Ring, South Downs, more accessible
5 Replacing Cressbrook Mill footbridge, Peak District
6 Multiple Get Stuck In volunteer footpath repair events with the National Trust in the Lake District, Snowdonia and Peak District
7 Haytor Rocks almost 2,000m of footpath repairs in Dartmoor
Support Mend Our Mountains
Path repair is a surprisingly costly business. Working in remote locations with complex equipment and adverse weather conditions makes rebuilding trails an enormous and expensive challenge.
£5 buys a pair of work gloves
£50 buys five garden skips for moving soil
£250 fixes approximately one metre of footpath
£1000 flies ten bags of stone to an inaccessible mountain location
Did you know?
Simply becoming a BMC member supports BMC Access & Conservation Trust projects like this, plus you get all the benefits that membership offers, including these and many more:
£15 million Worldwide Combined Liability Insurance
£10,000 Personal Accident Insurance
Quarterly member-only magazine, Summit
15% off Cotswold Outdoor, Snow+Rock and Runners Need
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