Established in 2012, The Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Countryside Trust is a registered Scottish Charity and a company limited by guarantee. The Trust is an environmental, and health and wellbeing charity, which aims to support and enhance the wellbeing and resilience in landscapes, communities and people. Working predominantly within the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, we work with a wide range of partners to deliver projects, encourage participation, and collaborate with others to address the biodiversity and climate emergencies, and to create more sustainable, healthy and active communities, places and partnerships.

Our vision is for our landscapes and communities to be connected and thriving.

Our 2023-2030 strategy has a strong nature focus to deliver our purpose of creating connections in nature, with nature and each other. It builds on our specialisms of landscape scale nature restoration partnerships, health and wellbeing walks, active travel and targeted community empowerment and support.

Nature restoration – Our work includes delivering impactful ecological change through nature restoration partnerships, in particular as the lead partner in two ambitious landscape scale projects: Wild Strathfillan and as a delivery partner in The Great Trossachs Forest. Wild Strathfillan will deliver urgent nature restoration work whilst remaining cognisant of the key income sources (farming, stalking and forestry) that underpin local communities and their cultural heritage – in a setting representative of land ownership across Scotland. This ambitious project has long term plans to deliver a vital nature recovery network, set within a patchwork of multiple land managers, to secure significant ecological, economic and social gains through partnership working. Our work as part of The Great Trossachs Forest is to develop and deliver the next phase of projects to continue the ecological restoration and connectivity of these habitats.

Walk in the Park – Led principally by trained local volunteers, Walk in the Park encompasses a programme of weekly health walks in 6 communities, supporting physical, mental and social wellbeing, and weekly strength and balance sessions in 4 communities to build confidence and mobility. It also encompasses ‘In Step with Nature’, a project centred on noticing nature and the seasonal changes as means to encourage connections with nature. The Trust works closely with health and social care professionals to enable referrals from patients living in remote, rural communities, where there is no easy access to other services.

Active Travel – Active in the Park focusses on delivering pop up behaviour change activities to encourage walking, wheeling and cycling as part of everyday journeys. Activities include working with communities to develop Active Travel Plans, loan of ebikes to local residents, bike maintenance training sessoins, ‘have a go’ events and supporting community led cycle rides. It has also established a ‘Cyclists Welcome Scheme’ to promote and work with businesses who are going the extra mile to welcome cyclists to their premises.

Wider community engagement – Our wider community work focusses on bringing communities together, working with them to develop plans and work collectively. We provide monthly e-bulletins to all communities and provide support and advice on a wide range of issues.

In the past year, we have received financial support for our projects from:

Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority, ScotGold Resources, People’s Postcode Lottery, Nature Scot (Nature Restoration Fund & FIRNS), National Heritage Lottery Fund (FIRNS & 250k projects), Paths for All (Walking for Health and Smarter Choices, Smarter Places), Scottish Forestry, Impact Funders (Volunteer Support Fund), Striling Voluntary Enterprise (Stirling Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund), Scottish Water, RSPB Scotland, Forestry and Land Scotland, and Woodland Trust Scotland.