Climate Change Adaptation: From Ranger to Climate Action at Scale

By Keith Jones, Technical Climate Adaptation Lead

I have worked for the National Trust for 25 years, beginning my career as a Ranger on Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon). During that time, extreme weather has always been part of the job. What has changed is its frequency, intensity and unpredictability.

One moment that crystallised this shift was the cancellation of the National Trust Snowdonia Marathon due to multiple landslides, extreme rainfall and high winds. Events like this were once exceptional; they are now increasingly familiar. Alongside these acute events, we are seeing more subtle but equally disruptive changes: flowering at unexpected times of year, grass cutting pushed earlier and later, and prolonged waterlogging that makes our traditional conservation calendar unworkable. Climate, simply put, is weather over time – and that pattern is changing fast.

After a career spanning species conservation, landscape and invasive species management, public access and renewable energy delivery, I was asked what should come next. The answer felt unavoidable: climate risk and adaptation. Talking about climate change was no longer enough; we had to start delivering practical responses. Delay would only make the impacts more expensive, more disruptive, and more damaging for both nature and people.

Today, I am the technical climate adaptation lead for the National Trust. One of the most important shifts we have made is recognising that our strongest tool is not technology or data, but commitment. The Trust’s Trustees set a clear expectation that all decisions should be climate informed. That is a powerful principle – but also a challenging one. Climate impacts are uncertain, complex and often uncomfortable, particularly when they force hard choices about what we can protect, adapt or, in some cases, let go.

Our starting point was a simple but critical question: what does climate change actually mean for our organisation, place by place? To answer that, we avoided reinventing the wheel. Drawing on data from the Met Office, the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, the British Geological Survey and others, we brought together the best available climate hazard evidence and reformatted it into seamless GIS layers. These maps – later described by the BBC and the Guardian as “gamechanging” – are publicly available and free to use.

However, hazard data alone does not tell you what will happen on the ground. Translating climate projections into real impacts on people, heritage, landscapes, agriculture, visitors and businesses is far more complex. We tested a wide range of established approaches, including ISO14090, the RSPB’s site based planning methods and the Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways model. None fully reflected the breadth of what the National Trust manages.

Working with the Climate Action Unit at University College London, we developed a people led adaptation planning approach, supported by data. This work shop based process blends local knowledge and lived experience with national climate hazard data. Staff and volunteers identify which features are already being affected, which may be at risk, and what realistic options exist: adaptation, allowing change or letting go. From these conversations, near, medium and long term actions are mapped out, along with the conditions needed to deliver them – from funding and permissions to consultation and prioritisation.

Experience has shown us that plans alone are not enough. Without regular attention, actions fade into the background. To avoid this, adaptation planning is embedded within the National Trust’s Climate and Environmental Management System, which is externally audited to ISO14001 standards. Every property receives an annual, face to face review to check progress, refresh actions and capture emerging risks. This is supported by a central climate action tracking platform that feeds directly into organisational strategy.

On the ground, this translates into practical work at scale. Water management is a major focus, addressing both drought and deluge. We are improving soil condition in our gardens through composting, working at catchment scale to slow the flow, and restoring natural processes on rivers such as the Aller in Somerset and Goldrill Beck in the Lake District. The reintroduction of keystone species, including beavers in Northumberland, is helping restore river systems and proved its value during the 2025 drought, when these sites maintained higher species diversity.

People remain central to this work. We have developed a simple app to capture weather related impact observations from staff and volunteers. These insights are combined with Met Office data, visitor numbers, revenue and insurance claims to support local decision making and trigger timely action.

Partnerships and research underpin everything we do, from real time satellite imagery for wildfire detection to understanding visitor behaviour and water pollution pressures. We are still in the foothills of climate adaptation, but we have clarified uncertainty and, crucially, started acting. In my experience, action begets action – while ever more data and risk assessments, on their own, do not.

Climate change and sustainability | National Trust

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