Kirsty Ferris started volunteering in the South Downs national park when she turned 18 and wanted to “give something back” while getting experience with practical outdoor work. Now 22 and running her own garden design business, she has spent hours coppicing trees, building fences, laying hedges, helping conserve grassland and improving access to beautiful countryside. She said: “Carrying out work that directly helps the environment is immensely rewarding and gives me such a sense of pride.” But Ferris is one of only a relatively small number of young volunteers at national parks across the UK. It emerged recently that the average age of volunteers at some national parks is 63, and now under-30s are now being urged to sign up to help preserve some of the nation’s richest landscapes for future generations. A combination of ageing rural populations, competing demands on young people’s time and a lack of accessibility by public transport has left many national parks with no young volunteers – a problem they are increasingly keen to tackle. The Yorkshire Dales national park this week launched a push to get more youngsters involved in stewardship, after noticing that none of its 300 regular volunteers was under the age of 30. It has introduced two initiatives – one for groups of under-18s who want to spend a day carrying out conservation work at the park , and another for 18- to 30-year-olds who want to focus on a specific area of interest. Neil Heseltine, chair of the Yorkshire Dales national park authority, said: “Connecting young people with nature through educational, skills-based or volunteer activity is how we foster a new generation who understand, love, explore and advocate for the unique environment of the national park.” He added that he hoped young people would “forge a lifetime connection” with the Yorkshire Dales. It is a similar story at the Brecon Beacons, which has an average volunteer age of 61. “While we hugely value the skills that more-experienced volunteers bring to the national park, we would love to diversify our volunteer base and add the energy and enthusiasm of younger volunteers to the team,” said Amanda Brake from the Brecon Beacons national park authority. “A big focus of our work in early 2022 will be on restoring some of our 16,000 hectares of upland peat bogs. Peat is a really important carbon and water store, but it is easily damaged - restoring peat habitats can reduce the loss of these carbon stores and help to mitigate climate change. Volunteers will be helping to carry out surveys, practical peatland restoration tasks, and path repair work to minimise erosion.” She said volunteering “usually doesn’t require any specific experience – just a willingness to get stuck in and give things a go”. The North York Moors is another national park looking for younger volunteers, especially for its youth council, which helps make decisions about the future of the park as a rural community and green environment. It has received funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to offer transport for families and young people. Mary-Jane Alexander, youth engagement officer at the North York Moors national park authority, said: “There are many aspects of national park policy that impact directly on young people, not least how we address the escalating climate emergency, a lack of affordable housing and declining local services.” She added that it is “absolutely right that young people have a say in these matters”. John Packman, chief executive of the Broads Authority, which manages the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, said “inspiring people to care for nature” was part of the role of national parks. “We see time and again the transformative effect volunteering can have on young people’s lives through their connection to the land. “These volunteers so often become influencers and leaders, helping engage their peers to share their passion and become actively engaged in environmental matters too. This is why young volunteers are so very important to us.” But it is not all planting trees and fixing fences. Bob Cain, a 20-year-old volunteer, is part of a governance project at the Caingorms national park, and through that has gained invaluable skills and experience – including a visit to Finland. “There are a lot of negative stereotypes associated with living out in the sticks and not really having much to do. So it’s exciting to see what you can do when you put your mind to something, and it’s also great to have adults and these networks supporting you, because it’s very difficult to just do these things on your own.” Cain, who is in his fourth year of a degree in politics and international relations at Aberdeen University, feels volunteering has given him a rare understanding of how things work in the real world. “I think volunteering, especially on the political level, opens your eyes to the real way things work. “A lot of people seem to come to the project lacking confidence, and lacking public speaking skills, and that has been delivered to them. It’s something they will have for the rest of their life.”