Our 10-year plan to bring back nature to these islands

In the National Trust archives there is a letter from 1900 that says: "I once saw Derwent Water and can never forget it. I will do what I can to get my mates to help." It was signed "from a working man" and contained a donation of two shillings - five pounds today.

- Hilary McGrady

The letter was one of thousands in response to our first public appeal, to protect the west shore of Derwent Water from private development.

We had six months to raise £6,500. That was a lot of money then. Well, we raised far more than that, in just four months, via small donations postmarked in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Leeds.

In fact, our archives are filled with letters like these. From factory workers to famous authors, generations of people have written to us to offer their time, money and support to help save something worth saving.

Together, under the proud banner of the National Trust, they have protected swathes of countryside from overdevelopment. They have put 750 miles of coastline - cliff path, golden beach and remote island - into the hands of the nation. And stopped the destruction of dozens of country houses, and with them, centuries of history.

Today we need to draw on that collective spirit again. Because the challenges we're facing right now are on a different scale to those we've seen before.

NATURE is in crisis. Over the past 50 years, the UK has been stripped of so much wildlife that we find ourselves in the bottom 10% of nature-depleted countries in the world.