What do you think these places, which mean so much to us, are worth?

Image by Leigh Rose. Artwork by Helen Wilson. Words by Rach Coleman.

Today we release our 2025 State of Our Trails Report - a cornerstone of our year where we collate all of the incredible data our volunteers have collected into a single document, hoping to inspire change from the grassroots all the way to government.

This year we've focused in on Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility - a new scheme that sees the costs of recycling packaging fall to those who produce it, rather than being front by the taxpayer. Through our research we found currently none of the funds raised are being put towards tackling single-use pollution, or are available for the people on the ground tackling single-use pollution.

As part of the Report, we felt we had to quantify in financial terms how much our trails were worth - quite literally what services do they provide? - so we could speak in the same language as this policy. Here Rach deep dives into what our trails offer us, and if you can really put a price tag on them.

---

It is somewhat 'against our nature' to think about the financial value of our trails and wild places. When we're out there, being blown about on the cliffs or thundering through bracken on two wheels, the idea of attaching a price tag to the experience of these places, of that unique feeling of connecting with nature - it's not even an after thought it's so far from our minds.

But when we live in a time where 'growth' is on the lips of the leaders of our country, and many across the UK are feeling keenly the lasting impacts of the cost of living crisis, it is incredibly understandable that the terms that speak most powerfully are financial ones.

Image by Danny Easton

Could we do this for our trails then? Could we outline what financially they provide? This was the question we posed to ourselves when we set out on the journey of pulling together this year's Report.

We have dedicated an entire section of the Report to this topic it was so fascinating, and really we only scratched the surface.

Whether it be through ecological benefits - water filtration and provision, carbon sequestering in the soil, offering plant and animal habitats that enable the rest of the ecosystem to flourish - to recreation and tourism - the money made by roamers, holiday makers, and bike trails - all the way through to the social, health and emotional benefits of time outdoors, our trails offer services worth millions of pounds.

The challenge is so many of these services are one cog in a wider ecosystem machine, or have difficult to quantify outputs. The knock on benefits of small animals in a managed woodland is vast, but often unseen or unmeasured. Trails, quite literally, don't speak the language of pounds and pennies.

Through this year's Report we've attempted to speak on behalf of them, using our research into the impacts of single-use pollution and ecosystem services to create a suggestive figure for the cost of a single item of single-use pollution - it's 22p. We are advocating that producers of packaging should be charged this, in a bid to take responsibility for their products that end of as pollution, but also to incentivise a mass collaboration towards shifting away from littering and overconsumption behaviours.

But we hope too this Report can open a wider discussion about value for our trails, and that maybe it's okay the financial benefits of these places are difficult to quantify. Perhaps that's exactly what makes them invaluable. The feeling when you head out, disappear into the trees or the moors or down a winding park path - you take a pause, a deep breath in. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to put a price on that. I instead hope that the person I tell about it, later that day, might feel inspired enough to go seek that feeling out for themselves.

It might not have a pound sign before it, but we reckon that's true value.

---

Read this year's State of Our Trails Report and advocate for the Trails Top Up here.