75 Years of Eryri: A Living Landscape and a Shared Responsibility

Some places we visit. Others become part of us.

For me, Eryri has always been the latter.

I’ve walked these mountains in sunshine and rain, stood above their clouds, followed water through their cwms and found perspective here when the noise of the wider world has become a little too loud.

There are landscapes that impress you through their scale and beauty. Eryri does that, certainly. But spend enough time here and you begin to understand that the mountains are only one part of its story.

Eryri is a living landscape.

It is mountain and coastline, woodland and water. But it is also language, culture and community. It is quarrying and farming, folklore and literature, recreation and conservation. It is the generations of people who have lived and worked among these mountains and the relationship between them and the landscape.

That matters particularly in 2026.

This year marks 75 years since Eryri was designated Wales’ first National Park in 1951. The anniversary is an opportunity to celebrate what has been achieved over three-quarters of a century, but the National Park Authority is also using it to look towards the challenges and opportunities of the next 75 years. 

And perhaps that second part matters most.

What will we leave behind?

Being an Eryri Gold Ambassador has reinforced something I have increasingly come to believe about our relationship with wild places.

Access to landscapes like this is an extraordinary privilege.

But privilege brings responsibility.

The Ambassador programme isn’t simply about knowing the names of mountains or recommending places to visit. Its training encompasses the things that make Eryri genuinely distinctive: its landscapes, communities, Welsh language, artistic heritage, tranquillity, history, geology, biodiversity and opportunities for recreation and learning. 

That broader understanding changes how we experience a place.

Because protecting Eryri cannot mean placing it behind glass.

These are living landscapes.

They should be walked.

Explored.

Worked.

Photographed.

Written about.

Learned from.

And loved.

But we should also understand something of the communities we pass through, the language we hear, the history beneath our boots and the ecological pressures upon the landscape.

The question isn’t simply “How do we preserve Eryri exactly as it is?”

It is more difficult than that:

How do people, communities and nature continue to thrive here together?

Seventy-five years — and the next seventy-five

That is why I think this anniversary deserves more than nostalgia.

National Parks face circumstances their founders could scarcely have imagined in 1951. Climate change, biodiversity loss and pressures upon sustainable communities now sit alongside the enduring challenge of enabling people to experience extraordinary landscapes while protecting what makes them extraordinary in the first place. 

Yet there is another reason Eryri matters.

Places like this do something to people.

I’ve experienced it myself.

You can arrive carrying the clutter of ordinary life and find that after several hours walking, the priorities somehow rearrange themselves.

Perhaps it is scale.

Perhaps solitude.

Perhaps physical effort.

Perhaps simply standing somewhere that existed long before us and will hopefully remain long after us.

Whatever the reason, wild landscapes provide something increasingly difficult to find elsewhere:

perspective.

And that is worth protecting too.

Don’t just celebrate it. Get involved.

One thing I particularly like about Eryri’s 75th anniversary is that people are being invited to participate rather than simply observe.

The Eryri Digital Passport encourages people to discover 75 accessible locations across the National Park, including places they might otherwise never encounter. 

The bilingual Eryri National Park: A Living Legacy explores the landscape, communities, culture and special qualities of the National Park through writing and photography. 

There are also poetry competitions, cultural celebrations and fundraising activities supporting Cancer Research Wales and Tŷ Gobaith Children’s Hospice. 

But getting involved can be simpler than attending an organised event.

Visit somewhere in Eryri you haven’t been before.

Learn something about the history of the valley rather than only the height of the summit.

Learn a few words of Cymraeg.

Support an independent local business.

Walk.

Photograph.

Write.

Volunteer.

Listen.

Or consider becoming an Eryri Ambassador yourself. The programme is open to anyone wishing to understand the National Park better, and the training provides a remarkably broad introduction to what makes this landscape special. 

Most importantly, ask yourself a deceptively simple question:

What does Eryri mean to me?

My answer has changed over the years.

Adventure is certainly part of it.

But increasingly it is about belonging, perspective, responsibility and understanding that our relationship with landscape isn’t one-directional.

We leave our footprints upon these places.

They leave something upon us too.

So as Eryri celebrates its first 75 years as a National Park, perhaps the greatest measure of its success isn’t simply that an extraordinary landscape has been protected.

It’s that, 75 years later, Eryri still has the power to shape the people who encounter it.

And our responsibility now is to make sure it can continue doing so for generations yet to come.

I’ve walked these mountains in sunshine and rain, stood above their clouds, followed