Country diary: twenty years of the CRT and still going strong So what should we do? Gordon wanted to paint and I wanted to write. We did not want to start a charity and run it. Yet, against our better judgment, and all sensible advice, with a group of friends and Laurens as our patron, we started up the CRT with no members, no land, and no money. The question of how to conserve the otters kick-started us: a 20-acre field was available for purchase alongside the brook, and the ecologist Jonathon Porritt, the countryman Phil Drabble and the author Elspeth Huxley were among those who joined Gordon as Trustees. And so on July 16 1993, the CRT was launched at a school in Cambridgeshire. It nearly ended in disaster. As I introduced Phil on stage and prepared to depart, I leant on a large screen. Phil took up his position at the microphone, behind him - and suddenly both the screen and I collapsed in a cloud of dust. The audience roared with laughter at the mayhem - poor Phil had no idea what was happening and checked his fly-buttons. One week later, on July 24 1993, the CRT went countrywide in the Weekend section of the Telegraph with an article entitled "We needn't say goodbye to all this." We asked for support to buy the brook meadows, and for members. Donations poured in, and the 20 acres along the otter brook was purchased and became Telegraph Field after the generosity of Telegraph readers. It was followed almost immediately by another 20 acres named Holt Field - after the first new otter holt. The generosity of ordinary people was simply staggering. Now, 20 years later, the CRT has six farms and three smallholdings - more than 1,500 acres. There are still otters in the brook and the skylarks are singing again. Our first acquisition has grown into the 450 acres of Lark Rise Farm in Cambridgeshire, and as wildlife numbers continue to fall over most of Britain, as confirmed in the recent publication "State of Nature - 2013," the wildlife on Lark Rise Farm is still increasing: brown hares, skylarks, orchids, corn buntings, grass snakes and barn owls, which returned after an absence of nearly 40 years. On July 19 we are celebrating all this, and my 70th birthday (belatedly), with a local party starring the Wurzels. I am glad to say that, eventually, the RSPB had second thoughts about the general countryside and in 2000, bought a farm, astonishingly just 10 miles from Lark Rise - Hope Farm. Sadly, I call Hope Farm "Hopeless Farm" as one endangered farmland inhabitant is missing from it - a real farmer (although on one occasion an RSPB representative did attempt to poach our excellent tenant farmer Tim Scott - what a strange world we live in). Time marches on and both Laurens and Gordon have gone - and how we still miss them. But the battle for the countryside and farmland in particular continues. Even the RSPB is now talking about "landscape scale conservation," which is what Gordon and I were talking about 25 years ago. I am glad they are slowly catching up. It has been a sharp learning curve for us, too - yes we know how we want to run the land, yet it takes time to learn how to become good landlords, but we are getting there. We also appear to be in a strange no-man's land where some people seem unable to understand us or to appreciate what we are doing, and so we don't win awards. We are too politically incorrect for many mainstream conservationists, while some farmers do not trust us, seeing us (quite rightly) as "conservationists." I suppose we are too honest - with one breath we warn of today's imbalance between predator and prey, and in the next of the damage done by the hooligan farmers with wildlife-unfriendly, over-intensive farming. But other issues have arrived which mean that the CRT is needed as much today as it was 20 years ago. And sadly, we find ourselves almost out on our own as the other larger conservation bodies seem to be in a continuing state of denial about the real issues affecting our wildlife and countryside in Britain, including overpopulation, food security and predation - much of which I cover in my Country Diary columns on these pages. I'm glad to say we are able to do something. At Lark Rise Farm our grass margins, beetle banks, a mosaic of crops, including permanent grass and osiers, plus spring-sown crops are helping wildlife to buck national trends. The benefits of some of the steps we've taken to limit predators are also clear. Our mink control is well into its third year and our example is spreading to other landowners. Already moorhens are back, kingfishers are more numerous and water voles are returning without the need for reintroduction. We've got plenty on our to-do list: to set up a farm in Dorset in memory of Gordon Beningfield; to develop wildlife-friendly, local, seasonal and regional food under our "Wildfarm" label; to buy and run an upland farm. In addition, of course, we'd like to keep our membership growing, and also to give experience of farming and wildlife to children from both town and country. So thanks to all you Weekend Telegraph readers for helping us to start, for keeping us going, and here's to the future. How we spread the word - with help from the Telegraph Summer 1993 sees the return of otters to Bourn Brook, south-west Cambridgeshire, after absence of 35 years. 1993, July 23 National launch of the Countryside Restoration Trust with an article celebrating its beginnings in Weekend. The CRT has a handful of trustees, no land and no money. Robin Page is chairman, Gordon Beningfield is vice-chairman, plus Jill Barklem, Jonathan Porritt, Phil Drabble, Elspeth Huxley and Sir Laurens van der Post as patron. September Purchase of Telegraph Field, by Bourn Brook, with donations from Telegraph readers. 1995 Purchase of Holt Field (18 acres), complete with otter holt, again with help from readers; total size reaches 40 acres. Project is visited by Prince of Wales. 1997 Sir Laurens van der Post dies. 1998, February Purchase of 140 acres at Barton, Cambridgeshire, from two Cambridge colleges with help from Heritage Lottery Fund, bringing the total of CRT land to 230 acres. Lark Rise Farm is formed. Gordon Beningfield dies. David Shepherd becomes patron. 1999 Nan Major of Alsager leaves the CRT £120,000. This is the trust's first significant legacy, remembered by Nan's Field on Lark Rise Farm. 2000 David Powell gifts Awnells Farm, Much Marcle, Herefordshire, (220 acres) to the CRT; return, after an absence of nearly 40 years, of barn owls to Lark Rise Farm: two pairs successfully raise chicks. 2001 Duncan Elliot leaves Margaret Wood, Lower Denby, Yorkshire, (32 acres) to the CRT; trust buys a further extension to Lark Rise Farm from Cambridgeshire County Council. 2002 Marbled white butterflies introduced to Lark Rise Farm. 2003 Purchase of Turnastone Court Farm, Herefordshire, (247 acres) to save the ancient pasture land. Star-studded 10th anniversary celebration at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, London. 2004 Greta McDonough gifts Mayfields Farm, Norfolk (40 acres); Prince of Wales makes a second visit to Lark Rise Farm. 2006 Jo Baker gifts Pierrepont Farm, Surrey, (200 acres) with its outstanding herd of Jersey cattle. 2007 John Broadbent-Jones gifts Green Farm, Surrey (200 acres). 2010 A new state-of-the-art wooden dairy built at Pierrepont Farm - cow-friendly, wildlife-friendly and farmer-friendly. It costs £900,000 and is opened by CRT Trustee Zac Goldsmith MP - confirming the CRT's commitment to the type of British dairy farming and the wildlife that should co-exist on dairy farms throughout the British Isles. 2011 Launch of the Bourn Free project with the aim of clearing Bourn Brook and lower Cam Valley of mink for the benefit of water voles, kingfishers and other wildlife; purchase of Horse Field (20 acres). This brings the total size of Lark Rise Farm to 450 acres. 2012 Red squirrel breeding enclosure opened at Mayfields by the pioneer of red squirrel conservation, David Stapleford - who sadly dies later in the year. 2013, June 30 Marbled white butterflies flying for 11th consecutive year; barn owls breed - it has just been confirmed as I write this - for 30th consecutive year; and the CRT has another gift, to be announced shortly in The Daily Telegraph. The first 20 readers and their partners to contact the CRT will receive tickets for the Cambridgeshire celebration with the Wurzels on July 19. The CRT is celebrating its 20th anniversary nationally at the Royal Geographical Society in London on October 22. There will be guest speakers and Show of Hands will perform. A few free tickets remain on a first-come-first-served basis. Contact the CRT, Haslingfield Road, Barton, Cambs CB23 7AG, or go to Countryside Restoration Trust.