A Cornwall wildlife project for young people has hit the Lottery jackpot.

£1 million of funding from the Big Lottery Fund has been granted to Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Your Shore Beach Ranger Project. And the work starts now, as the charity is calling for young people to get involved and design their project logo.

The Big Lottery Fund is investing £33 million in more than 30 organisations.

Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Your Shore Beach Rangers Project is one of these, receiving £1 million to work within Cornish coastal communities and with young people over the next five years, part of the Big Lottery Funds Our Bright Future movement.

Our Bright Future aims to tackle three big challenges facing society: a lack of social cohesion, a lack of opportunities for young people, and vulnerability to climate change. Funding aims to give young people the skills and knowledge to improve their local environments – from reducing marine pollution to minimising food waste.

In doing so, young people will, it is hoped, develop the confidence and resilience to become environmental leaders and influence decisions at local and national levels.

Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Your Shore Beach Rangers Project, working in partnership with Cornwall College, will be creating and supporting a network of local marine groups around the county where there is a need to foster better support for marine conservation, whilst also focusing specifically on young people by recruiting 180 Beach Rangers (local people aged 16 to 24) to become active and long term members of Cornwall’s Marine Conservation Group.

The project will be running hundreds of events over the next five years, so that by 2020 it has engaged with nearly 2,500 school children, over 10,000 community members, and has set up at least 12 vibrant community marine conservation groups from Bude to Penzance, Falmouth to Looe.

Deadline for the logo design competition is April 18, with entries being judged via social media. The winners’ logo will be used on all project material over the five years of the project.

For more information, please see www.cornwallwildlifetrust.org.uk/YSBR or visit www.OurBrightFuture.co.uk