What is a Green Flag Trail?
Green Flag Trails is a voluntary quality mark and sustainability assessment standard for trails.
Green Flag Trails is an accreditation programme that seeks to offer trail users all the information they need to ensure the trail meets their expectations, while at the same time offering trail managers an essential tool to objectively assess trail conditions.
Trails are not graded subjectively from ‘good’ to ‘bad’. Instead the system centers on the concept of allowing trail users, by supplying detailed information, to make their own informed decisions about the trails they’d like to walk and that would suit their skill and preferences best.
Contrary to other systems that make use of someone’s subjective opinion of what a “good trail” should be, Green Flag Trails allows the user to make his/her very own assessment of the type of trail they prefer.
By assessing the environmental conditions as well as safety along the trail, Green Flag Trails ensures sustainable trails in terms of conservation of the environmental resources as well as the quality of experience had by trail users.
Green Flag accredits trails through its unique audit procedure and identifies, acknowledges and rewards those trails that demonstrate and practice responsible trail management.
Unlike the image on the right. Responsibly managed trails are safer and less damaging to the environment.