Abstract: Trevelyan,living from the end of the 19th century to the 1960s,witnessed the urbanization and the weakening of traditional social structures in Britain.He has a systematic thinking about the necessity of country preservation,and it is embodied in his explanation to the question he raised in 1929:“WHY SHOULD WE SAVE ENGLAND?” From his perspective,saving England means preserving some,at least,of its natural beauty.“But it is not merely,it is not even chiefly,a matter of money.The happiness and the soul's health of the whole people are at stake.” Its motive is also “to cultivate in English people the historic sense” and to inherit English history and culture.Trevelyan spent his lifetime actively engaging in country preservation and played an important role in the affairs of the National Trust because of both his consciousness of the importance of natural beauty and concern about the consequences of its loss.Trevelyan and his contemporaries,aiming at the public and the future,saved many natural beauty spots and historic interests from the “cold plow of modern development”,which reflected the change of the role of the aristocracy to which he belonged in the modern society and the transformation of the role of the natural beauty of the British countryside in the era of urbanization.Trevelyan's cognition of nature itself and its relationship with human beings had been promoted from human-centered perspective to ecological holistic cognition during the process of devoting himself to country preservation.Trevelyan's career of country preservation constitutes an important page in British environmental history and is of worldwide significance in the modern era when sustainable development is emphasized.

Key words: George Macaulay Trevelyan, country preservation, natural beauty, the Lake District, National Trust