Children's author Beatrix Potter was "ahead of her time" as a farmer who worked to conserve the landscapes of the Lake District.

On the 150th anniversary of the writer and illustrator's birth, the National Trust is highlighting how it is managing the 22 working farms Potter left them in what is now the Lake District National Park to ensure they are sustainable and allow nature to thrive.

Mike Innerdale, the National Trust's assistant director of operations in the Lake District, believes it is an approach she would have championed.

Beatrix Potter was born in London on July 28, 1866, but fell in love with the Lake District after spending summer holidays there as a teenager, and bought her first farm - Hill Top - near Hawkshead in 1905, living there until her death in 1943.

Her active interest in farming saw her appointed as the first female chairman of the Herdwick Breeders Association, which promotes the breed of hardy sheep which lives in the high fells, though she did not live long enough to take up the position.

Mr Innerdale said: "People know her for her books, fewer people know her for her innovation, her passion for farming and passion for change. She was ahead of her time.

"She was one of the first people to commercialise the herdwick breed, to think about diversifying her farms, how people might come and stay on them, how farmers couldn't just rely on farming for farming's sake."

He also said she was "deeply passionate" about the Lake District, and concerned about the threats it faced, such as the construction of reservoirs and railways.

"She wanted to conserve the landscape and make sure it wasn't lost for future generations."

The author populated her children's stories, such as the tales of Squirrel Nutkin, Peter Rabbit and Mrs Tiggywinkle, with creatures she saw - and which can still be seen - in the area, putting them in her farmhouse, garden and the landscape.

She wanted her farms, some of which she merged and restructured, to thrive but also protect the environment, an approach the Trust says was lost from agriculture in the past 50 years as the focus moved to producing more food.

The charity is working with tenants on almost 7,000 acres of land Potter left to the Trust, to balance farming with boosting nature, making landscapes more resilient, and providing public benefits such as water quality and storage.

"We think she would have taken the same approach," Mr Innerdale said.

At one of her farms, Troutbeck Park Farm, outside Ambleside, the herdwick flock is being maintained but some cattle are being introduced for grazing, to allow a more wooded landscape to return and protect the landscape from flooding.

Environmental farming subsidies are also supporting more hay meadows and more natural river systems.

Hill Top's meadows are managed for hay rather than silage and support wildflowers such as clover and hay rattle and in more boggy areas, marsh marigold and water forget-me-not thrive.

The Trust is also required by Potter's will to maintain the herdwick breed on her farms, potentially controversial at a time when supporters of "rewilding" claim sheep should be removed from parts of the national park to help restore a natural landscape.

But the Trust said sheep in the Lakes were returning to historic levels of around 1.5 million, after European Union subsidies pushed up numbers to around 3.5 million.

The National Trust says the herdwick breed has a part to play in the Lake District and in restoring and maintaining a healthy natural environment.