What do you think? Let us know @BMC_Walk or
carey@thebmc.co.uk
We have to stand up and defend the places we love.
development, heritage and nature for the preservation of valued and beautiful landscapes and the prosperity of the people who live within them.
The changes won’t, as some claim, ease the dearth
in affordable housing for local residents. If anything, they will hasten the slide of national parks into second home ghost-resorts. And it isn’t hard to predict the impact on the tourist economy if the very thing tourists come to experience – the landscape – is defi led. The government imagines itself to be helping economic development by allowing ‘embalmed’ communities to break free of pesky planning laws, but it is exactly by keeping development in check that those laws benefi t the economy. National Parks represent some of the best ‘value for money’ in public spending, bringing millions into rural economies from tourists and recreational users. Why would anyone go visit a place if it looks like a Barratt housing estate? How on earth did we get to this point? Let’s rewind 70 years from the present, to 1944. The BMC has just been formed. Among several reasons for the founding of the BMC was a clamour for a body which could protect the freedoms of hill-goers and speak out on issues affecting the appearance and use of mountain country – things like electric power schemes, deforestation and industrial development. The countryside in 1944, and the experience of hill
walkers and climbers within it, was very different to today. Many ordinary folk remained effectively barred from large swathes of the uplands and accessibility was limited. But the 1930s had seen a huge growth in campaigns, agitation and mass trespasses – of which the Kinder Trespass is today the most iconic, but it was by no means alone – demanding change. People joined protests in the thousands to demand National Parks and the ‘right to roam’. Following the landslide election of a Labour
Carey Davies is the BMC hill-walking development offi cer. Follow him @BMC_Walk.
government in 1945, a huge effort began to rebuild the country. At its core was the aim of creating ‘a land fi t for heroes’ after the ravages of war. The National Health Service was born during these years and the modern welfare state was created, lifting millions out of poverty. The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act of 1949, passed with rare cross-party support, was another milestone of these years. Described as “a people’s charter for the open air’’, it gave the go-ahead for areas of beautiful, wild and scenic countryside across England and Wales to be designated as National Parks. These were envisaged as places where wildlife could fl ourish, where local communities would prosper, and where the unique natural and human heritage of those areas would be preserved. But above all, they were spaces for ordinary people – spaces where they could experience freedom, adventure and the restorative effects of nature. Fast forward to today. As well as the act of 1949, the intervening years have also seen the launch of the fi rst national trail in the form of the Pennine Way in
1965, another product of that forward-thinking ferment during the 1930s, and the Countryside and Rights of Way Act of 2000, which fi nally granted the ‘right to roam’ across key upland areas demanded by the Kinder Trespassers way back in 1932. Helped by these changes, participation in the outdoors has enjoyed decades of growth. A whole economy has been created around outdoor recreation, bringing billions of pounds into the countryside. A commercial industry thrives on the back of demand for clothing and equipment. Nature and the countryside bring more health, happiness and cash to more people than ever before. You might have thought this would vindicate the gradual prising open of the countryside over the last 70 years and the efforts made to conserve its special qualities. But it seems the countryside and our enjoyment of it face a bewildering array of threats. National Parks and AONBs are being eyed up for fracking possibilities, with exploratory drilling already underway in the South Downs. The North York Moors National Park is currently processing plans to build the world’s biggest potash mine in its protected area. All the while the countryside is being marketised and monetised through ‘biodiversity offsetting’, which gives developers licence to destroy natural habitats with the fi g leaf they ‘compensate’ for the damage by creating new habitats elsewhere. It should be obvious you can’t replace the irreplaceable, that ancient woodlands, bluebell woods and wildfl ower meadows are all unique and can’t simply be traded around in some crass emulation of the marketplace. But apparently not. National Parks and AONBs are not exempt from this mechanism, which in other countries has resulted in vastly inferior habitats to the ones destroyed. In this turbo-commercial age, it seems nothing is sacred or certain. The Lake District I dreamed about may seem far-fetched and depressing (except the hoverboots – they looked fun), but it increasingly feels unsafe to assume anything about the inviolability of National Parks or other protected places. The last 70 years have been generally good for lovers of the outdoors. Though there is still room for improvement, we have come a long way since the days of stick-wielding gamekeepers, rural decline and unchecked industrial development. But it feels as if we are poised on a tipping point. The progress which has been made could point the way to a bright future for the countryside, one in which National Parks are held aloft as living examples of sustainable development, where biodiversity thrives, where artefacts of human heritage are proudly preserved instead of dismissed as ‘museum pieces’, where local economies fl ourish, and where people from all walks of life can breathe, think and play. Or we could go backwards, back to a place where the powerful hold sway, commercialisation reigns supreme and nature is treated with contempt. In another 70 years’ time, will the countryside be a dream or a nightmare? It’s up to us.
SUMMIT#73 | SPRING 2014 | 81
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