MEND OUR MOUNTAINS 2
STEVE BACKSHALL, ADVENTURER AND PRESENTER
R Autumnal light on Blease and Gate Gill Fells.
“National parks have been squeezed in recent years by budget cuts of up to 40%, but the challenges of looking after the landscape continue to grow.”
Mend Our Mountains: Make One Million will take place against a similar background to that of the first campaign. National parks have been squeezed in recent years by budget cuts of up to 40%, but the challenges of looking after the landscape continue to grow. Visitor numbers are rising and the volatility of the climate appears to be worsening. The floods which hit the Lake District during Storm Desmond in late 2015, for example, were estimated to have caused a year’s worth of damage to the region’s paths in a single night, much of which has still not yet been repaired. Without effective intervention, erosion scars on popular walking routes
have been known to grow up to 30 metres wide (as wide as the M1), and the network of upland paths forms an indispensable part of the wider recreational infrastructure. But these paths are expensive, often because of the need to helicopter heavy materials to remote places, source materials and pay for long hours of skilled labour. It costs £28 just to maintain every metre of the 40 kilometre route of the Yorkshire Three Peaks. The BMC is opposed to cuts to national parks and other public bodies
charged with conserving the environment, as we believe the benefits they deliver to wider society significantly outweigh their cost to the public purse. We are not trying to replace government funding for national parks. But we feel as outdoor enthusiasts we have a responsibility to play a supportive role – not least as a way of offering a positive alternative to more overtly exploitative commercial tie-ups, or increasingly onerous fee-charging. We must play the cards we are dealt, and we seek to channel the goodwill of the outdoor public into initiatives which clearly demonstrate a willingness to voluntarily chip in to look after places we care about. Many national parks increasingly recognise the need – and opportunity – for greater partnership with user groups and other organisations. We want to encourage this approach and show we can step up to the challenge when needed. This expanded scope of Mend Our Mountains: Make One Million allows us to be much more ambitious with the specific projects we want to support. With the Peak District National Park, for example, we aim to raise the £140,000 needed to fix the heavily eroded route along the
42 | CLIMB. WALK. JOIN.
“The mountains delight the human spirit and represent the most vital wilderness areas of our often crowded islands. When you’re in the hills, the temptation is to revel in their freedom, but in places of high use, there have to be maintained thoroughfares, or fragile mountain ecosystems will simply be eroded away.”
Great Ridge, the iconic route joining together Mam Tor and Lose Hill. With path-repair partnership Fix the Fells, we want to raise £100,000 to make a decisive intervention in the ongoing battle to repair erosion on the paths leading up to Scafell Pike, the roof of England. With the South Downs National Park, we want to secure £100,000 for much-needed repairs along the whole route of the South Downs Way, one of England’s foremost national trails. And coming back to the Peak District, with Moors for the Future and the mountain bike advocacy group Ride Sheffield, we seek to raise £70,000 to repair the ‘bog of doom’ on the spectacular Cut Gate bridleway. Heading north of the border, we will work with the Cairngorms Outdoor
Access Trust and our counterpart Mountaineering Scotland to raise £60,000 for Beinn a’ Ghlo in the Cairngorms and £40,000 for Ben Vane in the Arrochar Alps. With the Snowdonia National Park, we aim to net at least £75,000 to fix main route up Cader Idris, which despite its increasing popularity has not seen any attention for 30 years. And with the Yorkshire Dales National Park, our ambition is a cool £46,000 to restore the Yorkshire’s pride and mend the terribly eroded Bruntscar path on the county’s highest hill, Whernside. Other substantial projects in Exmoor, the Brecon Beacons, Dartmoor and the New Forest have lower targets but still require a concerted push to make them happen. These are just some of the most high-value examples. The fundraising
efforts for some of these projects have already been underway for some time, but by lassoing them as part of a national appeal we hope to give them all a boost. Today, more UK adults regularly go hill walking or climbing than regularly
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participate in golf, tennis and rugby put together. The accumulated benefit of this activity to the heath, happiness and general wellbeing of wider society is incalculable. And the landscapes in which this activity often takes place form a vital part of our cultural and environmental fabric; they are inspirations for our art, refuges for wildlife, and repositories of history. Paths are nothing less than statements of who we are. The message is clear: we must work all work together to protect them.
PHOTO: TERRY ABRAHAM.
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