There are wild places, described by poets, painted by artists and loved by country walkers which must be protected for future generations to enjoy. I suspect that most readers of Around-England will have no difficulty in agreeing with that statement. I fear, however, that this post may lose me some friends as I consider the question, “But does that mean they must be preserved just as they are?”

There is a majesty to the wide open moors and mountains, not forgetting the rivers. Wordsworth wrote glowingly, “Duddon! as I cast my eyes, I see what was, and is, and will abide; Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide.” Beautiful words! And beautiful landscapes must be protected. Furthermore, wildlife habitats need to be guarded from wanton destruction, especially where there is something rare or unusual, or endangered.

The North of England is well provided with National Parks (four of England’s ten), Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (seven of England’s thirty-four), and many Sites of Special Scientfic Interest. To this list one should add bodies such as English Heritage and The National Trust. All of these in their different ways provide protection for some of the most glorious areas of our land. I’m a great admirer of so much that they do.

My question, however, is about balance and competition. It is about striking a balance between environmental protection and economic sustainability for both present and future populations. It is also a competition of contrasting philosophies and the aspirations they generate, between the desire to protect the countryside from severe change and a wish to prevent almost any change at all. In other words we have to ask, are our beautiful areas to survive comprehensively as human habitats or only as landscape museums which reluctantly tolerate the presence and activity of people?

Wordsworth again conjured up deep emotions when he referred to Kirkstone Pass as, “These fraternal hills where, save the rugged road, we find nor hint of man;” poetic, but not accurate. The landscape even in his day had been substantially shaped by the activity of humans and their sheep for centuries, and we do well to remember this.

My interest in this dilemma dates back to the early 1980s when as a consultant I worked on economic development issues in the northwest and from time to time specifically on tourism. I quickly concluded that the concept of “sustainability” was often being promoted in far too narrow a sense, forgetting the need for the economic sustainability without which in the long term the environmental aspirations will become unattainable.

Cumbria, including the Lake District, was an industrial county for centuries before tourists arrived. Windermere and Coniston were commercial waterways carrying not only woollen and wooden products but also materials extracted from the fells and mountains south to other parts of England and further afield. Ambleside was an industrial village, Stock Ghyll driving many a water wheel. Coniston Old Man was the site of copper mines and slate quarries. Graphite was mined in Borrowdale, firstly for military purposes and then for pencils, and many other rare elements were extracted from the Cumbrian hills.

Could the Mines Royal ever have opened if the present-day environmental protection system had existed then. (Or would the first Queen Elizabeth, aware of the severe economic challenges to her country, have overruled the objectors?) Could the dry stone walls, one of the glories of the northern upland landscape ever have been built, or would they have been viewed as a creeping fungus, blotting the otherwise “pristine” landscape. Even earlier, could Herdwicks and other hardy breeds of sheep ever have been introduced if viewed as non-native species threatening to change for ever the vegetation of the fells?

Today we view the relics of old industry as attractions, and cover them with protective regulation. Yet we block so much 21st century development as inappropriate. Is there not sometimes a degree of hypocrisy in promoting the ruins of industry from the 19th century and earlier as part of an interesting visitor experience in industrial archaeology, and yet objecting to far less dramatic change in the 21st?

Tourism was a relative late-comer to the North of England, but a very welcome one economically as traditional industries faded. Initially it was genteel tourism, the well-to-do wondering at the fearsome mountains. The introduction of popular tourism was resented and resisted by the well-heeled, but it was unstoppable. Down the years it has, of course, changed. The development of more indoor attractions, for example, has made it possible to lengthen the season. It must continue to change so as to keep up with changing patterns in society.

I cannot help wonder, however, whether far-future generations of archaeologists will look at the landscapes of our national parks and hypothesise that they must have been almost evacuated for a couple of centuries because they can’t find much that doesn’t look like a tidied up version of the 19th or earlier?

Having no doubt upset quite a number already I’ll now move on to popular campaigning. On this topic I do know what I’m talking about having been Deputy Chairman, 2000-2005, of the UK chapter of a major international campaigning body, Transparency International. I well recall having to work hard to curb overenthusiasm. A particular type of oil-related payment to foreign governments was often being diverted into the private pockets. Some newspapers then branded the oil companies’ payments as themselves being corrupt. They were not. It was the diversion, the theft, that was criminal. To make my point I recall once, at a meeting organised by the World Bank, deliberately sitting at the table with an American oil company executive rather than with others of the NGO group so as to emphasise that responsible advocacy must be scrupulously honest and fair. Campaigners should not be emulating sensationalist journalism.

What does this have to do with envirnomental protection in National Parks and AONBs? Just this, that campaigning can become excessive. Enthusiasm can take over from good sense, and sometimes even from honesty. High profile campaigns frequently go further than the facts can support. In my 1970s book on business ethics (Ethics in Organizations, Kogan Page, 1997) I used a then current example of an environmental campaign in which pollution figures were grossly distorted. Eventually there was an admission, but never an apology. Seemingly the misrepresentation was considered to be justified by the cause. This is not to claim that deliberate lying happens frequently, but sometimes enthusiastic exaggeration can be almost as bad.

Yes, the natural habitats of rare species need protection but that is not to say that nothing must ever be allowed to change within the area concerned. The question should not be, “Will this development have any adverse impact on the habitat?” It should rather be, “Will it have an adverse impact and if so, to what extent and over what timescale?” Proportionality in judgement must win over absolutism.

Inevitably from time to time one hears the cry, “These developments are just about making private profit,” or “Public interest must win over commercialism.” I could go on at length about the nonsense too often talked about the glorious “virtues” of public organisations versus the alleged “evils” of the private sector but will resist the temptation … except to say that I hope the people who object to private sector profit intend to refuse their pension payments when they come due. Where do they think the money comes from?

I’ll return now to tourism. The industry has changed over the years, and must continue to change. The season in Northern upland areas is short. It has improved but much more needs to be done. What is more, the age-profile of visitors must be broadened. This year, since moving back to live in the county of my birth, I’ve had the opportunity of moving around many of the tourist areas. This is admittedly an unscientific impression, with no detailed statistical analysis, but it seemed very clear to me that even during the main school holiday period there was a preponderance of the over-50s. Now I’m well past that point myself, so I’m not arguing for an over-50s quota system, but much more must be done to bring in the 20s and 30s, and in addition to the traditional attractions of the countryside this inevitably must mean developments in the tourism product.

What is so special about keeping things looking like they did two hundred years ago? Hmm! Well! Sometimes it is difficult even to get permission to reinstate things as they used to be. A few years ago, in another part of the country my wife and I moved into a converted barn. The main part of the building dated back to the mid-1700s. The man who had converted it into a house ten years earlier had a lengthy bureaucratic battle over the rules of the conservation area. He wanted a brick-built chimney on the back of the house to allow for a solid-fuel burner in the large entrance hall. Refused! Why? Out of character with the area! After a considerable amount of argumentation he finally obtained a nineteenth century photograph showing the barn. And what was on the back of the building? A brivk-built chimney. He won his appeal.

The 1920s Lancaster Aerial Flight, Honister (Photograph courtesy of Honister Slate Mine)

I am so glad that the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, now one of the Lake District’s major tourist attractions, was converted from an industrial line to a tourist experience more than sixty years ago. If it had closed and reconstruction of the line from Ravenglass to Dalegarth up Eskdale toward Scafell Pike were proposed today I can well imagine the furore that would result, with arguments about the desecration of the fells.

I am fully aware that this is a complex question. Ever since my involvement in issues affecting the economic prosperity of this region back in the 1980s I have, however, been convinced that the remit of the UK’s national park authorities is skewed in an unwise direction. There should be a much better balance between economic prosperity and environmental conservation.

No, I am not advocating a free-for-all. There are beautiful landscapes and important habitats to be protected. From time to time insensitive development unfortunately is allowed in beautiful areas. Whoever could claim that the view over the Solway Firth from Maryport has been enhanced by the windfarm on the other side of the water? Yes, things do sometimes go wrong , but the answer is not to swing to the opposite extreme. There is danger also in the use of emotive phraseology such as, “The thin end of the wedge,” or “Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile”, or “Setting a dangerous precedent”.

Striking a sensible balance is not easy (dilemmas never are) but if protection is allowed to go too far and to turn into the preservation of a landscape museum then the viability of the region as a home for future generations will be put at risk.

Today the British government’s Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, unveiled her proposed plans for selling considerable amounts of state-owned forest land or, as it turns out, selling long-term leases.  In the run-up to this announcement there has been a considerable volume of speculation as to what would be involved, with wild guesses in all directions often presented as though they were known fact.

A few days ago I tweeted to the effect that I had not yet made up my mind about what should and should not be done. Now I want to make a few points, some of which may be controversial among my readers, and arrive at a conclusion that is highly likely to satisfy no-one.

Firstly, it should be remembered that the document released today is a consultative paper. It is not the last word.  (At least the present government is consulting, which is more than the previous one did when starting the sell-off process  – more than 30,000 acres already gone by my calculation).

Secondly, whenever change is proposed in any policy area songs of praise to the existing public bodies inevitably seem to be triggered.  Well just think back to the environmental desecration of vast swathes of formerly beautiful hillside by the existing Forestry Commission.  What about its monocultural acres of straight up and down conifers?  Granted, it eventually saw the light, and has more recently been trying to atone for some of the worst of its sins, but let’s take off the rose-tinted spectacles. Neither has the Commission’s record on access always been as pure as driven snow. So let’s keep a balance.

Yes, heritage woodland has to be preserved. Yes, rights of access need to be protected in what have developed as popular recreational areas. As a native of Cumbria, and currently living close to Sherwood Forest, I’m in no doubt about these two points.   However, even under the existing regime it is inevitable that from time to time there would be changes; forests, after all, are living and therefore changing entities.  But also, on the other side of the argument, there are forest areas which owe their existence solely to the commercial production of timber, and these need to be managed professionally in an economically viable manner.  This is not a single-issue policy area; it has many strands.

Another factor, of which I’ve heard less mention, is the current crazy situation in which the Commission is both operator and regulator – a serious conflict of interest that should never have been allowed to develop in the first place. It’s rather like Ofcom running a TV station, or Ofsted managing schools and assessing its own performance. This is something that must be changed.

So where do I stand on all this? I still don’t yet know. I need to read the consultative document carefully and thoughtfully, and then make up my mind.  It is no virtue to jump to prejudiced, doctrinaire, ill-informed conclusions before digesting the proposals, the facts and the arguments.

The consultation document can be downloaded from the Defra site here.

I recently saw a website belonging to a road building company that bemoaned the usurping of the term hardcore by the porn industry when its traditional use was to describe the stone and other crushed aggregates that provide the base for roads and paths. I agree, and am going to avoid the modern sophisticated “aggregates” in favour of the older “hardcore”.

What has this to do with lakes and the Lake District?  Well, the Westmorland Gazette this week carries an interesting story about an innovative use of fleeces from the region’s Herdwick sheep. Apparently fleeces laid down over water-logged ground provide an excellent substrate over which to lay a layer of hardcore (or more poshly, “aggregate”) when making a path.

When you’re next walking the Lake District hills you might well be walking literally on the backs of the sheep. What a nice thought that when fleece prices are so low there’s an environmentally friendly alternative use, and apparently it’s not even just a modern innovation; our forefathers used to do similar things centuries ago.

For a fascinating read about the amazing Herdwick, the sheep breed that for centuries has survived the worst that the Lake District fell weather has been able to throw at them, see the recent book by Geoff Brown. Click on the image for more details.

I think the first time I heard of the Friends of the Lake District, or at least the first time they really hit my consciousness to any significant degree, was during their campaign to preserve Ennerdale Water and Wastwater in the late-70s and early-80s.

At that time I was visiting the area frequently as a management adviser to British Nuclear Fuels and my first awareness of the struggle over how much water could be  taken from the lakes without damaging the environment was very much conditioned by what I heard within the company – although my own work was nothing at all to do with that particular subject.  Gradually I came to realise, however, that even within BNFL there were many who had considerable sympathy with the cause of protecting the future of the lakes.  After all, most of the people employed there lived in the area and loved it.

This isn’t the place for a long article about one particular campaign.  The story was well told by Geoffrey Berry in his 1982 book, A Tale of Two Lakes: The Fight to Save Ennerdale Water and Wastwater, which is now available only secondhand but click on the link and you might well find a decent copy at Amazon.

The main reason for writing today is to flag up the 75th anniversary of this excellent campaigning organisation which has done so much to help preserve the Lake District and wider Cumbrian landscape heritage since its foundation in 1934. For more, see the Friends of the Lake District website.