In September over 1000 people gathered in Bristol for the Wild Summit organised by Wildlife and Countryside Link and covering topics as broad as ‘Nature-friendly farming: can farmers feed the nation and be the driving force of nature restoration?’ and ‘Bringing nature home: How Nature Towns and Cities is helping urban places and communities thrive’. 

Mary-Ann Ochota, Independent Chair of the Protected Landscapes Partnership spoke as part of the ‘England’s great landscapes: the backbone of nature recovery or beyond repair?’ panel session. 

The session asked whether protected landscapes: National Landscapes, National Parks and National Trails; and protected sites like Sites of Special Scientific Interest are forming the backbone of nature recovery across England, ready to deliver on the international 30by30 (30% of land and sea protected for nature by 2030) target. 

Mary-Ann shares her reflections with us. 

To secure a bright future for England’s protected landscapes, we need to find people we might disagree with, listen to them carefully and heed their perspectives. That’s guidance I regularly hand out, so what better place to take my own advice than on stage at the Wild Summit. 

Rose O’Neill, Chief Executive of the Campaign for National Parks chaired the ‘England’s great landscapes: the backbone of nature recovery or beyond repair?’ panel discussion between campaigner and author Guy Shrubsole; ecologist and author Lee Schofield; Chief Executive at Wild Justice Bob Elliot, Chief Scientist and Chief Insights Officer at the Office for Environmental Protection Robbie McDonald, and me. 

Guy started the session listing plenty of problems in his blistering 10-minute provocation: intensively managed grouse moors in many of our uplands, which can contribute to regimes of burning heather, draining peat and illegally persecuting birds of prey; the release of huge numbers of non-native pheasants – at least 26 million in England annually – for the minority of people who shoot them for sport; overgrazed commons with too many sheep; and the legacies of 20th-century ‘productivity’ drives, including ploughing up chalk grasslands for crop production and straightening rivers to speed the flow of water off the land. 

The points are sound. For many decades, we’ve been drawing down far greater sums from Nature’s bank account than we’ve been paying in. Basic maths says that, at some point in the not-too-distant future, we’ll go bust. After all, the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mother Nature.

Protected landscapes – nature defending itself

Should National Landscapes, National Parks and National Trails be at the heart of nature recovery? Yes, absolutely. Our protected landscapes should be buzzing with nature… but they are much more than that.

England’s 34 National Landscapes and 10 National Parks are designated Category V landscapes under the definition set by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN): “A protected area where the interaction of people and nature over time has produced an area of distinct character with significant ecological, biological, cultural and scenic value; and where safeguarding the integrity of this interaction is vital to protecting and sustaining the area and its associated nature conservation and other values.”

These are storied landscapes, rich in human meaning. Management teams strike a fine balance, working to meet the needs of communities, rural businesses, farming and food production, heritage and archaeology, geology and topography, people’s health and access to the countryside, and nature.

By accident, what the radical founders of our National Landscapes and National Parks did was way ahead of their time: they mandated that people and nature should be in these landscapes, thriving together. They have never been about fortress conservation, putting nature over here and people over there. They are perfectly poised to help us centre the idea that we are nature – and that the work done in protected landscapes is nature defending itself.

Dynamic people and places responding to modern challenges

We know that the challenges facing us are urgent – an unstable climate, global security threats, nature loss, soil and water degradation, and poor human health. To address these challenges, we need to do things differently, and we need to recognise that our finite land needs to do a lot.

Land use will always be contested, but we get the best results when we start with multifunctional land use: nature and farming; nature and access; nature and sustainable business; nature and affordable rural housing… you get the picture.

That means operating in spaces that feel uncomfortable and contested, and where collaboration is the default. Solutions don’t need to be perfect; they need to be good enough. 

The acceleration of change in our landscapes highlights the fact that these places are dynamic – and must be dynamically managed: trying to hold a site in an increasingly ecologically incoherent state is a fool’s game. It’s why many SSSIs are in unfavourable condition – the species the protection was based on simply isn’t there anymore. Rather than condemning the site, or tearing up its protections, we should be more ecologically pragmatic and ask, ‘what does nature want to do here now?’ and protect that instead. Trying to turn back the clock isn’t good for nature, climate or the taxpayer.

A backbone, or a circulatory system?

Protected landscapes should be places where we create the conditions for abundance. Rather than a ‘backbone’ of national nature recovery, I think protected landscapes should be more like the heart and lungs – breathing life into the wider body of the nation, circulating that abundance far beyond their boundaries.

There is more to do, but these places are already successful. Amazing things are underway in our protected landscapes – for nature and for people:

• The Big Chalk project, hosted by the National Landscapes Association, brings together 150 organisations including 14 National Landscapes, one National Park and 9 National Trails. It connects chalk and limestone habitats across an astonishing 25,000 sq km – around 20% of England. Citizen scientists, river ecologists, landowners and farmers are working together to bring these landscapes back to health. 

• In the Peak District, Moors for the Future is bringing together National Highways, RSPB, National Trust and United Utilities to help prevent flooding and wildfire, restore habitats and hold more clean water in the landscape.

• The nature-rich Coastal Wildbelt encircles the whole of our coastline, meaning that one in five people in the country are now within 5km of open-access coastline.

Growing the future together

We often talk about a fair or just transition in the face of a changing climate. We talk about nature disconnection, access for marginalised and racialised communities, and people in urban areas facing extreme heat, nature disconnection and intolerable air pollution.

That’s exactly right. These issues should be at the forefront.

But we don’t talk as confidently about the needs of people in rural communities. Rural poverty is real, and just as crippling to life chances as it is in our cities. So, if asking for a change in land use so nature can benefit, we also need to look at what a just transition for an affected community looks like. What will be there in its place? What will offer meaningful work, economic security and a future we can believe in? The old adage holds true – if we want to go far, we need to go together. 

It’s not always easy or comfortable, but we should welcome the challenge from colleagues and collaborators across the nature, environment and social justice sectors. Moments of criticism are not opportunities to marshal a defence. They are opportunities, with humility, to seek out the truth in what’s being said, understand the detail, and then ask: ‘So how do we start on common ground, and step forward with common purpose?’

It’s on us – collectively – to ensure that we create networks of protected landscapes that are not just fit for the future, but are part of creating the future.

I firmly believe there’s a way to do it so that nature and people rise together, thriving in connected, protected landscapes.