National parks are by and large green spaces for people though, we need nature reserves and sssi’s for the wildlife (and a lot of rewilding)
Wild woodland isnt actually that useful for nature. Look at knepp farm, they have a small group of roaming cows that do a wonderful job in creating an ecosystem – something we’ve lost completely.
Herbivores keep scrub down, spread seeds, poo – which attracts insects/birds etc, die – fertilises the ground etc etc.
Our woodland is dead, we’ve removed basically all life from them so they are out of balance.
Nature needs management and we’ve removed the managers.
Even things like removing dead trees because they arent pretty is literally just depleting the nutrients in the area.
This can be done at home mind. The fashion for lawns and weedkiller (note – theres no such thing as a targetted poison) is disastrous. A lawn of green grass is basically concrete for insects. The very idea of a weed is just pointless fashion in most cases, our “weeds” are perfectly suited to our environment and our insects.
Leave dandelions alone in patches they are crucial for insects as the earliest source of food.
Choose native plants and let a patch of grass grow long. Our garden is FULL of life, and all we did was buy some plants and leave it alone.
In some places it’s barren, chewed to smithereens by sheep. In other places it’s manicured so that it looks like a postcard. The last thing it is though is natural or wild.
I guess we need to take the name “national park” literally. They’re not nature reserves, they’re giant parks for tourists and that’s a real shame.
I wonder how much of that is about AONB in which we let sheep graze which stops young diverse plants from growing?
If anyone is in any doubt about how the National Parks and organisations like the National Trust miss-manage what little “natural” land we have in the UK, this is worth a watch.
Always good to see another article about this… Our national parks are a disgrace. The country as a whole, even worse.
I really dislike the worldwide ‘ideal’ of the British countryside. Rolling hills of desolate grass, isolated into squares of land by fencing is nothing to be proud of.
Edit: Instead of downvotes, some talk as to what you see as flaws in my opinion would be useful.
Ok? Wildlife doesn’t pay the bills, people do. I’d bet the ecosystem would love for us to reintroduce wolves and wild hogs but sadly little Timmy getting chewed up isn’t a price that we’re willing to pay.
Agriculture contributes to less than 1% of the UK GDP (0.58%) and has turned the outside of towns and cities into a homogenous wasteland of crops and sheep-nibbled short grass.
It really isn’t worth what has been centuries of immense damage for a tiny percentage and to keep a few farming families bank balances very comfortable.
If we were being objective about it we would pay the farmers off and rewild the lot.
Are they saying that so they can get rid of the protection and build?
I was told by an old boy that back in the 60s/70s the government paid farmers to get rid of Woodland areas then they realised that we lost a lot of wildlife so the government then paid farms again to grow Woodlands back.
That move sounds awfully close to becoming Fortress Conservation. If National Parks at to become conservation enclosures, which restrict the access of communities to nature, it is an extreme and somewhat outdated strategy to protect biodiversity. It is worth highlighting that people live and work within these National Parks, and did so long before they were founded.
Conservation that centres on the people that know and depend on their environment, including forests, lakes and wildlife, can showcase locale stake holders in communities to protect biodiversity and help achieve achive national targets. The rights of local communities to make decisions about their own resources — fish, forests, wild game and so on — must be recognized and supported through clear laws and regulations if it is to be sustainable long term.
Most of them end up getting hit by cars on the motorways and a-roads that run right through these so-called national parks.
It’s not a wildlife refuge if the fucking M3 runs through it. We really need to find a way to reduce animal casualties on our roads, but also give wildlife the space it needs to flourish.
The National Trust are doing a pretty good job at Formby and the Merseyside coastline.
Do I count as wildlife because they are a huge benefit to me…
Some good arguments in here, along with supporting articles. We need, as a nation, to encourage biodiversity and rebuild a more natural ecosystem.
I’d say what’s needed would be more/better *nature corridors* to allow both migration and predation, along with herbivores in managed woodlands.
As to how, well that’s outside my armchair. 😜
[deleted]
Ah well, let’s concrete them over and build high density housing for Uber drivers to live in.
Oh good, someone will suggest chopping them all down and turning them into housing, then.
Compared to what, roads or industrial estates?
They do fine, fuck off.
But surely to “protect” something is to keep it as it is? So why would we see a sustained growth of wildlife as a result?
On a similar note…. I went to a national trust place in NI recently…. And I was discussed at how they turned the place into a tourist trap with information centres and trying to flog you tours.
I get they are needed for old houses that are of cultural importance.. but I felt they provided no care for the landscape. Why do they even get to look after that land and charge?
I know what we should do, lets just build fancy massively expensive houses on them that no one can afford despite there being a complete housing crisis for anyone not very well off or bought their home years ago
most national wildlife and forest parks are less than half the size of their nearest golf course. and are utterly isolated from other areas for wildlife coridoors.
the idea of the national park in the uk is completly useless and should be replaced with the forest avenues (whatever they actually call them) of france and germany
22 comments
National parks are by and large green spaces for people though, we need nature reserves and sssi’s for the wildlife (and a lot of rewilding)
Wild woodland isnt actually that useful for nature. Look at knepp farm, they have a small group of roaming cows that do a wonderful job in creating an ecosystem – something we’ve lost completely.
Herbivores keep scrub down, spread seeds, poo – which attracts insects/birds etc, die – fertilises the ground etc etc.
Our woodland is dead, we’ve removed basically all life from them so they are out of balance.
Nature needs management and we’ve removed the managers.
Even things like removing dead trees because they arent pretty is literally just depleting the nutrients in the area.
This can be done at home mind. The fashion for lawns and weedkiller (note – theres no such thing as a targetted poison) is disastrous. A lawn of green grass is basically concrete for insects. The very idea of a weed is just pointless fashion in most cases, our “weeds” are perfectly suited to our environment and our insects.
Leave dandelions alone in patches they are crucial for insects as the earliest source of food.
Choose native plants and let a patch of grass grow long. Our garden is FULL of life, and all we did was buy some plants and leave it alone.
I will never get bored of reading Monbiot ripping into the Lake District, eg. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/09/lake-district-world-heritage-site-george-monbiot
In some places it’s barren, chewed to smithereens by sheep. In other places it’s manicured so that it looks like a postcard. The last thing it is though is natural or wild.
I guess we need to take the name “national park” literally. They’re not nature reserves, they’re giant parks for tourists and that’s a real shame.
I wonder how much of that is about AONB in which we let sheep graze which stops young diverse plants from growing?
[Time to go wild: George Monbiot, UK National Parks Conference, Dartmoor 2015](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYdm6k1tg3Y&ab_channel=DartmoorNationalPark)
If anyone is in any doubt about how the National Parks and organisations like the National Trust miss-manage what little “natural” land we have in the UK, this is worth a watch.
Always good to see another article about this… Our national parks are a disgrace. The country as a whole, even worse.
I really dislike the worldwide ‘ideal’ of the British countryside. Rolling hills of desolate grass, isolated into squares of land by fencing is nothing to be proud of.
Edit: Instead of downvotes, some talk as to what you see as flaws in my opinion would be useful.
Ok? Wildlife doesn’t pay the bills, people do. I’d bet the ecosystem would love for us to reintroduce wolves and wild hogs but sadly little Timmy getting chewed up isn’t a price that we’re willing to pay.
Agriculture contributes to less than 1% of the UK GDP (0.58%) and has turned the outside of towns and cities into a homogenous wasteland of crops and sheep-nibbled short grass.
It really isn’t worth what has been centuries of immense damage for a tiny percentage and to keep a few farming families bank balances very comfortable.
If we were being objective about it we would pay the farmers off and rewild the lot.
Are they saying that so they can get rid of the protection and build?
I was told by an old boy that back in the 60s/70s the government paid farmers to get rid of Woodland areas then they realised that we lost a lot of wildlife so the government then paid farms again to grow Woodlands back.
That move sounds awfully close to becoming Fortress Conservation. If National Parks at to become conservation enclosures, which restrict the access of communities to nature, it is an extreme and somewhat outdated strategy to protect biodiversity. It is worth highlighting that people live and work within these National Parks, and did so long before they were founded.
Conservation that centres on the people that know and depend on their environment, including forests, lakes and wildlife, can showcase locale stake holders in communities to protect biodiversity and help achieve achive national targets. The rights of local communities to make decisions about their own resources — fish, forests, wild game and so on — must be recognized and supported through clear laws and regulations if it is to be sustainable long term.
Most of them end up getting hit by cars on the motorways and a-roads that run right through these so-called national parks.
It’s not a wildlife refuge if the fucking M3 runs through it. We really need to find a way to reduce animal casualties on our roads, but also give wildlife the space it needs to flourish.
The National Trust are doing a pretty good job at Formby and the Merseyside coastline.
Do I count as wildlife because they are a huge benefit to me…
Some good arguments in here, along with supporting articles. We need, as a nation, to encourage biodiversity and rebuild a more natural ecosystem.
I’d say what’s needed would be more/better *nature corridors* to allow both migration and predation, along with herbivores in managed woodlands.
As to how, well that’s outside my armchair. 😜
[deleted]
Ah well, let’s concrete them over and build high density housing for Uber drivers to live in.
Oh good, someone will suggest chopping them all down and turning them into housing, then.
Compared to what, roads or industrial estates?
They do fine, fuck off.
But surely to “protect” something is to keep it as it is? So why would we see a sustained growth of wildlife as a result?
On a similar note…. I went to a national trust place in NI recently…. And I was discussed at how they turned the place into a tourist trap with information centres and trying to flog you tours.
I get they are needed for old houses that are of cultural importance.. but I felt they provided no care for the landscape. Why do they even get to look after that land and charge?
I know what we should do, lets just build fancy massively expensive houses on them that no one can afford despite there being a complete housing crisis for anyone not very well off or bought their home years ago
most national wildlife and forest parks are less than half the size of their nearest golf course. and are utterly isolated from other areas for wildlife coridoors.
the idea of the national park in the uk is completly useless and should be replaced with the forest avenues (whatever they actually call them) of france and germany