Lake District UNESCO Status: Conservationists’ Plea
Lake District UNESCO Status Under Threat Over Sheep Farming Concerns
A campaign is underway to strip the Lake District of its UNESCO world heritage status. Conservationists argue the designation promotes unsustainable sheep farming,hindering nature recovery adn harming local communities. Ecologist Lee Schofield, in a letter to UNESCO, contends the designation creates a false perception of farming and obstructs efforts to restore the habitat and mitigate climate change.
The campaign is supported by a report co-authored by Schofield, Dr.Karen Lloyd of Lancaster University, and Professor Ian Convery of the university of Cumbria.The report claims the UNESCO inscription favors sheep farming over other conventional mixed farming practices involving cattle, pigs, horses, and poultry.
The UNESCO designation celebrates the lake District as a cultural landscape shaped by traditional agro-pastoral farming, with sheep farming central to its identity.Schofield notes the word “sheep” appears 357 times in the nomination document, far more than other livestock.
Critics argue the Lake District’s 673,000 sheep comprise 90% of the medium-sized mammal biomass, leaving only 3% for wild mammals. Schofield calls sheep farming “both ecologically catastrophic and economically precarious,” linking it to the fact that only 20.7% of the Lake District’s sites of special scientific interest are in favorable condition. Intensive grazing prevents tree regeneration, reduces biodiversity, and causes soil erosion.
“We’re in a biodiversity and a climate crisis. But as critically important as cultural heritage might be, we’re not in a cultural heritage crisis,” Schofield said.
David Morris, of the RSPB, supports the report, stating the designation protects ”some of the most ecologically damaging and economically loss-making agriculture practices in the English uplands.” He added that the inscription enables “nimbyism” against conservation efforts.
Visitor numbers have risen from 16.4 million in 2015 to over 18 million annually, with 22 million projected by 2040. Lloyd says intense tourism drives up house prices and overwhelms infrastructure. “The lake District world heritage inscription is presiding over the death of the landscape and its communities – both wild and human.”
However, Jane Barker, a farmer and former deputy chair of the Lake District National Park Authority, disagrees that world heritage status hinders progressive farming. She said the designation “hasn’t really made a difference” to her farm business and that farming within the designation could be “perfectly compatible with net zero, climate change, biodiversity, water quality.”
Julia Aglionby, a professor at the University of Cumbria, argues that protecting traditional practices is necessary. She disputes that revoking world heritage status is the answer, stating, “The main issue is that we haven’t had an effective public money for public goods policy.”
If triumphant, this would be the second UK site to lose world heritage status, after Liverpool’s waterfront in 2021.
Steve Ratcliffe,of the Lake District National Park Authority,said changes in land management are necessary but shoudl consider the area’s cultural heritage.
What’s next
The RSPB and other environmental NGOs are considering raising concerns directly with UNESCO regarding the Lake District’s world heritage status and its impact on conservation efforts.