Latest news with #Haweswater
BBC News
a day ago
- BBC News
Plea to drop 'abused' Lake District Unesco world heritage title
A conservationist is campaigning to get the Lake District's world heritage status revoked, claiming too many tourists are damaging the land. Ecologist Lee Schofield, who owns farmland near Haweswater, has written to Unesco saying the area is being "abused" by increased tourism, second-home ownership and unsustainable sheep area was given the status by the United Nations agency in 2017, with its beauty, thriving farming businesses and inspiration for artists and writers being praised. Tim Farron, Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, said losing the status would be a "hammer blow" to tourism and farming. Unesco has been approached for comment. The Lake District was the 31st place in the UK and overseas territories to be put on the heritage list, joining the likes of the Grand Canyon, the Taj Mahal and Machu Picchu. About 18 million people visit the area each year, spending a total of £1.2bn and providing about 18,000 is home to England's largest natural lake - Windermere - and highest mountain - Scafell Pike. Mr Schofield said: "Some areas need a rest, maybe for quite a long period of time to allow the habitat to recover again and then it will be able to support more livestock again in the future. "The designation is also really damaging in terms of tourism, it's a much bigger contributor to the rural economy than farming is but it reaches a point when it has a really damaging impact on wildlife and the communities that live in these places."He also said there was a "massive problem" with second-home ownership driving up property prices, meaning locals could not afford to buy homes. Julia Aglionby, professor of protected areas from the University of Cumbria, disputed the claim there was "over-tourism".She said it was important it was managed properly and that was the role of the "hard-working" Lake District National Park Authority. Hannah Wadsworth, who helps run Lakeland Maze Farm Park, near Kendal, said the status had boosted her said: "The World Heritage Status has been really helpful for us bringing people into the farm park."If it was to go it would be really unfortunate and [we] would really struggle to maintain our livelihood."Other UK Unesco sites include Stonehenge, Durham Castle and Cathedral, and the city of Bath. Farron said he was against the campaign and that it was a "misguided and poorly judged attack" on hill said: "Stripping the Lake District of the status and removing sheep from the fells would be hammer blow for Cumbria's tourism and farming sectors - both of which are utterly vital to our economy. "It would also be damaging to our heritage and diversity."Mr Schofield added: "I'm one of many people who have raised these concerns - this is not a personal campaign, I'm certainly not alone in this." Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
BBC News
22-05-2025
- Climate
- BBC News
Mardale 'lost village' visible after Haweswater dry spell
A village which was deliberately flooded to make a reservoir has re-emerged due to lack of rain fall. Mardale village in the Lake District disappeared when the Haweswater valley was flooded in 1939 to create the structure to provide water for the north-west of Environment Agency said the reservoir, which has capacity for about 85,000 million litres (18,697 million gallons) of water, was 30% lower than it should be at this time of Mike Cree, of Kendal, said the area was "hot and dry as a bone" and the reservoir water levels looked between 12 to 15ft (4.5m) lower than usual. The Environment Agency warned there was a risk of droughts in some areas as the dry spell continued."This May has seen a continuation of the dry weather and low rainfall across England," a spokeswoman said. "With little rainfall during the first part of the month, this continues to impact on public water supply reservoirs in central and northern England."She also said it was the driest spell England had had at this time of year since added: "Haweswater reservoir crossed drought level one on 1 May and the regional reservoir storage continues to decrease. "On average, storage is 30% below expected level." The Haweswater Dam was considered to be an engineering feat at the started in 1929, but was abandoned for three years between 1931 and completed, it took almost a year to fill with the first recorded water overtopping and flowing down the overflow slipway in gathered for the last service to be held at Mardale it was flooded, villagers were moved out and their homes and other buildings buried in the village's church graveyard were exhumed and many reburied at and some of the stones from the church were reused in the draw-off tower situated a little way back from the dam 200 men worked on the construction of the dam and lived in a temporary village called Burnbanks. Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The sheep-farming fight tarnishing the Lake District fells
Butterflies flutter over a verdant Lake District meadow, and tiny fish make their way over the gravel of the crystal-clear Swindale Beck as it meanders through the valley. Somewhere on the hillside scrub a cuckoo calls. Above, a peregrine and buzzard circle the bluest of skies, diving towards the bright yellow common gorse below us, the gentle breeze wafting its distinctive coconut scent. As the path through this remarkable, award-winning valley opens up – it's one of three that make up the 12 square miles of farmland, moorland, rivers, rainforest and wildflower meadows that is Wild Haweswater – two walkers stop and gasp at the beauty of it all. If there were a classic springtime scene in the Lake District it would surely be this… that is, if there weren't one thing missing. It's lambing season – yet there are no iconic Lake District sheep to be seen. And that's because, on this land tenanted by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) from landowners United Utilities (Haweswater being a reservoir supplying two million people in the North West with drinking water), the thousands of sheep that have traditionally been tasked with grazing have gradually been destocked – to the point where, a few weeks ago, some of the last were sold by the RSPB at auction. Farmers have been keeping sheep on the upland fells for centuries, although in truly significant numbers only since the Second World War, when food production was ramped up. Particularly since the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001, landowners – sometimes via their tenants – have destocked, changing land management policies in line with the direction of government subsidies towards agri-environment schemes. In the RSPB's case, it believed that the environmental aims it had for the landscape of the two farms that had sheep on them – Naddle and Swindale – would be better served by replacing the grazing areas with cattle and ponies, replanting trees and native plants and even restoring the river running through the valley back to its natural route. And for all that the RSPB and United Utilities have the right to do this given it is their land, some local sheep farmers believe that these environmental schemes and policies are the final nail in the coffin for a traditional industry that is on its knees. Residents reckon this beautiful part of the eastern Lakes has lost half its farms in the past 10 years. '[The RSPB sold the sheep] for what? So they can do some more rewilding? What a load of rubbish,' says Katy Cropper, a local farmer and sheepdog trainer who used to help the farmers at Swindale gather their sheep. 'See over there?' she asks, pointing across the valley. 'The fell looks to me like an overgrown mess. It used to be beautiful, [grazed by sheep which were] maintained by farmers for generations. Now it's just a tinderbox of long brown grass waiting to go up in flames. 'All this money is being spent on a waste of time; millions of pounds spent on trees which I can't see growing successfully. And we can't eat trees, can we? What's happened here has spoilt the community, ruined people's livelihoods. What are the families who have grown up shepherding these lands going to do now?' The stats bear it out: Defra's report last year had the UK's sheep population at a record low, while the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board industry body recently published a report showing sheep meat imports were up 59 per cent on 2023 for the first two months of 2025. While the research shows the UK is self-sufficient in sheep meat, as the National Sheep Association points out, self-sufficiency is not the same as food or industry security – both of which are vulnerable if governments and agencies prioritise imports and environmental schemes over domestic production. It feels like Wild Haweswater, then, is at the heart of a battle for the true soul, the very character of the Lake District. Indeed, the Unesco description of the Lake District National Park when it was awarded World Heritage status makes explicit reference to the symbiotic relationship between farming and the environment in this part of the world: 'A landscape of exceptional beauty, shaped by persistent and distinctive agro-pastural traditions and local industry which give it special character.' Yet the general consensus among the conservation community and environmental stakeholders is that if you want to maintain and develop the exceptional beauty of a landscape, sheep are probably not the best option: they believe they tend to degrade or destroy the natural, native plant life by constantly nibbling away at the trees, shrubs and flowering plants attempting to come through; heavier-footed animals, they say, trample the bracken instead and spread wildflower seed through their dung. Back at Naddle Farm – one of two farms here that the RSPB maintains – they're careful not to call what they do rewilding. 'It's a landscape restoration partnership with United Utilities,' says Annabel Rushton, the RSPB's people and partnerships manager. Hers may sound like a desk job, but she can't wait to get out into that landscape and show me an alder that now has rowan growing out of it. 'A classic indicator of a temperate rainforest,' she says. 'It's the second-largest area of this type of rainforest in the Lake District; a very special place. 'And then in the hay meadow, we'll have great burnet, wood cranesbill, melancholy thistle – it's like a wash of colour which then brings in all the insect life: golden-ringed dragonflies, dark green fritillaries, chimney sweeper moths. And our work to restore this habitat, bring it back from a pretty degraded state, is just getting better each year.' What frustrates the RSPB in this debate the most, though, is the narrative that it's somehow pushed out the sheep farmers of this area in favour of wildflowers. It's its own farming team which manages the livestock and habitat, and ultimately the RSPB didn't believe it could meet its aims for conservation on its land while running a flock of sheep. 'Look over there,' says Rushton, pointing beyond a particularly magnificent area of bright yellow gorse. 'You can still see sheep in this landscape on the common land, it's just that our objectives for our land are different.' As we wind our way through Swindale, Glen Swainson, Wild Haweswater's senior site manager, says the RSPB doesn't want to remove animals entirely but create a wood pasture, 'a really lovely balance between agriculture and nature conservation. 'It is still a farmed landscape that needs managing,' he admits when we come to a pasture with hill ponies happily grazing. 'We've had sheep, we've got cattle, and we've got these ponies, but the sheep element always has more of a struggle to it in terms of making it pay as upland sheep farming as a whole; everyone will tell you the economics of it are really difficult.'He has a point. Post-Brexit, the EU Common Agricultural Policy – which gave area-based direct payment subsidies to farmers – came to an end. These direct payments made up more than 80 per cent of government support for farmers and last year's 'Future of Sheep Farming' debate in the Houses of Parliament was quite clear that subsidies were relied upon 'to provide a business profit'. The new system based on Environmental Land Management schemes pays farmers for providing 'public goods' such as environmental improvements. The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) also pays farmers to adopt and maintain sustainable farming practices that can protect and enhance the natural environment alongside food production, although that itself hit the headlines when it was halted in March, with no new SFI applications accepted after this date until a spending review was completed. 'I can actually see some sense in what the RSPB are doing in terms of economics,' says Mark Bousfield, who has lived and farmed sheep in the Swindale valley for most of his life. 'The farms here wouldn't survive without the enhancements the Government gives. But the government subsidies now aren't in food production, really, they're in environmental payouts.' But this isn't just a debate about economics or livelihoods. Spend any time with the people who live and work here, and they're also worried that these environmental schemes are not actually being managed properly. Magnus McIntosh lives at the end of the valley and with his wife, he's refurbished a derelict farmhouse once used by a local artist captivated by the views. It's still off-grid, and their young son was the first child to be born here in decades. 'We have a responsibility to nurture the environment and protect habitats,' he says. 'The area around here is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and it's one of the reasons we came here. 'The hay meadows are incredible; in 1985, they were one of the most species-rich in north-west Cumbria. But my worry is that the removal of sheep and a lot of the RSPB projects are actually having a detrimental effect. The meadows have visibly declined; they do actually require careful management and a strict grazing regime. 'It's going to end up being a bleak little valley with reeds everywhere and dead grass. It feels like there's a lot of money being wasted; rewilding schemes today appear driven by funding opportunities rather than genuine care for wildlife and long-term ecological health.' For McIntosh, it's about conserving, improving and enhancing the landscape as it is now, not trying to return it to how it was 1,000 years ago. You get the sense that his local MP, Tim Farron, recognises there's a real issue here, too. 'There is definitely an ideological and unjustified determination to massively reduce, if not remove, the presence of sheep from the Lake District,' he says. 'And I think that is dangerous, and based upon this idea that we're massively overgrazed. Now that was the case before foot-and-mouth, but that was a generation ago. 'So a lot of the understanding about the relationship between sheep numbers and the nature of the environment is just massively, inexcusably out of date. And what that leads to is this sense that sheep are somehow like locusts, which I think a lot of non-farmers seem to believe. If you go for wilderness solutions, you don't always get biodiversity – you get invasive species taking over.' Farron thinks that removing sheep from the Lake District landscape is as much a potential branding issue too. 'Would Unesco take away their World Heritage Site status from the Lake District? I mean, they could if you look at the citation, it specifically credits farmers for the way the landscape looks. And that would be devastating.' So what is the solution? For Farron, it's perfectly clear what needs to be done. 'One really simple thing under the stewardship schemes is that you are entitled as a farmer to take an option to create woodland pasture, where you can grow trees, and graze animals – but only if they're cattle. What we desperately need is a woodland pasture option in the uplands that allows people to be sheep farmers as well, allowing for the differences in how they graze. 'So I think, rather than everyone getting in their bunkers and shouting at each other, there's a perfectly sensible, clever way we can move forward here, where we do protect nature, we do grow trees, and we also maintain the importance to our heritage, our landscape, our environment and our food production capabilities.' As the sun begins to go down on another perfect Lake District day, the RSPB seems just as keen not to get embroiled in a culture war. Woodland pasture, of course, is what the RSPB is actually proposing for Swindale – although currently Farron doubts whether it could or would put sheep there at the moment. 'People will have different opinions on what we are doing here,' admits Swainson. 'But we will always try to continue a good relationship with everyone; there are ways in which every facet of life in this valley can work together.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
19-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
The sheep-farming fight tarnishing the Lake District fells
Butterflies flutter over a verdant Lake District meadow, and tiny fish make their way over the gravel of the crystal-clear Swindale Beck as it meanders through the valley. Somewhere on the hillside scrub a cuckoo calls. Above, a peregrine and buzzard circle the bluest of skies, diving towards the bright yellow common gorse below us, the gentle breeze wafting its distinctive coconut scent. As the path through this remarkable, award-winning valley opens up – it's one of three that make up the 12 square miles of farmland, moorland, rivers, rainforest and wildflower meadows that is Wild Haweswater – two walkers stop and gasp at the beauty of it all. If there were a classic springtime scene in the Lake District it would surely be this… that is, if there weren't one thing missing. It's lambing season – yet there are no iconic Lake District sheep to be seen. And that's because, on this land tenanted by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) from landowners United Utilities (Haweswater being a reservoir supplying two million people in the North West with drinking water), the thousands of sheep that have traditionally been tasked with grazing have gradually been destocked – to the point where, a few weeks ago, some of the last were sold by the RSPB at auction. Farmers have been keeping sheep on the upland fells for centuries, although in truly significant numbers only since the Second World War, when food production was ramped up. Particularly since the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001, landowners – sometimes via their tenants – have destocked, changing land management policies in line with the direction of government subsidies towards agri-environment schemes. In the RSPB's case, it believed that the environmental aims it had for the landscape of the two farms that had sheep on them – Naddle and Swindale – would be better served by replacing the grazing areas with cattle and ponies, replanting trees and native plants and even restoring the river running through the valley back to its natural route. And for all that the RSPB and United Utilities have the right to do this given it is their land, some local sheep farmers believe that these environmental schemes and policies are the final nail in the coffin for a traditional industry that is on its knees. Residents reckon this beautiful part of the eastern Lakes has lost half its farms in the past 10 years. '[The RSPB sold the sheep] for what? So they can do some more rewilding? What a load of rubbish,' says Katy Cropper, a local farmer and sheepdog trainer who used to help the farmers at Swindale gather their sheep. 'See over there?' she asks, pointing across the valley. 'The fell looks to me like an overgrown mess. It used to be beautiful, [grazed by sheep which were] maintained by farmers for generations. Now it's just a tinderbox of long brown grass waiting to go up in flames. 'All this money is being spent on a waste of time; millions of pounds spent on trees which I can't see growing successfully. And we can't eat trees, can we? What's happened here has spoilt the community, ruined people's livelihoods. What are the families who have grown up shepherding these lands going to do now?' The stats bear it out: Defra's report last year had the UK's sheep population at a record low, while the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board industry body recently published a report showing sheep meat imports were up 59 per cent on 2023 for the first two months of 2025. While the research shows the UK is self-sufficient in sheep meat, as the National Sheep Association points out, self-sufficiency is not the same as food or industry security – both of which are vulnerable if governments and agencies prioritise imports and environmental schemes over domestic production. It feels like Wild Haweswater, then, is at the heart of a battle for the true soul, the very character of the Lake District. Indeed, the Unesco description of the Lake District National Park when it was awarded World Heritage status makes explicit reference to the symbiotic relationship between farming and the environment in this part of the world: 'A landscape of exceptional beauty, shaped by persistent and distinctive agro-pastural traditions and local industry which give it special character.' Yet the general consensus among the conservation community and environmental stakeholders is that if you want to maintain and develop the exceptional beauty of a landscape, sheep are probably not the best option: they believe they tend to degrade or destroy the natural, native plant life by constantly nibbling away at the trees, shrubs and flowering plants attempting to come through; heavier-footed animals, they say, trample the bracken instead and spread wildflower seed through their dung. Back at Naddle Farm – one of two farms here that the RSPB maintains – they're careful not to call what they do rewilding. 'It's a landscape restoration partnership with United Utilities,' says Annabel Rushton, the RSPB's people and partnerships manager. Hers may sound like a desk job, but she can't wait to get out into that landscape and show me an alder that now has rowan growing out of it. 'A classic indicator of a temperate rainforest,' she says. 'It's the second-largest area of this type of rainforest in the Lake District; a very special place. 'And then in the hay meadow, we'll have great burnet, wood cranesbill, melancholy thistle – it's like a wash of colour which then brings in all the insect life: golden-ringed dragonflies, dark green fritillaries, chimney sweeper moths. And our work to restore this habitat, bring it back from a pretty degraded state, is just getting better each year.' What frustrates the RSPB in this debate the most, though, is the narrative that it's somehow pushed out the sheep farmers of this area in favour of wildflowers. It's its own farming team which manages the livestock and habitat, and ultimately the RSPB didn't believe it could meet its aims for conservation on its land while running a flock of sheep. 'Look over there,' says Rushton, pointing beyond a particularly magnificent area of bright yellow gorse. 'You can still see sheep in this landscape on the common land, it's just that our objectives for our land are different.' As we wind our way through Swindale, Glen Swainson, Wild Haweswater's senior site manager, says the RSPB doesn't want to remove animals entirely but create a wood pasture, 'a really lovely balance between agriculture and nature conservation. 'It is still a farmed landscape that needs managing,' he admits when we come to a pasture with hill ponies happily grazing. 'We've had sheep, we've got cattle, and we've got these ponies, but the sheep element always has more of a struggle to it in terms of making it pay as upland sheep farming as a whole; everyone will tell you the economics of it are really difficult.' He has a point. Post-Brexit, the EU Common Agricultural Policy – which gave area-based direct payment subsidies to farmers – came to an end. These direct payments made up more than 80 per cent of government support for farmers and last year's 'Future of Sheep Farming' debate in the Houses of Parliament was quite clear that subsidies were relied upon 'to provide a business profit'. The new system based on Environmental Land Management schemes pays farmers for providing 'public goods' such as environmental improvements. The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) also pays farmers to adopt and maintain sustainable farming practices that can protect and enhance the natural environment alongside food production, although that itself hit the headlines when it was halted in March, with no new SFI applications accepted after this date until a spending review was completed. 'I can actually see some sense in what the RSPB are doing in terms of economics,' says Mark Bousfield, who has lived and farmed sheep in the Swindale valley for most of his life. 'The farms here wouldn't survive without the enhancements the Government gives. But the government subsidies now aren't in food production, really, they're in environmental payouts.' But this isn't just a debate about economics or livelihoods. Spend any time with the people who live and work here, and they're also worried that these environmental schemes are not actually being managed properly. Magnus McIntosh lives at the end of the valley and with his wife, he's refurbished a derelict farmhouse once used by a local artist captivated by the views. It's still off-grid, and their young son was the first child to be born here in decades. 'We have a responsibility to nurture the environment and protect habitats,' he says. 'The area around here is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and it's one of the reasons we came here. 'The hay meadows are incredible; in 1985, they were one of the most species-rich in north-west Cumbria. But my worry is that the removal of sheep and a lot of the RSPB projects are actually having a detrimental effect. The meadows have visibly declined; they do actually require careful management and a strict grazing regime. 'It's going to end up being a bleak little valley with reeds everywhere and dead grass. It feels like there's a lot of money being wasted; rewilding schemes today appear driven by funding opportunities rather than genuine care for wildlife and long-term ecological health.' For McIntosh, it's about conserving, improving and enhancing the landscape as it is now, not trying to return it to how it was 1,000 years ago. You get the sense that his local MP, Tim Farron, recognises there's a real issue here, too. 'There is definitely an ideological and unjustified determination to massively reduce, if not remove, the presence of sheep from the Lake District,' he says. 'And I think that is dangerous, and based upon this idea that we're massively overgrazed. Now that was the case before foot-and-mouth, but that was a generation ago. 'So a lot of the understanding about the relationship between sheep numbers and the nature of the environment is just massively, inexcusably out of date. And what that leads to is this sense that sheep are somehow like locusts, which I think a lot of non-farmers seem to believe. If you go for wilderness solutions, you don't always get biodiversity – you get invasive species taking over.' Farron thinks that removing sheep from the Lake District landscape is as much a potential branding issue too. 'Would Unesco take away their World Heritage Site status from the Lake District? I mean, they could if you look at the citation, it specifically credits farmers for the way the landscape looks. And that would be devastating.' So what is the solution? For Farron, it's perfectly clear what needs to be done. 'One really simple thing under the stewardship schemes is that you are entitled as a farmer to take an option to create woodland pasture, where you can grow trees, and graze animals – but only if they're cattle. What we desperately need is a woodland pasture option in the uplands that allows people to be sheep farmers as well, allowing for the differences in how they graze. 'So I think, rather than everyone getting in their bunkers and shouting at each other, there's a perfectly sensible, clever way we can move forward here, where we do protect nature, we do grow trees, and we also maintain the importance to our heritage, our landscape, our environment and our food production capabilities.' As the sun begins to go down on another perfect Lake District day, the RSPB seems just as keen not to get embroiled in a culture war. Woodland pasture, of course, is what the RSPB is actually proposing for Swindale – although currently Farron doubts whether it could or would put sheep there at the moment. 'People will have different opinions on what we are doing here,' admits Swainson. 'But we will always try to continue a good relationship with everyone; there are ways in which every facet of life in this valley can work together.'
