Latest news with #worldheritagesite
The Guardian
19-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Ending sheep farming in the Lake District is not our aim
Phil Stocker's letter (12 June) defends sheep farming against an attack that doesn't exist. Nowhere in the Guardian article he is responding to (Conservationists call for Lake District to lose Unesco world heritage status, 7 June) does anyone call for 'sheep farming's demise'. Neither the letter I sent to Unesco nor the report that I co-authored, both referred to in the article, call for it either. Instead, we're raising concerns about the Lake District's world heritage site designation, which poses a major threat to exactly the sort of adaptation that Mr Stocker says he wants and that most farmers know is coming. None of the farmers I've spoken to could name a single benefit of being in a world heritage site. Most people won't be aware of the downsides, but for those of us working in conservation, they are obvious. The designation is influencing decisions by the national park authority, which views every element of the park's management through a world heritage lens and puts sheep farming first, often at the expense of rural livelihoods and nature. We are not attacking farming or anybody's culture, and it's a pity that this is how Stocker and many others, including the MP Tim Farron, have interpreted it. For farmers and conservationists to be at loggerheads is madness. Once the dust settles, I hope we will be able to sit down and have some sensible discussion about these issues and how to resolve them. As Mr Stocker attests, farming has played a key role in the history of the Lake District, and it will have a vital role to play in its future, but only if it is allowed to adapt. Removing the world heritage site designation, or amending it to reflect the urgency of the climate crisis, will help that transition to take SchofieldBampton, Cumbria Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Times
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
How ‘best pals' felled Sycamore Gap tree then turned on each other
In the late 19th century, a landowner planted a sycamore tree in a gentle dip between two hillocks. John Clayton, a lawyer by trade, had bought up about 20 miles of Hadrian's Wall in an effort to prevent the destruction of what was once the frontier of the Roman Empire. Over the following 150 years, the ruin would become a world heritage site under the protection of Northumberland national park, while the tree flourished by its side. It attained worldwide fame after featuring in the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in 1991, a celebrity cemented in the era of the smartphone thanks to its photogenic setting. By September 2023 the sycamore's roots had grown deep in the public's imagination, yet it took only three
