UKH

The Lake District has become a UNESCO World Heritage Site, joining just over 1000 other locations worldwide, including Machu Picchu, the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand Canyon.

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In reply to UKC/UKH News:

Personally I agree with Monbiot, and I struggle to see how this is a particularly positive thing.

Preserving a largely unprofitable, unsustainable way of life (sheep farming) that creates and maintains barren monocultures and destroys wildlife and wild habitat, and is 2/3rds funded by the EU which we are supposed to be leaving???

Unless they can adopt a very forward thinking approach to this (excuse me for being pessimistic) it could freeze The Lake District in a state of immense challenge.

And it could raise house prices even further and encourage even more second homes, making it even more overwhelmingly impossible for people who grew up here to ever buy their own home and build upon their roots.

How long will people in positions of political power carry on skipping about with their fingers in their ears celebrating sheep farming and fox hunting and not considering the things that will actually sustain the place? Obviously tourism has positive and negative sides.

It is a place of 'outstanding natural beauty' but it's also a place where people live, or want to live.

In reply to CragRat11:

Monbiot makes some good points and I agree that an outdated form of farming should not dictate the appearance of an entire national park and that as a landscape it should be allowed, in places, to become 'self-willed'. But I'm not sure that World Heritage status necessarily means preservation in aspic anyway. It's designation is cultural rather than environmental.

In reply to pasbury:

The culture being traditional hill farming...

In reply to sfletch:

only a part of it.

In reply to CragRat11:

Well said CragRat. That sums it up nicely.

In reply to UKC/UKH News:

I believe that a lot of the culture in The Lake District should be celebrated and respected, but we must also respectfully move on from outdated practices. Sheep farming is an important part of our heritage and can carry on in small pockets, but the perception that the Lake District is built upon it and that's all the tourists want to see is damaging and non-progressive. Using the example fox hunting, yes we can appreciate the photos of the hounds on the wall of the pub and remember the John Peel poems but that tradition should be left in the past and never exercised again (there are people who still want this to carry on!). It's possible to lets these traditions die with a level of respect.

The fact that the 'farmed landscape' is right at the top of the list of things UNESCO have cited worries me greatly.

The fact that this is being championed by a Lord who probably lives in a castle on the shores of Lake Windermere also worries me, and suggests that everyday working people are no-where near the agenda for this particular badge of honour.