CONSERVATIONIST and documentary maker Andrew Cooper expresses his concerns about possible changes to the way our Dartmoor National Park Authority is run.
Last week the Mid-Devon Advertiser highlighted the 27 recommendations contained in the Landscapes Review, led by Julian Glover, into our National Parks. Among them is a proposal to create a National Land Service.
While the country awaits the Government’s response to the Glover Landscape Review, many have expressed concern about what this could mean for National Parks like Dartmoor.
Andrew, who is a member of Dartmoor National Park Authority, a trustee of the Devon Wildlife Trust and a regular columnist in our paper writes the following:
What does Dartmoor mean to you?
I was born within sight of the moor and as a child spent many happy hours exploring its wilder parts.
Salmon spawning in rivers and buzzards riding the breeze. While at school I completed the Ten Tors challenge, then later for BBC programmes, writing and photographing this iconic wild and worked landscape.
Having stood on its highest points, wriggled through some of its caves, walked and flown across its most inaccessible parts, Dartmoor seeped into my soul.
In 1951 these uplands were among the first of four National Parks to be established by Act of Parliament.
Today there are 10 such places in England, three in Wales and two in Scotland.
All are different and there is real strength in that diversity. From impressive rugged uplands to lowland forests and vast lakes. Unlike their US counterparts, UK National Parks are not owned by the state, but mainly by private and third sector landowners.
That makes management far from simple.
Now as a Secretary of State appointee to Dartmoor National Park Authority, this privilege and responsibility is causing me concern.
The suggestion of a national landscape service seems to deny the need for local accountability, undermining the aspirations and efforts of those who first conceived Britain’s national parks.
As well as all those who today continue their careful management, conservation and preservation.
Only with goodwill and hard work by so many people will Dartmoor continue to provide a place for us all to enjoy. As if the threat of climate change is not enough.
While progress is being made to devolve decision making to the regions and health services more locally accountable, rather than putting ministers in the firing line why would our greatest natural assets benefit from centralisation?
In the past efforts by a large charity dedicated to the management of important landscapes and historic buildings, abandoned moves towards centralised control.
Members voted with their feet at the lack of variety and local accountability.
Could well intentioned changes for National Parks be about to tread the same rugged path?