The Future Landscapes Forum (FLF) was established in 2023 because a surprising number of leading experts currently researching the ecosystem function of our uplands were concerned that public and policy debates on how we manage these unique and internationally important landscapes were failing to consider all the available evidence.
All too often there is a broad-brush assumption that current management practices such as prescribed burning are always bad for carbon capture and biodiversity.
Inevitably, due to the link between management practices employed on our uplands and sporting interests, the debate has frequently become dominated by rhetoric and emotion from both sides whilst highly relevant evidence is being ignored.
Our mission is to steer these debates back to the centre ground and to urge policy makers to discuss and consider all the available evidence before rushing to act on our climate and biodiversity ambitions.
Having published position statements on prescribed burning and bracken control FLF has now turned its attention to tree planting and the uplands. Once again simplistic narratives have influenced policy and there appears to be an unquestioning belief that tree planting over large areas of our uplands is bound to help restore biodiversity and lock up more carbon.
Our academic experts question this broad-brush assumption and are deeply concerned that, although well meaning, in many parts of our uplands this poorly informed approach could be doing more harm than good.
Equally, some areas peat hags on slopes are the result of the entirely natural process of peat moving very slowly downhill and becoming fractured. In many cases efforts to repair this natural damage can prove to be ineffective and a waste of valuable restoration resources.
This is a highly complex topic which is also very site specific. Our FLF experts recognise that in some areas it is appropriate to plant trees, or within reason encourage regeneration, tree planting on other areas will damage landscapes which have been recognised by Natura 2000 and the UK’s Biodiversity Action Plan as being of international importance and supporting unique assemblages.
As such they should be protected and restored to full ecological function and not changed to an entirely different ecosystem in the belief that trees are always good for carbon capture and biodiversity.
Our “Ten ecological principles to guide the conservation management of the moorlands and uplands of Britain and Ireland” has been published as a framework on which to build a far more nuanced approach to tree planting and the uplands which is led by all the available evidence.
The authors of this important document are;
Dr James Fenton - National Trust for Scotland (Retd).
Dr Andrea Heinemeyer – University of York.
Dr Mark Ashby – University of the West of England, Bristol
Prof Robb Marrs – University of Liverpool
Prof Simon Deny – University of Bedford (Retd)
Prof James Crabbe - Wolfson College, University of Oxford
To view our paper and the other FLF position statement go to www.futurelandscapesforum.com