Penrith - Weds 23 October - Finding common cause - delivering on shared spaces

OVER 100 people gathered recently at Rheged near Penrith (Wednesday 23 Oct) to share their knowledge of working on the Heritage Lottery funded ‘Our Upland Commons’ project, which has been running since 2017.

This national project, led by the Ambleside based Foundation for Common Land, has been active across the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, Shropshire Hills, and Dartmoor, collaborating with 25 partners from the farming and conservation sectors.

 Over 20 diverse topics were presented throughout the day, covering subjects such as Farmer-Led Habitat Assessment, Mountain Ringlet Butterfly Conservation, Caving Archaeology, Livestock Health, Natural Flood Management, and the use of mobile apps to help farmers collect ecological data.

 The conference opened with Project Manager, Sam Caraway, reflecting on the traditions of 1000 years of commons management and the current risks facing nature and commoning communities. He highlighted the current threat from the phasing out of Defra’s Basic Payment Scheme before new Environmental Land Management Schemes are implemented.

Documentary filmmaker Sarah Beddington’s short trailer on Lake District commoning communities, at a pivotal moment, was shown. Previously screened at the Oxford Real Farming Conference (January 2024), Sarah’s film follows several farmers with commoning rights. It explores the possibility of moving towards a climate-just future without losing ancient traditions, rural infrastructure and the balance between culture and nature.

Julia Aglionby, Chair of the Our Upland Commons project commented;

“Our strong message is that Commons are profoundly social places underpinned by centuries of cultural heritage of pastoral grazing. If our ambition is to deliver more for nature, carbon storage, natural flood management and access for disadvantaged communities then the staring point is bringing all the voices together. When the management of Commons is fair, respectful and shared then we can build trust and that is the basis for delivering,” added Julia.

The conference shared the key priorities for Commoning which include access to Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) Moorland actions, Updates to Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) payments, which have halved in value since 2005, and adequate staffing and resources to support Countryside Stewardship applications.

The project has highlighted that Commons are deeply social places, power imbalances too often hinder progress, and independent facilitation is crucial for effective management in such complex environments.

For more information about the project please visit the Foundation for Common Land website and the ‘Our Upland Commons’ tab https://foundationforcommonland.org.uk/our-upland-commons. It’s also where people can find, later in November a link to Sarah Beddington’s film ‘Common Ground’ along with presentations from the conference.

Notes:

1.                   Commons provide more public benefits per area of land than almost any other type of land. This outstanding value and uniqueness arise from hundreds of years of active management by people working collaboratively to meet their livelihood needs. 58% of common land is designated as SSSIs, over 80% is in designated landscapes and 40% of all open access land is common land.

2.                   The term ‘common land’ derives from the fact that multiple people own rights to graze over the same area of land (i.e.in common) not as often mistakenly thought that the public owns the commons.

3.                   The Foundation for Common land has developed a SFI Moorland Digital App to enable commoners and the owners of common land to deliver the scheme requirements More information here:

The Foundation for Common Land is a Registered Charity, our charitable objectives are

• To conserve for the benefit of the public the agricultural systems and the cultural landscapes delivered by commoning and the management of common land.

• To promote the conservation of the physical and natural environment by supporting the responsible and sustainable pastoral use of common land

• To conduct and commission research into commoning and common land issues and publish the results of such research

• to the public at large

• To educate the public in subjects pertaining to commoning and common land