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National parks in Great Britain and the achievement of nature conservation purposes
Biological Conservation 22 (1982) 85 100
N A T I O N A L P A R K S IN G R E A T BRITAIN A N D THE A C H I E V E M E N T OF N A T U R E C O N S E R V A T I O N PURPOSES IAN BRO~HERXOY
Department oJ Landscape Architecture, The University, Sheffield SIO 2TN, Great Britain
ABSTRACT
The ten National Park Authorities of England and Wales are concerned mainly with landscape conservation and provisionjor outdoor recreation. Nature conservation is not a p r i m a r y p a r k purpose and only one authority has its own nature reserves. Nature conservation purposes are pursued in the parks as elsewhere by the Nature Conservancy Council and by the appropriate County Conservation Trust. The achievements o f these two organisations theJormer national and governmental, the latter local and voluntary--are compared and contrasted. The number oj National Nature Reserves established by the Nature Conservancy Council in each park is consistent with the parks' nature conservation interest as nationally assessed. The Conservancy appears to have treated the parks much as it has treated the rest oJ the counto'. Local Conservation Trusts have also accorded the parks no m o r e - - b u t also no less attention than elsewhere. Trust reserves tend to be more or less uniformally distributed throughout the counties of England and Wales. This pattern corresponds with the distribution o f Trust members and arises because membership rates tend to be highest in the more rural areas (including the National Parks) where absolute population levels are low. Finally, the National Park Authorities themselves have all but neglected nature conservation purposes in the parks. This lack o f interest is consistent with the low priority afforded to nature conservation by local authorities in general and by rural authorities in particular. But whilst past achievements have been slight,juture prospects are, by comparison, quite bright.
INTRODUCTION
The ten National Parks of England and Wales (Fig. 1) are between 25 and 30 years old. They were designated following the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act and are Category C landscapes (Dasman, 1973). Each park is 85 Biol. Conserv. 0006-3207/82/0022-0085/$02.75 © Applied Science Publishers Ltd, England, 1982 Printed in Great Britain
IAN BROTHERTON
86
NORTHUMBERLAND
LAKE DISTRICT
M ORKSHIRE DALES
BRECON ~CA~kIC tBROKESHIRE p COAST
DARTMOOR
Fig. 1.
0
80 Km
0
50 M,les
The situation of the National Parks.
BRITISH N A T I O N A L P A R K S A N D N A T U R E C O N S E R V A T I O N
87
administered by a committee of the local County Council (though the Peak District and Lake District--the first two parks to be established--are run by Boards which have greater independence). Two-thirds of the National Park Committee (or Board) members are locally elected councillors, the remaining third being appointed nationally by the Secretary of State for the Environment. Since April 1974 following the 1972 Local Government Act, these committees have been served by a full-time staff and the greater part of the funds for the parks' administration and activities (almost 90 %) has come from central government. This system of administration and funding is designed to involve and balance both local and national interests in park planning and management. The park committees have two main purposes. The first is to protect and enhance the natural beauty of the park area; the second is to provide opportunities for its enjoyment--and the Act requires that both these duties be carried out with regard to the interests of park residents (see also Department of the Environment, 1974, 1976). The park committees achieve these purposes in a variety of ways. As the statutory authorities for planning control they exert a powerful influence over the volume, distribution and design of building developments. They may also purchase and manage directly conservation sites to protect particularly valuable or vulnerable features: and key recreation sites to provide car parks, information centres, access to beauty spots and so on. But the greater part of each park area is farmland or forest over which the park committees have minimal control. As a consequence, increasing effort is being given to devising financial and managerial inducements whereby farmers and other land-owning and using interests can be persuaded by agreement to take at least some account of conservation and recreation purposes in the management of their holding (Countryside Commission and Lake District Special Planning Board, 1976; Countryside Commission, 1977; Fiest, 1978). The conservation purposes which the National Park Authorities (NPAs) pursue are concerned very largely with landscape. Certainly the 1949 Act which led to the establishment of the parks specifies that the conservation of natural beauty is to include flora and fauna: and the National Park Committees are empowered to establish local nature reserves (paradoxically, the more autonomous boards which administer the Peak District and Lake District lack this power). However, only the Brecon Beacons National Park has established local nature reserves (3 sites covering 219 ha in total) and, although the weight given to nature conservation purposes in most of the national park plans (published in 1977 and 1978) may lead to greater involvement in the future, the NPAs have until now achieved relatively little on the nature conservation front. The main reason for this may be that nature conservation interests have been well served at national level by the Nature Conservancy (now Nature Conservancy Council), a central government agency established in 1947 (Conservation of Nature in England and Wales, Cmd 7122; 1949 National Parks and Access to the
88
IAN BROTHERTON
Countryside Act: and 1973 Nature Conservancy Council Act) and at local level by the voluntary conservation movement, in particular the County Conservation Trusts under their umbrella organisation the Royal Society for Nature Conservation--formerly called the Society for the Promotion of Nature C o n s e r v a t i o n - - a n d other bodies including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. As a consequence, the N PAs have spent their limited budgets on more central concerns. Indeed, nature conservation and landscape conservation in Britain have grown up as separate activities, pursued very largely by separate organisations. Nature conservation is primarily concerned with protecting the best possible examples of the range of habitat types found in Britain and with protecting rare and otherwise interesting species. Landscape conservation is concerned with protecting natural and man-made places and scenes which are valued very often for their visual appeal but also for cultural, historical, architectural, recreational or other connections. Nature conservation value is influenced by attributes which include size, diversity, naturalness, rarity, fragility, typicality, recorded history, position, and so on (Ratcliffe, 1977): landscape value is a consequence of association and familiarity. The two activities are different and have been developed by separate organisations, Nonetheless, nature conservation and landscape conservation purposes may be served by the same action, and they often are. The number of times that the Nature Conservancy Council and the Countryside Commission (the central government agency responsible for the National Parks and more generally for the conservation of rural landscapes) have rightly, if embarrassingly, faced one another at public inquiries is small, but includes important cases (for example, the military presence in the D a r t m o o r National Park; and the routing of a major trunk road through the Lake District National Park). But if outright disagreement is rare, the ordering of priorities and allocation of resources to achieve landscape and nature conservation purposes would show marked differences. Nature conservation is not then a prime purpose of the NPAs in England and Wales, although most authorities would certainly wish to encourage it. For example, an annual grant to whichever local Conservation Trust operates within the park area is becoming increasingly common. But the main operators in the National Parks are the Nature Conservancy Council, which designates National Nature Reserves (NNRs) and Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs); and the local County Conservation Trust, which also establishes and manages nature reserves (CCTRs) and generally promotes wildlife interests at the local level. What then have these bodies achieved on the nature conservation front within the National Parks? Certainly not all parks are equally interesting from the nature conservation viewpoint: nor are the local populations of the different parks and surrounding areas equally interested in, and sympathetic to, nature conservation purposes. In this paper, an attempt is made to assess which parks are most interesting for nature conservation purposes and to suggest why. The most interesting parks might be expected to contain the most nature reserves. However, the correlation is not invariably good and the reasons for this are explored.
BRITISH
NATIONAL
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THE NATURE CONSERVATION INTEREST OF NATIONAL PARKS
A major re-survey and re-classification of sites of nature conservation interest within the British Isles has recently been completed by the Nature Conservancy Council (Ratcliffe, 1977). This Nature Conservation Review (NCR) provides a 1-6 grading of sites in which the most important are grades 1 & 2 (key), describing sites of international and national importance. The occurrence of NCR key sites within National Parks is shown in Table 1 and used to assess the relative nature conservation interest of the different parks. A variety of measures may be used, including the number of NCR key sites, the area of such sites, the proportion of the park area that they occupy and so on. As the main purpose here is to explore whether the number of nature reserves in a National Park is related to the park's nature conservation interest, both the area and the number of NCR key sites is relevant. Thus, if conservation interest is the determining factor in nature reserve establishment, the greater the NCR key area, the more nature reserves there should be. But the number of N C R key sites is also relevant. Other things being equal, lincluding NCR key area, a greater number of NCR key sites is likely to reflect a greater geographical spread and so a greater variety of major habitat types within the park. 'Representative series' conservation policies coupled with limited budgets mean that n nature reserves from different habitat types are generally preferable to n nature reserves from the same habitat type. A park with a greater range of habitat types (indicated by a greater number of NCR key sites) is therefore expected to have more nature reserves. To this end, conservation interest is assessed as the product of N C R key area (reflecting the extent of interest) and the number of NCR key sites (reflecting the variety of interest). The ten National Parks are listed in Table 1 in rank order of nature conservation interest as measured by this product. There is a well-established relationship between species number and area (Hopkins, 1955; MacArthur & Wilson, 1967) which has also been used to interpret data from intermediate and large-sized areas in Britain (Dony, 1977). It might be TABLE 1 THE NATURE CONSERVATION INTEREST OF NATIONAL pARKS, ASSESSED AS THE PRODUCT OF NCR KEY AREA AND NUMBER
N C R key sites Number Area (ha) Snowdonia (Sn) Lake District (LD) Brecon Beacons (BB) Yorkshire Dales (YD) D a r t m o o r (D) Peak District (PD) Northumberland (N) Pembrokeshire Coast (PC) Exmoor (Ex) North York Moors (NYM)
16 19 13 7 7 4 8 6 5 5
20739 15465 14982 11094 9035 13264 6565 5475 3455 556
Nature conservation interest (Number × area) 10-3 331 294 195 78 63 53 53 33 17 3
90
1AN BROTHERTON
expected that the largest National Parks would be the most interesting since they would contain the most species, the greatest range of habitat types and the greatest number of important sites. However, the correlation between a park's nature conservation interest and its area (r = 0 . 7 8 , p = 0-004) shown in Fig. 2 can be improved. A better correlation is achieved in Fig. 3, which plots nature conservation interest against altitudinal range (r = 0'92, p = 0.00009). A greater height range gives a greater range of physical and biotic conditions and so land use and management systems. Altitudinal range, as well as area, affects the range of habitat types and it is this variable that has the most marked effect on nature conservation interest at the National Park scale. Sn x
330-
~o~
300-
~X ~u F-.
270 -
Z
240-
~-
180-
~: w ~ 0
150"
XLD
210" xBB
120"
90-
oc
60_ ~
< z
30"
XYD
Dx
XN
xPD
PCx XEx
x NYM
i
1OO.000 AREA (ha)
Fig. 2.
! 200,000
Nature conservation interest and the area of National Parks.
x 300-
xLD
z 0
>
xBB 150-
o u
~
xYD xD
POx xPC
30-
NYMx
I 20O
xN
XEx I
400
6~)0
HEIGHT
Fig. 3.
Sn
800'"
10;0
1200
RANGE (m)
Nature conservation interest and the height range of National Parks.
BRITISH NATIONAL
PARKS AND NATURE CONSERVATION
NATIONAL
NATURE
RESERVES
91
(NNRs)
As their name implies, NNRs form a national network of prime conservation sites representative of the range of habitat types found in Britain. They are established by the Nature Conservancy Council on land over which they have secured, through ownership, lease or appropriate agreement, powers to ensure the site's management for nature conservation purposes. As argued above, if the establishment of NNRs is determined primarily on the basis of nature conservation interest, then the most interesting parks should contain the most NNRs and this is seen to be the case (Fig. 4). The apparent under-representation of NNRs in the Lake District and x Sn
10-
5x BB
xLD
Dx xYD PC xPO/N
'%
1~,o
34o
NATURE CONSERVATION INTEREST
Fig. 4. Nature conservation interest and the distribution of NNRs between the National Parks. Brecon Beacons may be explained in the case of the former by the high proportion of the park area (around 20 %) which is owned and protected by the National Trust; whilst at least one of the three Local Nature Reserves established by the Brecon Beacons National Park Committee is of N N R standing, being NCR grade 1. But even without such caveats, the correlation is significant (r = 0"82, p = 0-002) and there is no evidence that the establishment of N N R s in the National Parks has been affected by local conditions, at least from a distributional point of view. When it is recalled that all the reserves (with very rare exceptions in which land owners cannot be traced) are established voluntarily; and that there are many reasons why an owner may not agree to the establishment of a reserve; and that severe financial restraints have operated to curtail reserve establishment at times, it is all the more surprising that the correlation between NNRs and nature conservation interest is as good as it is.
92
IAN B R O T t l E R T O N
C O U N T Y C O N S E R V A T I O N T R U S T RESERVES
(CCTRs)
There are at present 39 County Conservation Trusts in England and Wales, voluntary charitable bodies which pursue and promote nature conservation purposes at the local level. As in the case of the Nature Conservancy Council, a major way in which this is done is through the establishment and management of nature reserves. Figure 5 shows the number of CCTRs in each National Park plotted against the park's nature conservation interest, measured as before as the product of NCR key area and number. In this case, the variables are not related (r = - 0 . 2 0 , p = 0.29). The most interesting parks from a nature conservation viewpoint do not contain the most CCTRs. This is not to deny that CCTRs serve extremely valuable purposes; nor does it mean that individual reserves are selected without reference to conservation interest. But it does suggest that other factors assume considerable importance in determining the extent and distribution of CCTR establishment. There are indeed very marked differences between the demographic, social and environmental characteristics of the ten National Parks. Northumberland and Snowdonia, for example, are remote and only sparsely populated; others, in comparison, are accessible and developed (for example, Dartmoor and the Peak Park): and some of these differences may have affected the extent of CCTR establishment. In the typically more remote parks where population density is low, the demand for land is also low. Perhaps, then, it has been easier to establish CCTRs in these parks where land has been avaihtble and relatively cheap. Or conversely, more CCTRs may have been established at the other end of the spectrum in the more accessible of the parks where the relatively high population pressures may have produced a greater demand for conservation. This second explanation seems to be the more likely since the density of CCTRs in the National Parks does correlate positively with population density (r = 0.55 at p = 0.05). There are more CCTRs in the more densely populated parks (Fig. 6). However, the correlation is only probably significant. A better explanation of the extent of CCTR establishment in the National Parks is obtained by looking more fully at the nine CCTs within whose areas the ten National Parks fall. Two aspects are then relevant : the activity of each of the CCTs and the attention that each has given to its National Park(s). In considering the first of these, there is a good correlation (r =0.58, p =0.00005) between reserve numbers and Trust membership (SPNC, 1980), which also holds for the nine Trusts which encompass the National Parks (Fig. 7). Trusts with more members (m) have more reserves (n) and : n = (3'6 x lO-3)m +20"71 (r = 0.66 at p = 0"03)
(i)
BRITISH
NATIONAL
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CONSERVATION
93
15-
XPD x
QI:
10--
P~
BB
xN
O
x LD
,NYM XD (]3 ;E Z
5xYD
xEx
xSn
,;o
3'0 NATURE
3bo
CONSERVATION
INTEREST
Fig. 5. Nature conservation interest and the distribution of County Conservation Trust Reserves between the National Parks.
J:Z 2,10.4 X PC
E 1.5zi0 -4-
C.~ 1 N 1 0 _ 4 .
xPD
XN
BB x
xO
NYM
X z
o
0 . 5 x i 0 "4"
YD x XSn
0'-I POPULATION
x
LD XEx
0'2
0'3
OI"4
DENSITY (persons/ha)
Fig. 6. The densities of County Conservation Trust Reserves and of population in the National Parks. But what determines m e m b e r s h i p numbers? There is, as might be expected, a positive correlation between the m e m b e r s h i p (m) and the total population ( M ) within the Trust area (Fig. 8) and: m =(7.3 x 10-4)M+2105
(ii)
(r = 0-78 at p = 0 . 0 1 ) but this is far from the whole story. The m e m b e r s h i p rate (that is
m/M, the
94
IAN BROTHERTON YNT 40-
X
NNT X
D e r NT x x W W N T
X DevNT 30"
x SNT xCNT NWNT X
20BNT x 10-
looo '
2oo0 '
3 o' oo 4000 '
NUMBER
Fig. 7.
OF C C T
5000 '
6 do
o
MEMBERS
Reserve and membership numbers for the nine County Conservation Trusts that contain the ten National Parks.
YNT x tn cc
5000x NNT 4000-
u
m
SNT
x
3000-
2000-
WWNT x
X D e v NT
CNT x X NWNT
X DerNT
Z IO00-
X BNT
0"5 x 10
POPULATION
Fig. 8.
1"0 x 1 0
WITHIN
CCT
l~.v6
AREA
Trust membership and total population within the areas covered by the nine County Conservation Trusts that contain the ten National Parks.
proportion of the total population that joins the Trust) is highest where population density (M/A) is lowest (Fig. 9) and: m M
A
(3.46 x 1 0 - 3 ) ~
+ 1.1 x 10 -3
(iii)
(r = 0-97 at p = 0.00001)
The effect of the higher membership rates in the remoter, less populated, areas (iii, above), is to even out what would otherwise be an urban bias (from ii, above) in the distribution of CCT members. As a consequence, Trust members tend to be relatively evenly distributed and membership increases with area (Fig. 10):
BRITISH NATIONAL PARKS AND NATURE CONSERVATION 2'2"
95
X WWNT
2"0" 1"816. (;c
x
1.4" o£
BNT
12 10 -
Lu
"8SNT '6"42-
XxNNTx CNT XNWNT x Dev NT X D e r NT XyNT i I 1 i i ! 6 1 2 3 4 5 R U R A L I T Y OF C C T A R E A ( h a / / p e r s o n )
Fig. 9. The proportion of the total population j o i n i n g the Trusts ( m e m b e r s h i p rate) and rurality (as the inverse of population density) for the nine C o u n t y C o n s e r v a t i o n Trusts that contain the ten N a t i o n a l Parks.
~N~x
5000-
N
x NNT
4000-
sN~ ~ 3000~ 2000m z
X Dev NT DerNT x
xCNT X WWNT
XNWNT
1000X BNT
!
05~10
Fig. 10.
6
i
1 0~106 CCT A R E A ( H A )
15~
!
106
Trust m e m b e r s h i p and area for the nine C o u n t y C o n s e r v a t i o n Trusts that c o n t a i n the ten N a t i o n a l Parks.
m =(2-52
×
(r = 0.72
10-3)A + 1276 at p = 0.01)
(iv)
.
Since m e m b e r s h i p increases with area (iv) and reserve numbers increase with m e m b e r s h i p (i), the number of reserves established is also expected to increase with the Trust area. However, the correlation betwen n and A is not significant for the nine C C T s which e n c o m p a s s the N a t i o n a l Parks (r = 0-43 at p = 0-12), though it is if all 39 C C T s are considered (r = 0' 33 at p = 0-02). The correlation between n and A is also significant if the 9 C C T areas are separated into N a t i o n a l Park and nonNational Park areas as in Fig. 11 (r = 0"69 at p = 0-0006).
96
IAN BROTHERTON ,,~ ,< E z z O
~ ~
SNT x NNT x
282624-
X Der NT
X NWNT
22-
2018-
X CNT
16-
PD X xBB
_z ~4a:
12-
~
10-
~xN NYMx
~m
X YNT
WWNT X X Dev NT
6-
xLD
XD BNT x
Ex X
xYD X sn
o,~'1o ~ NP(OR NON-NP)
lO'1o s
1~'1o s
AREA (ha)
Fig. 11. The number of Trust reserves in a given area for the nine County ConservationTrusts that contain the ten National Parks, treating National Park and non-National Park areas separately. Local factors therefore affect the establishment of CCTRs and Trusts with more members have, on average, established more reserves. But Trust membership rates tend to be highest in the more rural areas. As a consequence, the distribution of members and their reserves does not match the distribution of the population at large, as might otherwise be expected, but approaches uniformity. The Trusts which cover the largest areas tend to have more members and more reserves. As a first, and very rough, approximation, reserve density may be regarded as uniform. The second aspect, the attention that each CCT has given to its National Park, is explored in Fig. 12, which plots the reserve density within a National Park against the reserve density in the remainder of the CCT area. Thus, the density of CCTRs in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park is high in comparison with their density in the rest of the West Wales Trust area; and conversely the densities of CCTRs in Snowdonia and Exmoor are low in comparison with the densities in the North Wales and Somerset Trust areas respectively. Otherwise, the density differences within and without the National Parks do not in general differ by more than a factor of two. Clearly there are differences in CCTR density between different areas and Fig. 12 stresses the grossness of the correlation established above between n and A. Many other factors (the age of the Trust, the distribution of sites of conservation interest, the distribution and preferences of key personnel, the distribution of opportunities for reserve acquisition, the importance attached to reserve acquisition, and so on) may affect the numbers of reserves that have been established by the different Trusts and the proportion of those that have been established in the National Parks. But we can fairly conclude that the National Parks have received no more--but perhaps also no less--than their fair share of attention by the CCTs.
BRITISH NATIONAL PARKS AND NATURE CONSERVATION
97
2w10 - 4 -
x P C / w w NT E 1.5x10 - 4 -
I,--
Z
X P D/Der N T
NYM~YNT X D~Dev NT 0"5x10 -4-
Z w 0
BB~BN T
lx10-4_
X
2"/CNT YD/X /YNT
Sn/
E X/S NT X
x/NWNT
i ! i i 1.5w10 - 4 2w10-4 0.5x10 -4 1M10 - 4 CCTR D E N S I T Y O U T S I D E THE N P ( n u m b e r s per ha)
Fig. 12.
The density of Trust reserves within a National Park and within the non-National Park area, for the nine County Conservation Trusts that contain the ten National Parks.
DISCUSSION
The ten National Parks contain some of the finest stretches of the remoter and wilder countryside of England and Wales. They are relatively undeveloped and biologically interesting (almost 8 % of the total National Park area is graded NCR key compared with the 4 ~ average for England and Wales). Their potential role in safeguarding wildlife was recognised at the outset. The original White Papers (Cmnds 7121 & 7122), which were the forerunners of the 1949 legislation that provided the initial statutory powers for the National Parks (now Countryside) Commission and the Nature Conservancy (now Council), envisaged that the National Parks would make a significant contribution to nature conservation in England and Wales. In addition to the National Nature Reserves established by the Nature Conservancy, Cmnd 7122 envisaged National Park Reserves established by the then proposed National Parks Commission; and Scientific Areas comprising relatively extensive representative tracts of the range of less developed countryside in England and Wales to be maintained as far as possible in their existing character as regards physical and ecological features. But neither the National Park Reserve nor the Scientific Area was included in the 1949 Act, although a new category, the Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) was incorporated. In consultation with owners, SSSIs are notified by the NCC to local planning authorities, and there are now about 300 SSSIs (l 3 % of the England and Wales total) in National Parks. But the management of SSSIs is not under any statutory control and the interests of many sites have been damaged, or are threatened, by improving land management practices (NCC, 1977). The special place for nature conservation in the parks as initially envisaged by Cmnd 7122 and
98
IAN BROTHERTON
the application of what that paper calls 'sound ecological principles in land use' have to a large extent not materialised. That the record of nature conservation in the National Parks is disappointing is noted by the NCC itself in evidence both to the Sandford Committee ( D O E , 1974) and to the House of C o m m o n s Expenditure Committee (House of C o m m o n s , 1976). Not only, says the NCC, have the Park Authorities 'failed to take account of nature conservation to the extent originally envisaged' but the Conservancy itself has 'been unable to fulfil its intended advisory role as it would have wished'. The notable exception is in the Peak Park. There, an officer of the Conservancy's regional staffis attached specifically to the National Park and based at the park's administrative centre, an arrangement which has shown that close and successful working relationships can be achieved. But this is the exception and the Conservancy ruefully notes that its 'advisory role in management of the parks for nature conservation interest has not in general reached the scale of intensity originally conceived nor that which appears desirable in view of current and anticipated pressures on the parks'. In contrast, the attention afforded to National Parks by the Nature Conservancy through the establishment of N N R s does at first sight seem generous: 29 ~o of all the N N R s declared in England and Wales are in National Parks. But this merely reflects the parks' interest (26 ~o of all N C R key sites in England and Wales are in National Parks, though the parks themselves cover less than 9 ~,,, of the land surface) and highlights the contribution that the parks could make to the conservation of nature in England and Wales generally. The achievements of the National Park Committees themselves have been negligible and are particularly disappointing when viewed against the involvement envisaged in Cmnd 7122. Indeed, local authorities throughout Britain have made little use of their powers (under Section 21 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949) to establish Local Nature Reserves (LNRs). A total of 65 L N R s in 30 years is a far from impressive record, the more so as there are over 60 County Councils and around 400 Borough and District Councils in England and Wales empowered to establish them. And the National P a r k s - - t h o u g h they cover 9 ~o of the land surface--have only 4 ~o of the LNRs. This paucity of LNRs in National Parks (only three reserves, and all in the Brecon Beacons National Park) reflects not only the general lack of local authority interest in nature conservation but also the urban bias in the overall distribution of LNRs. At the level of the Economic Planning Region, there is a marked correlation (r = 0"92 at p = 0.0002) between the number of LNRs which have been established and the regional population. Local authorities in general, and rural authorities in particular, have not been enthusiastic about LNRs. The apparent lack of concern shown by rural local authorities for nature reserves seems paradoxical in relation to the generally high membership rates achieved by the CCTs in these areas. It is these higher CCT membership rates in the less populated, rural areas that explain why the CCTRs (unlike the LNRs) are not concentrated with
BRITISH NATIONAL PARKS AND NATURE CONSERVATION
99
population but are widely spread t h r o u g h o u t the country. This spread o f the C C T R s extends to the relatively remote National Parks, which contain 7.4~o o f the t h o u s a n d or so C C T R s established in England and Wales. This p r o p o r t i o n is of course not greatly different f r o m the p r o p o r t i o n of the land surface o f England and Wales covered by the National Parks (8.7 ~o) and is consistent with a more or less uniform countrywide distribution o f CCTRs.
CONCLUSIONS The N C C and the CCTs have not given the National Parks any special attention as regards nature reserve establishment. But whilst these agencies have treated the N a t i o n a l Parks m u c h as elsewhere, the N a t i o n a l Park Committees themselves m a y have done less for nature conservation than the average local authority, which itself has done very little. There are doubtless exceptions to these conclusions at the individual park level but overall the story o f the first 25 years is of neglected opportunity. Recent developments are more encouraging. The full-time staffs which the National Park Committees have appointed since 1974 follow the r e c o m m e n d a t i o n o f the Sandford Committee ( D O E , 1974) and include at least some officers with ecological training. The impetus within the park organisations for achieving nature conservation purposes is increased and there are tangible points o f contact to which the N C C regional staff and C C T conservation officers can relate. It is too early to assess the results of these recent changes, particularly as the budget restrictions of the last few years necessitated by a depressed e c o n o m y mitigate against rapid developments, at least as regards reserve establishment. But generally the signs are encouraging. The next 25 years should see more concern for wildlife conservation with ecological ideas gaining further acceptance within the general thinking and practices o f National Park Committees.
REFERENCES COUNTRYSIDECOMMISSION(1977). Local authority tree planting programmes in the countryside. Countryside Commission Advisory Series, No. 1, London. COUNTRYSIDECOMMISSION• LAKEDISTRICTSPECIALPLANNINGBOARD(1976). The Lake District Upland Management Experiment CCP93. Cheltenham, Countryside Commission. DASMAN,R. F. (1973). Classification and use of protected natural and cultural areas. Oce. Pap. int. Un. Nat. nat. Resour., No. 4. DEPARTMENTOF THE ENVIRONMENT(1974). Report oJ the National Park Policies Review Committee. London, HMSO. DEPARTMENTOF THEENVIRONMENT(1976). Ministerial conclusions on the Report of the National Park Policies Review Committee. London, HMSO. DottY, J. G. (1977). Species-area relationships in an area of intermediate size. J, Ecol., 65, 475-84. FIEST, M. J. (1978). A study oJ management agreements, CCPl14. Cheltenham, Countryside Commission. HOPKINS,B. (1955). The species area relations of plant communities. J. Ecol., 43, 409-26.
IO0
IAN BROTHERTON
HOUSE OF COMMONS(1976). National Parks and the Countryside: Sixth Report from the Expenditure Committee. London, HMSO. MACARTrtUR, R. H. & WILSON, R. O. (1967). The theory oJ island biogeography. Princeton, Princeton University Press. NATURE CONSERVANCY COUNCIL (1977)~ Nature conservation and agriculture. London, Nature Conservancy Council. RATCLXFFIZ,D. A. (Ed.) (1977). A nature conservation review. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF NATURE CONSERVATION(1980). Nature reserves stud)', Parts 1 & 2. Lincoln, SPNC.
N A T I O N A L P A R K S IN G R E A T BRITAIN A N D THE A C H I E V E M E N T OF N A T U R E C O N S E R V A T I O N PURPOSES IAN BRO~HERXOY
Department oJ Landscape Architecture, The University, Sheffield SIO 2TN, Great Britain
ABSTRACT
The ten National Park Authorities of England and Wales are concerned mainly with landscape conservation and provisionjor outdoor recreation. Nature conservation is not a p r i m a r y p a r k purpose and only one authority has its own nature reserves. Nature conservation purposes are pursued in the parks as elsewhere by the Nature Conservancy Council and by the appropriate County Conservation Trust. The achievements o f these two organisations theJormer national and governmental, the latter local and voluntary--are compared and contrasted. The number oj National Nature Reserves established by the Nature Conservancy Council in each park is consistent with the parks' nature conservation interest as nationally assessed. The Conservancy appears to have treated the parks much as it has treated the rest oJ the counto'. Local Conservation Trusts have also accorded the parks no m o r e - - b u t also no less attention than elsewhere. Trust reserves tend to be more or less uniformally distributed throughout the counties of England and Wales. This pattern corresponds with the distribution o f Trust members and arises because membership rates tend to be highest in the more rural areas (including the National Parks) where absolute population levels are low. Finally, the National Park Authorities themselves have all but neglected nature conservation purposes in the parks. This lack o f interest is consistent with the low priority afforded to nature conservation by local authorities in general and by rural authorities in particular. But whilst past achievements have been slight,juture prospects are, by comparison, quite bright.
INTRODUCTION
The ten National Parks of England and Wales (Fig. 1) are between 25 and 30 years old. They were designated following the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act and are Category C landscapes (Dasman, 1973). Each park is 85 Biol. Conserv. 0006-3207/82/0022-0085/$02.75 © Applied Science Publishers Ltd, England, 1982 Printed in Great Britain
IAN BROTHERTON
86
NORTHUMBERLAND
LAKE DISTRICT
M ORKSHIRE DALES
BRECON ~CA~kIC tBROKESHIRE p COAST
DARTMOOR
Fig. 1.
0
80 Km
0
50 M,les
The situation of the National Parks.
BRITISH N A T I O N A L P A R K S A N D N A T U R E C O N S E R V A T I O N
87
administered by a committee of the local County Council (though the Peak District and Lake District--the first two parks to be established--are run by Boards which have greater independence). Two-thirds of the National Park Committee (or Board) members are locally elected councillors, the remaining third being appointed nationally by the Secretary of State for the Environment. Since April 1974 following the 1972 Local Government Act, these committees have been served by a full-time staff and the greater part of the funds for the parks' administration and activities (almost 90 %) has come from central government. This system of administration and funding is designed to involve and balance both local and national interests in park planning and management. The park committees have two main purposes. The first is to protect and enhance the natural beauty of the park area; the second is to provide opportunities for its enjoyment--and the Act requires that both these duties be carried out with regard to the interests of park residents (see also Department of the Environment, 1974, 1976). The park committees achieve these purposes in a variety of ways. As the statutory authorities for planning control they exert a powerful influence over the volume, distribution and design of building developments. They may also purchase and manage directly conservation sites to protect particularly valuable or vulnerable features: and key recreation sites to provide car parks, information centres, access to beauty spots and so on. But the greater part of each park area is farmland or forest over which the park committees have minimal control. As a consequence, increasing effort is being given to devising financial and managerial inducements whereby farmers and other land-owning and using interests can be persuaded by agreement to take at least some account of conservation and recreation purposes in the management of their holding (Countryside Commission and Lake District Special Planning Board, 1976; Countryside Commission, 1977; Fiest, 1978). The conservation purposes which the National Park Authorities (NPAs) pursue are concerned very largely with landscape. Certainly the 1949 Act which led to the establishment of the parks specifies that the conservation of natural beauty is to include flora and fauna: and the National Park Committees are empowered to establish local nature reserves (paradoxically, the more autonomous boards which administer the Peak District and Lake District lack this power). However, only the Brecon Beacons National Park has established local nature reserves (3 sites covering 219 ha in total) and, although the weight given to nature conservation purposes in most of the national park plans (published in 1977 and 1978) may lead to greater involvement in the future, the NPAs have until now achieved relatively little on the nature conservation front. The main reason for this may be that nature conservation interests have been well served at national level by the Nature Conservancy (now Nature Conservancy Council), a central government agency established in 1947 (Conservation of Nature in England and Wales, Cmd 7122; 1949 National Parks and Access to the
88
IAN BROTHERTON
Countryside Act: and 1973 Nature Conservancy Council Act) and at local level by the voluntary conservation movement, in particular the County Conservation Trusts under their umbrella organisation the Royal Society for Nature Conservation--formerly called the Society for the Promotion of Nature C o n s e r v a t i o n - - a n d other bodies including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. As a consequence, the N PAs have spent their limited budgets on more central concerns. Indeed, nature conservation and landscape conservation in Britain have grown up as separate activities, pursued very largely by separate organisations. Nature conservation is primarily concerned with protecting the best possible examples of the range of habitat types found in Britain and with protecting rare and otherwise interesting species. Landscape conservation is concerned with protecting natural and man-made places and scenes which are valued very often for their visual appeal but also for cultural, historical, architectural, recreational or other connections. Nature conservation value is influenced by attributes which include size, diversity, naturalness, rarity, fragility, typicality, recorded history, position, and so on (Ratcliffe, 1977): landscape value is a consequence of association and familiarity. The two activities are different and have been developed by separate organisations, Nonetheless, nature conservation and landscape conservation purposes may be served by the same action, and they often are. The number of times that the Nature Conservancy Council and the Countryside Commission (the central government agency responsible for the National Parks and more generally for the conservation of rural landscapes) have rightly, if embarrassingly, faced one another at public inquiries is small, but includes important cases (for example, the military presence in the D a r t m o o r National Park; and the routing of a major trunk road through the Lake District National Park). But if outright disagreement is rare, the ordering of priorities and allocation of resources to achieve landscape and nature conservation purposes would show marked differences. Nature conservation is not then a prime purpose of the NPAs in England and Wales, although most authorities would certainly wish to encourage it. For example, an annual grant to whichever local Conservation Trust operates within the park area is becoming increasingly common. But the main operators in the National Parks are the Nature Conservancy Council, which designates National Nature Reserves (NNRs) and Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs); and the local County Conservation Trust, which also establishes and manages nature reserves (CCTRs) and generally promotes wildlife interests at the local level. What then have these bodies achieved on the nature conservation front within the National Parks? Certainly not all parks are equally interesting from the nature conservation viewpoint: nor are the local populations of the different parks and surrounding areas equally interested in, and sympathetic to, nature conservation purposes. In this paper, an attempt is made to assess which parks are most interesting for nature conservation purposes and to suggest why. The most interesting parks might be expected to contain the most nature reserves. However, the correlation is not invariably good and the reasons for this are explored.
BRITISH
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THE NATURE CONSERVATION INTEREST OF NATIONAL PARKS
A major re-survey and re-classification of sites of nature conservation interest within the British Isles has recently been completed by the Nature Conservancy Council (Ratcliffe, 1977). This Nature Conservation Review (NCR) provides a 1-6 grading of sites in which the most important are grades 1 & 2 (key), describing sites of international and national importance. The occurrence of NCR key sites within National Parks is shown in Table 1 and used to assess the relative nature conservation interest of the different parks. A variety of measures may be used, including the number of NCR key sites, the area of such sites, the proportion of the park area that they occupy and so on. As the main purpose here is to explore whether the number of nature reserves in a National Park is related to the park's nature conservation interest, both the area and the number of NCR key sites is relevant. Thus, if conservation interest is the determining factor in nature reserve establishment, the greater the NCR key area, the more nature reserves there should be. But the number of N C R key sites is also relevant. Other things being equal, lincluding NCR key area, a greater number of NCR key sites is likely to reflect a greater geographical spread and so a greater variety of major habitat types within the park. 'Representative series' conservation policies coupled with limited budgets mean that n nature reserves from different habitat types are generally preferable to n nature reserves from the same habitat type. A park with a greater range of habitat types (indicated by a greater number of NCR key sites) is therefore expected to have more nature reserves. To this end, conservation interest is assessed as the product of N C R key area (reflecting the extent of interest) and the number of NCR key sites (reflecting the variety of interest). The ten National Parks are listed in Table 1 in rank order of nature conservation interest as measured by this product. There is a well-established relationship between species number and area (Hopkins, 1955; MacArthur & Wilson, 1967) which has also been used to interpret data from intermediate and large-sized areas in Britain (Dony, 1977). It might be TABLE 1 THE NATURE CONSERVATION INTEREST OF NATIONAL pARKS, ASSESSED AS THE PRODUCT OF NCR KEY AREA AND NUMBER
N C R key sites Number Area (ha) Snowdonia (Sn) Lake District (LD) Brecon Beacons (BB) Yorkshire Dales (YD) D a r t m o o r (D) Peak District (PD) Northumberland (N) Pembrokeshire Coast (PC) Exmoor (Ex) North York Moors (NYM)
16 19 13 7 7 4 8 6 5 5
20739 15465 14982 11094 9035 13264 6565 5475 3455 556
Nature conservation interest (Number × area) 10-3 331 294 195 78 63 53 53 33 17 3
90
1AN BROTHERTON
expected that the largest National Parks would be the most interesting since they would contain the most species, the greatest range of habitat types and the greatest number of important sites. However, the correlation between a park's nature conservation interest and its area (r = 0 . 7 8 , p = 0-004) shown in Fig. 2 can be improved. A better correlation is achieved in Fig. 3, which plots nature conservation interest against altitudinal range (r = 0'92, p = 0.00009). A greater height range gives a greater range of physical and biotic conditions and so land use and management systems. Altitudinal range, as well as area, affects the range of habitat types and it is this variable that has the most marked effect on nature conservation interest at the National Park scale. Sn x
330-
~o~
300-
~X ~u F-.
270 -
Z
240-
~-
180-
~: w ~ 0
150"
XLD
210" xBB
120"
90-
oc
60_ ~
< z
30"
XYD
Dx
XN
xPD
PCx XEx
x NYM
i
1OO.000 AREA (ha)
Fig. 2.
! 200,000
Nature conservation interest and the area of National Parks.
x 300-
xLD
z 0
>
xBB 150-
o u
~
xYD xD
POx xPC
30-
NYMx
I 20O
xN
XEx I
400
6~)0
HEIGHT
Fig. 3.
Sn
800'"
10;0
1200
RANGE (m)
Nature conservation interest and the height range of National Parks.
BRITISH NATIONAL
PARKS AND NATURE CONSERVATION
NATIONAL
NATURE
RESERVES
91
(NNRs)
As their name implies, NNRs form a national network of prime conservation sites representative of the range of habitat types found in Britain. They are established by the Nature Conservancy Council on land over which they have secured, through ownership, lease or appropriate agreement, powers to ensure the site's management for nature conservation purposes. As argued above, if the establishment of NNRs is determined primarily on the basis of nature conservation interest, then the most interesting parks should contain the most NNRs and this is seen to be the case (Fig. 4). The apparent under-representation of NNRs in the Lake District and x Sn
10-
5x BB
xLD
Dx xYD PC xPO/N
'%
1~,o
34o
NATURE CONSERVATION INTEREST
Fig. 4. Nature conservation interest and the distribution of NNRs between the National Parks. Brecon Beacons may be explained in the case of the former by the high proportion of the park area (around 20 %) which is owned and protected by the National Trust; whilst at least one of the three Local Nature Reserves established by the Brecon Beacons National Park Committee is of N N R standing, being NCR grade 1. But even without such caveats, the correlation is significant (r = 0"82, p = 0-002) and there is no evidence that the establishment of N N R s in the National Parks has been affected by local conditions, at least from a distributional point of view. When it is recalled that all the reserves (with very rare exceptions in which land owners cannot be traced) are established voluntarily; and that there are many reasons why an owner may not agree to the establishment of a reserve; and that severe financial restraints have operated to curtail reserve establishment at times, it is all the more surprising that the correlation between NNRs and nature conservation interest is as good as it is.
92
IAN B R O T t l E R T O N
C O U N T Y C O N S E R V A T I O N T R U S T RESERVES
(CCTRs)
There are at present 39 County Conservation Trusts in England and Wales, voluntary charitable bodies which pursue and promote nature conservation purposes at the local level. As in the case of the Nature Conservancy Council, a major way in which this is done is through the establishment and management of nature reserves. Figure 5 shows the number of CCTRs in each National Park plotted against the park's nature conservation interest, measured as before as the product of NCR key area and number. In this case, the variables are not related (r = - 0 . 2 0 , p = 0.29). The most interesting parks from a nature conservation viewpoint do not contain the most CCTRs. This is not to deny that CCTRs serve extremely valuable purposes; nor does it mean that individual reserves are selected without reference to conservation interest. But it does suggest that other factors assume considerable importance in determining the extent and distribution of CCTR establishment. There are indeed very marked differences between the demographic, social and environmental characteristics of the ten National Parks. Northumberland and Snowdonia, for example, are remote and only sparsely populated; others, in comparison, are accessible and developed (for example, Dartmoor and the Peak Park): and some of these differences may have affected the extent of CCTR establishment. In the typically more remote parks where population density is low, the demand for land is also low. Perhaps, then, it has been easier to establish CCTRs in these parks where land has been avaihtble and relatively cheap. Or conversely, more CCTRs may have been established at the other end of the spectrum in the more accessible of the parks where the relatively high population pressures may have produced a greater demand for conservation. This second explanation seems to be the more likely since the density of CCTRs in the National Parks does correlate positively with population density (r = 0.55 at p = 0.05). There are more CCTRs in the more densely populated parks (Fig. 6). However, the correlation is only probably significant. A better explanation of the extent of CCTR establishment in the National Parks is obtained by looking more fully at the nine CCTs within whose areas the ten National Parks fall. Two aspects are then relevant : the activity of each of the CCTs and the attention that each has given to its National Park(s). In considering the first of these, there is a good correlation (r =0.58, p =0.00005) between reserve numbers and Trust membership (SPNC, 1980), which also holds for the nine Trusts which encompass the National Parks (Fig. 7). Trusts with more members (m) have more reserves (n) and : n = (3'6 x lO-3)m +20"71 (r = 0.66 at p = 0"03)
(i)
BRITISH
NATIONAL
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CONSERVATION
93
15-
XPD x
QI:
10--
P~
BB
xN
O
x LD
,NYM XD (]3 ;E Z
5xYD
xEx
xSn
,;o
3'0 NATURE
3bo
CONSERVATION
INTEREST
Fig. 5. Nature conservation interest and the distribution of County Conservation Trust Reserves between the National Parks.
J:Z 2,10.4 X PC
E 1.5zi0 -4-
C.~ 1 N 1 0 _ 4 .
xPD
XN
BB x
xO
NYM
X z
o
0 . 5 x i 0 "4"
YD x XSn
0'-I POPULATION
x
LD XEx
0'2
0'3
OI"4
DENSITY (persons/ha)
Fig. 6. The densities of County Conservation Trust Reserves and of population in the National Parks. But what determines m e m b e r s h i p numbers? There is, as might be expected, a positive correlation between the m e m b e r s h i p (m) and the total population ( M ) within the Trust area (Fig. 8) and: m =(7.3 x 10-4)M+2105
(ii)
(r = 0-78 at p = 0 . 0 1 ) but this is far from the whole story. The m e m b e r s h i p rate (that is
m/M, the
94
IAN BROTHERTON YNT 40-
X
NNT X
D e r NT x x W W N T
X DevNT 30"
x SNT xCNT NWNT X
20BNT x 10-
looo '
2oo0 '
3 o' oo 4000 '
NUMBER
Fig. 7.
OF C C T
5000 '
6 do
o
MEMBERS
Reserve and membership numbers for the nine County Conservation Trusts that contain the ten National Parks.
YNT x tn cc
5000x NNT 4000-
u
m
SNT
x
3000-
2000-
WWNT x
X D e v NT
CNT x X NWNT
X DerNT
Z IO00-
X BNT
0"5 x 10
POPULATION
Fig. 8.
1"0 x 1 0
WITHIN
CCT
l~.v6
AREA
Trust membership and total population within the areas covered by the nine County Conservation Trusts that contain the ten National Parks.
proportion of the total population that joins the Trust) is highest where population density (M/A) is lowest (Fig. 9) and: m M
A
(3.46 x 1 0 - 3 ) ~
+ 1.1 x 10 -3
(iii)
(r = 0-97 at p = 0.00001)
The effect of the higher membership rates in the remoter, less populated, areas (iii, above), is to even out what would otherwise be an urban bias (from ii, above) in the distribution of CCT members. As a consequence, Trust members tend to be relatively evenly distributed and membership increases with area (Fig. 10):
BRITISH NATIONAL PARKS AND NATURE CONSERVATION 2'2"
95
X WWNT
2"0" 1"816. (;c
x
1.4" o£
BNT
12 10 -
Lu
"8SNT '6"42-
XxNNTx CNT XNWNT x Dev NT X D e r NT XyNT i I 1 i i ! 6 1 2 3 4 5 R U R A L I T Y OF C C T A R E A ( h a / / p e r s o n )
Fig. 9. The proportion of the total population j o i n i n g the Trusts ( m e m b e r s h i p rate) and rurality (as the inverse of population density) for the nine C o u n t y C o n s e r v a t i o n Trusts that contain the ten N a t i o n a l Parks.
~N~x
5000-
N
x NNT
4000-
sN~ ~ 3000~ 2000m z
X Dev NT DerNT x
xCNT X WWNT
XNWNT
1000X BNT
!
05~10
Fig. 10.
6
i
1 0~106 CCT A R E A ( H A )
15~
!
106
Trust m e m b e r s h i p and area for the nine C o u n t y C o n s e r v a t i o n Trusts that c o n t a i n the ten N a t i o n a l Parks.
m =(2-52
×
(r = 0.72
10-3)A + 1276 at p = 0.01)
(iv)
.
Since m e m b e r s h i p increases with area (iv) and reserve numbers increase with m e m b e r s h i p (i), the number of reserves established is also expected to increase with the Trust area. However, the correlation betwen n and A is not significant for the nine C C T s which e n c o m p a s s the N a t i o n a l Parks (r = 0-43 at p = 0-12), though it is if all 39 C C T s are considered (r = 0' 33 at p = 0-02). The correlation between n and A is also significant if the 9 C C T areas are separated into N a t i o n a l Park and nonNational Park areas as in Fig. 11 (r = 0"69 at p = 0-0006).
96
IAN BROTHERTON ,,~ ,< E z z O
~ ~
SNT x NNT x
282624-
X Der NT
X NWNT
22-
2018-
X CNT
16-
PD X xBB
_z ~4a:
12-
~
10-
~xN NYMx
~m
X YNT
WWNT X X Dev NT
6-
xLD
XD BNT x
Ex X
xYD X sn
o,~'1o ~ NP(OR NON-NP)
lO'1o s
1~'1o s
AREA (ha)
Fig. 11. The number of Trust reserves in a given area for the nine County ConservationTrusts that contain the ten National Parks, treating National Park and non-National Park areas separately. Local factors therefore affect the establishment of CCTRs and Trusts with more members have, on average, established more reserves. But Trust membership rates tend to be highest in the more rural areas. As a consequence, the distribution of members and their reserves does not match the distribution of the population at large, as might otherwise be expected, but approaches uniformity. The Trusts which cover the largest areas tend to have more members and more reserves. As a first, and very rough, approximation, reserve density may be regarded as uniform. The second aspect, the attention that each CCT has given to its National Park, is explored in Fig. 12, which plots the reserve density within a National Park against the reserve density in the remainder of the CCT area. Thus, the density of CCTRs in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park is high in comparison with their density in the rest of the West Wales Trust area; and conversely the densities of CCTRs in Snowdonia and Exmoor are low in comparison with the densities in the North Wales and Somerset Trust areas respectively. Otherwise, the density differences within and without the National Parks do not in general differ by more than a factor of two. Clearly there are differences in CCTR density between different areas and Fig. 12 stresses the grossness of the correlation established above between n and A. Many other factors (the age of the Trust, the distribution of sites of conservation interest, the distribution and preferences of key personnel, the distribution of opportunities for reserve acquisition, the importance attached to reserve acquisition, and so on) may affect the numbers of reserves that have been established by the different Trusts and the proportion of those that have been established in the National Parks. But we can fairly conclude that the National Parks have received no more--but perhaps also no less--than their fair share of attention by the CCTs.
BRITISH NATIONAL PARKS AND NATURE CONSERVATION
97
2w10 - 4 -
x P C / w w NT E 1.5x10 - 4 -
I,--
Z
X P D/Der N T
NYM~YNT X D~Dev NT 0"5x10 -4-
Z w 0
BB~BN T
lx10-4_
X
2"/CNT YD/X /YNT
Sn/
E X/S NT X
x/NWNT
i ! i i 1.5w10 - 4 2w10-4 0.5x10 -4 1M10 - 4 CCTR D E N S I T Y O U T S I D E THE N P ( n u m b e r s per ha)
Fig. 12.
The density of Trust reserves within a National Park and within the non-National Park area, for the nine County Conservation Trusts that contain the ten National Parks.
DISCUSSION
The ten National Parks contain some of the finest stretches of the remoter and wilder countryside of England and Wales. They are relatively undeveloped and biologically interesting (almost 8 % of the total National Park area is graded NCR key compared with the 4 ~ average for England and Wales). Their potential role in safeguarding wildlife was recognised at the outset. The original White Papers (Cmnds 7121 & 7122), which were the forerunners of the 1949 legislation that provided the initial statutory powers for the National Parks (now Countryside) Commission and the Nature Conservancy (now Council), envisaged that the National Parks would make a significant contribution to nature conservation in England and Wales. In addition to the National Nature Reserves established by the Nature Conservancy, Cmnd 7122 envisaged National Park Reserves established by the then proposed National Parks Commission; and Scientific Areas comprising relatively extensive representative tracts of the range of less developed countryside in England and Wales to be maintained as far as possible in their existing character as regards physical and ecological features. But neither the National Park Reserve nor the Scientific Area was included in the 1949 Act, although a new category, the Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) was incorporated. In consultation with owners, SSSIs are notified by the NCC to local planning authorities, and there are now about 300 SSSIs (l 3 % of the England and Wales total) in National Parks. But the management of SSSIs is not under any statutory control and the interests of many sites have been damaged, or are threatened, by improving land management practices (NCC, 1977). The special place for nature conservation in the parks as initially envisaged by Cmnd 7122 and
98
IAN BROTHERTON
the application of what that paper calls 'sound ecological principles in land use' have to a large extent not materialised. That the record of nature conservation in the National Parks is disappointing is noted by the NCC itself in evidence both to the Sandford Committee ( D O E , 1974) and to the House of C o m m o n s Expenditure Committee (House of C o m m o n s , 1976). Not only, says the NCC, have the Park Authorities 'failed to take account of nature conservation to the extent originally envisaged' but the Conservancy itself has 'been unable to fulfil its intended advisory role as it would have wished'. The notable exception is in the Peak Park. There, an officer of the Conservancy's regional staffis attached specifically to the National Park and based at the park's administrative centre, an arrangement which has shown that close and successful working relationships can be achieved. But this is the exception and the Conservancy ruefully notes that its 'advisory role in management of the parks for nature conservation interest has not in general reached the scale of intensity originally conceived nor that which appears desirable in view of current and anticipated pressures on the parks'. In contrast, the attention afforded to National Parks by the Nature Conservancy through the establishment of N N R s does at first sight seem generous: 29 ~o of all the N N R s declared in England and Wales are in National Parks. But this merely reflects the parks' interest (26 ~o of all N C R key sites in England and Wales are in National Parks, though the parks themselves cover less than 9 ~,,, of the land surface) and highlights the contribution that the parks could make to the conservation of nature in England and Wales generally. The achievements of the National Park Committees themselves have been negligible and are particularly disappointing when viewed against the involvement envisaged in Cmnd 7122. Indeed, local authorities throughout Britain have made little use of their powers (under Section 21 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949) to establish Local Nature Reserves (LNRs). A total of 65 L N R s in 30 years is a far from impressive record, the more so as there are over 60 County Councils and around 400 Borough and District Councils in England and Wales empowered to establish them. And the National P a r k s - - t h o u g h they cover 9 ~o of the land surface--have only 4 ~o of the LNRs. This paucity of LNRs in National Parks (only three reserves, and all in the Brecon Beacons National Park) reflects not only the general lack of local authority interest in nature conservation but also the urban bias in the overall distribution of LNRs. At the level of the Economic Planning Region, there is a marked correlation (r = 0"92 at p = 0.0002) between the number of LNRs which have been established and the regional population. Local authorities in general, and rural authorities in particular, have not been enthusiastic about LNRs. The apparent lack of concern shown by rural local authorities for nature reserves seems paradoxical in relation to the generally high membership rates achieved by the CCTs in these areas. It is these higher CCT membership rates in the less populated, rural areas that explain why the CCTRs (unlike the LNRs) are not concentrated with
BRITISH NATIONAL PARKS AND NATURE CONSERVATION
99
population but are widely spread t h r o u g h o u t the country. This spread o f the C C T R s extends to the relatively remote National Parks, which contain 7.4~o o f the t h o u s a n d or so C C T R s established in England and Wales. This p r o p o r t i o n is of course not greatly different f r o m the p r o p o r t i o n of the land surface o f England and Wales covered by the National Parks (8.7 ~o) and is consistent with a more or less uniform countrywide distribution o f CCTRs.
CONCLUSIONS The N C C and the CCTs have not given the National Parks any special attention as regards nature reserve establishment. But whilst these agencies have treated the N a t i o n a l Parks m u c h as elsewhere, the N a t i o n a l Park Committees themselves m a y have done less for nature conservation than the average local authority, which itself has done very little. There are doubtless exceptions to these conclusions at the individual park level but overall the story o f the first 25 years is of neglected opportunity. Recent developments are more encouraging. The full-time staffs which the National Park Committees have appointed since 1974 follow the r e c o m m e n d a t i o n o f the Sandford Committee ( D O E , 1974) and include at least some officers with ecological training. The impetus within the park organisations for achieving nature conservation purposes is increased and there are tangible points o f contact to which the N C C regional staff and C C T conservation officers can relate. It is too early to assess the results of these recent changes, particularly as the budget restrictions of the last few years necessitated by a depressed e c o n o m y mitigate against rapid developments, at least as regards reserve establishment. But generally the signs are encouraging. The next 25 years should see more concern for wildlife conservation with ecological ideas gaining further acceptance within the general thinking and practices o f National Park Committees.
REFERENCES COUNTRYSIDECOMMISSION(1977). Local authority tree planting programmes in the countryside. Countryside Commission Advisory Series, No. 1, London. COUNTRYSIDECOMMISSION• LAKEDISTRICTSPECIALPLANNINGBOARD(1976). The Lake District Upland Management Experiment CCP93. Cheltenham, Countryside Commission. DASMAN,R. F. (1973). Classification and use of protected natural and cultural areas. Oce. Pap. int. Un. Nat. nat. Resour., No. 4. DEPARTMENTOF THE ENVIRONMENT(1974). Report oJ the National Park Policies Review Committee. London, HMSO. DEPARTMENTOF THEENVIRONMENT(1976). Ministerial conclusions on the Report of the National Park Policies Review Committee. London, HMSO. DottY, J. G. (1977). Species-area relationships in an area of intermediate size. J, Ecol., 65, 475-84. FIEST, M. J. (1978). A study oJ management agreements, CCPl14. Cheltenham, Countryside Commission. HOPKINS,B. (1955). The species area relations of plant communities. J. Ecol., 43, 409-26.
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HOUSE OF COMMONS(1976). National Parks and the Countryside: Sixth Report from the Expenditure Committee. London, HMSO. MACARTrtUR, R. H. & WILSON, R. O. (1967). The theory oJ island biogeography. Princeton, Princeton University Press. NATURE CONSERVANCY COUNCIL (1977)~ Nature conservation and agriculture. London, Nature Conservancy Council. RATCLXFFIZ,D. A. (Ed.) (1977). A nature conservation review. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF NATURE CONSERVATION(1980). Nature reserves stud)', Parts 1 & 2. Lincoln, SPNC.