Achieving Whole-Landscape Management across Multiple Land Management Units: A case study from the Lake District Environmentally Sensitive Area

Abstract

Many landscape and ecological features, such as riparian corridors, may span a number of different landholdings, and management practices are often inconsistent across those boundaries. Obtaining the co-operation of landowners thus emerges as one of the major obstacles to the attainment of Agri-Environmental Policy objectives, which are, to a greater or lesser degree, conditional on appropriate management practices being carried out at an appropriately extensive spatial scale. The utilization of the theoretical principles of landscape ecology is proposed as a framework for the planning and management of large areas, and a potential avenue whereby large-scale landscape plans could be matched with appropriate land-management frameworks. In spite of the difficulties associated with fragmented land ownership and land managers' differing perspectives and practices relating to conservation, the assumption that present patterns of farming and landholding are incompatible with the attainment of landscape-scale conservation management is challenged. The results of a study which has evaluated the scope for multiple-farm collaboration over conservation management planning, within the context of the uplands of the Lake District Environmentally Sensitive Area, are presented and discussed. Particular attention is drawn to the social dynamics of land ownership, neighbour relations and the 'problem' of common land as key issues in the sustainable management of upland landscapes.