The Cotswolds is not a museum. Will our climate change it forever?
A collection of climate stories mostly
Courtesy of Sam Williams on Unsplash
I was delighted when Andy Parsons, the Chief Executive at Cotswolds National Landscape, recently shared their latest commissioned report - Creating a Pathway to a climate-friendly Cotswolds.
My first thought when I’d read the well written, easy to digest study was I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.
The Cotswolds is the largest of Britain’s 41 areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONB). An area of roughly 800 square miles of quintessential England, market towns and picturesque villages nestled amongst the rolling wolds (hills), a patchwork quilt of fields bounded by cream tea yellow limestone walls. The churches and inns have decorated many a Christmas card and cameras rolled for big budget period dramas.
Courtesy of Green Traveller’s Guides
It’s farming country and has looked much the same way for centuries. It broadly covers Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, creeping tentatively into Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire on the margins.
The sitting MP for this constituency created in 1997 by the conservatives and not a bad fit geographically to the AONB, is journeyman Tory, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown. He’s sitting on a 20,000 majority, the Lib Dems a solid second. It’s currently the 211th safest Tory seat.
I’m assuming that many Londoners of a certain persuasion with second homes in this constituency, choose to vote there in order to avoid disappointment.
The potential conflict of interest between second home owners and the indigenous farming community, is only one obvious complication.
Tourism has recently overtaken agriculture as the single largest employer.
16 million people visit the Cotswolds every year, the majority of which will be driving their fossil fuelled vehicles to their destination, many just for the day.
Public transport is entirely inconvenient if you want to cover some ground and explore.
Courtesy of David P Howard - Moreton-in-Marsh railway station
Great Western Railway (GWR) can get you to Moreton-in-Marsh, (1hr 37m), Kemble (1h 11m) or Banbury (51m) from London Marylebone station, to use a big city example. Exploring beyond the boundaries of these towns is a must which means relying on local bus services, a bicycle or shanks pony. Nearly all of us continue to opt for the convenience of the car when we close our front door.
Boughton in summer
Surely the future success of this special place has to be about curbing tourist numbers and certainly not growing further beyond current levels? Perhaps measures should be considered to start limiting accessibility?
At some point in the future, such decisions will have to be made. Someone or some body will need to call time if they are to have any chance of being carbon neutral or better by 2050.
The some body is probably best defined as the Cotswold National Landscape Board which currently has 37 members, representing the vested interests of whoever put them there in the first place.
How does anyone ever agree on anything?
It’s what makes this pathway report so important because it deals with the facts, a summary of the current situation and where change needs to happen, if zero carbon targets are to be met.
The reports starts with the resident population (163,000) and their greenhouse gas emissions. The most telling statistic is how much residents fly. Currently this is 250% higher than the UK national average per person. Electricity consumption and driving are a third higher, food and drink a measly 10%.
The response to tourists and tracking to zero carbon assumes that current visitor numbers don’t increase further. How convenient. A reflection of the whole report which creates few waves but is unlikely to succeed without addressing the need for de-growth, whether that’s tourist numbers, land use or how the resident rich behave.
If this AONB did nothing, the use of cars will continue to remain too high. The good news is electric vehicle (EV) ownership will continue to grow in line with government sanction and manufacturer focus. If you insist on a new Range Rover in the 2030s and beyond, its emissions will be zero.
Aside from encouraging visitors to stay longer, reducing the relative footprint of travelling, there is scant detail on any other schemes or proposals to ween visitors away from their vehicles.
Bus stop in Broadway
What about improvements to local bus services on well trodden tourist routes starting from mainline railway stations and/or introducing electric bike hire for the more ambitious on safe off road well maintained tracks. These have to be designed with inexperienced cyclists in mind, the ones without bike racks and lycra back home in their wardrobes. This could all be paid for through sponsorship schemes, businesses investing to offset their own carbon footprints.
Food and drink accounts for 24% of green house gas (GHG) emissions for residents and 52% for visitor’s while they dine in the numerous eateries.
Similar to the gradual shift away from fossil fuel vehicles, dietary habits are also changing, which is expected to reduce emissions by 3% per year. Three other factors contribute; less food processing, transportation miles and a reduction in food waste.
Some way of more closely tying what is grown to what is eaten seems the obvious direction of travel here. What about a Riverford-style (organic veg box grower) but only delivering in the Cotswolds. Most farmers are interested in more cash for crops they could be growing provided that demand is guaranteed.
A quicker approach might be to supply the regional supermarkets and all the hotels and restaurants who all want a good story and positive association with their local environment.
The key to much of the change needed according to Andy Parsons is with the farmers and land managers/owners.
They’re already being pressured to continue feeding a nation, and now we’re asking them to pay close attention to nature recovery and climate mitigation.
The report splits land use into two sections, non-carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide.
The reduction of methane and nitrous oxide will come from less livestock and synthetic fertiliser. Our dietary changes will again help, plus an increase in regenerative farming methods coupled with even better livestock management.
I expect the biggest debate amongst the 37 board members is what to grow to absorb more carbon, protecting the rights of farmers and the hypothetical deployment of wind turbines.
With landscape changes the biggest debate undoubtedly centres on an excellent point raised in the report - the Cotswolds is not a museum.
86% of the land is currently used for farming, a figure which will start to fall, if the report’s planting strategy is observed.
700 hectares of new woodland needs to be planted every year, with 21,500 hectares by 2050. 50km of new hedgerows yearly with 1,500km by 2050. On farmland, more cover crops need to be grown to prevent soil erosion and more legumes such as clover to reduce the dependence on artificial nitrogen applications.
The report suggests that broad-leafed woodlands of oak, beech, small-leafed lime and wild cherry are the preferred carbon sequesters. I don’t understand why they won’t also be considering hemp and bamboo, fast growing carbon suckers. They’re far more efficient than trees and could be grown on poorer less fertile land which has typically been used for sheep grazing to date.
I get the impression that the conclusions drawn in this report are relatively low impact because the authors are keen to maintain the status quo. They want to write more reports for other AONBs.
You can continue to enjoy the Cotswolds, visitors are welcome in the same numbers, you might notice a few more trees and hedgerows, aside from that, not much is changing.
The report does, however, remind the reader that the targets are already four years old, the baseline taken from 2019 data before the pandemic. Every year the targets are not met adds to the 2050 net zero target.
A clue to the slow start might be because of the failure to get their statutory purposes updated under the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill to include nature recovery and climate action.
Current ministers are apparently not open to changes in primary legislation. Let’s hope the next lot will be.