Welcome to the newsletter of the Centre for National Parks & Protected Areas (CNPPA) at University of Cumbria. Here we bring our latest news of research, collaboration and partnership activity for your interest and involvement. 

We are a team of multidisciplinary researchers with a vested interested in national parks and protected areas, organised into four themes: cultural landscapes, human-nature relations, rural & visitor economy, and wildlife conservation. We are ably supported by the PLACE Collective who conduct their own research and translate our research to wider audiences through environmental art and literature.

We are particularly delighted to be a founding signatory of the Protected and Conserved Areas Joint Statement on Climate Change and Biodiversity Crises which was signed at COP26 on Friday 5^th November 2021. We recognise alone we are one voice, but together as a network of interested organisations and national parks we can make a difference if we are supported and resourced appropriately.

Professor Lois Mansfield, Director of CNPPA

In this issue:

• Public Engagement with Climate Change at a Peatland Nature Reserve
• Publication of A Literary Walking Tour of Ambleside
• Creating Sustainable Mountain Tourism in Kyrgyzstan
  
• Community Engagement in Species Conservation on Barrow’s Brownfield Sites
• Dorothy Wordsworth @250 anniversary celebrations
• Two Exhibitions in Iceland
• Sarah Hall’s New Novel, Burntcoat, and Short Story Writing Course
• Farming with Nature 2021 Event Report
• Call for papers for 9th International Outdoor Education Research Conference
• What is Natural Beauty? Online Symposium, 1st December

CNPPA have won a bid to bring explore bringing arts and sciences together to engage local communities with a changing landscape. The newly extended National Nature Reserve, Bolton Fell and Walton Moss, was previously a peat extraction site and is under restoration to a healthy peatland carbon store.

The project will improve understanding of climate change mitigation in the context of peatland restoration and carbon sequestration, adopting a multi-faceted arts approach to community engagement. It will co-produce a science-informed, artist-inspired and community-led narrative of peatland restoration and its contribution to local and wider society.

Bolton Fell and Walton Moss (BFWM) is almost 1000ha of peatland in the Cumbrian borderlands, located within a rural farming community with high indicators of multiple deprivation. Until 2013, Sinclair horticultural company undertook extensive peat extraction at BFWM, employing ~80 local workers in a remote and neglected community. 2013 closure negatively impacted local employment, with community engagement unearthing strong memories of work and life associated with domestic and industrial peat, and a sense of loss at its demise.

This project aims to co-create a new narrative that kindles community pride in BFWM’s national value BFWM as a carbon store for climate mitigation, and to engender a legacy of engagement and care that values this peatland habitat, biodiversity and landscape.

Our partners are Natural England, who own and manage the nature reserve, and the PLACE Collective, a group of artists committed to engaging communities with landscapes. Associate Professor Simon Carr of University of Cumbria’s Institute of Science and Environment will lead the scientific contribution to the project. The project is part of the Human Nature Relations research theme of CNPPA.

Dr Stephen Taylor, who joins us in January 2022, will pursue his established research programme examining the impacts of mountaineering tourism on the popular Lenin Peak (7,134 metres) on the border of Kyrgyzstan/Tajikistan. An overview of the mountain and the issues associated with its ascent, drawn from time spent on the mountain was published in 2019 in the popular UKClimbing.com – see here.

An initial pilot study sought to identify the key issues associated with the impacts of tourism on the mountain. This included the environmental impacts, employment, safety, the overall tourism experience and the issue of governance and the management of activities on the mountain more generally. A version of this pilot study was published in Issue 46 of the Asian Alpine E-News in February 2019 and can be viewed here.

The issue of the environmental impact of camps located at advanced base camp at 4,300 metres elevation has been investigated using a GPS to map the current and historical dispersal of rubbish on the glacier moraine. Thre resulting research report which was subsequently used to obtain international funding to remove the debris. In the summer of 2020, with the devasting impact of COVID-19 on normal tourism activity, this funding provided valuable income to the communities usually involved in transporting tourist baggage and supplies to the advanced base camp. Some 6.5 tonnes of rubbish was removed and carried down the mountain.

It is hoped that this research will help establish best practice guidelines for managing tourism on Lenin Peak which can be deployed to safeguard this iconic peak and be subsequently extended to other popular mountains in Kyrgyzstan and further afield.

Back On Our Map (BOOM) is a National Lottery Heritage Fund project aiming to reintroduce plant and animal species into South Cumbria. It is based at the University of Cumbria in Ambleside. Delivery partners include: Morecambe Bay Partnership, Natural England, Forestry Commission and Cumbria Wildlife Trust.

The BOOM project team have been busy with a number of community conservation activities. Most recently they organised a visit to the Ormsgill slag banks in Barrow, to explore Open Mosaic Habitat on brownfield sites. Brownfield sites are areas that used to be used in industry or were previously built on and may now be derelict or contaminated. These sites can be valuable for wildlife; sometimes rare species have been found in these habitats. Thus, ecological surveying is important to establish existing population data, opportunities for species reintroduction and to monitor success. Anyone is welcome to get involved: for further information please contact boom@cumbria.ac.uk

Dr Penny Bradshaw, theme lead for Cultural Landscapes and Associate Professor of English Literature, has recently been involved in events which mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Dorothy Wordsworth and her ongoing legacy. Dorothy Wordsworth is identified in the Lake District UNESCO nomination document as a key figure in the development of a ‘pioneering ecological perspective’ and her work continues to resonate with contemporary readers and our current ecological concerns.

Penny, along with Grasmere-based poet and writer, Polly Atkin, presented 'A Celebration of Dorothy Wordsworth @250' as part of Borderlines: Carlisle Book Festival and Penny has recently recorded a short film with Rydal Mount to commemorate this anniversary year.

Some of the creative outputs, quotes and images from that weekend form part of the new 'Dorothy: Writer, Sister, Friend' exhibition' which is showing at Wordsworth Grasmere from 23rd Oct 2021 - Summer 2022. Details can be found here.  

Mark Wilson, a Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cumbria, has spent the last 20-years working with Professor Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, from Iceland’s University of the Arts, on projects examining human environmental behaviour, increasingly, in the context of global warming awareness and the Anthropocene. Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson currently have two major exhibitions on show in Iceland.

In Reykjavik, the retrospective show, ‘Debatable Lands: Dialogues from Shared Worlds featuring two decades of collaboration between professors Wilson and Snæbjörnsdóttir, was recently opened by Iceland’s first lady, Eliza Reid.

The second exhibition, ‘Visitations’, is based on a project funded by the Icelandic Research Council, Rannis. In Visitations, amongst hundreds of other cases, between1880 and 2016, the pair focus on two particular polar bears which were shot in Skagafjördur 13-years-ago. Their bones form part of an exhibition emphasising an often violent and hierarchical plight between people and arrivals of the Arctic carnivores.

Participation from across England and beyond, with representation across stakeholder groups such as protected landscapes bodies, farmers, environmental NGOs and universities enabled meaningful discussion and collaboration. 

Recordings are available to view on our YouTube channel here. 

The event report is available here.

The 9th International Outdoor Education Research Conference will take place 18-22 July, 2022 at the Ambleside Campus of the University of Cumbria (with pre-conference opportunities 16-18 July 2022). Continuing in the tradition of previous conferences, the aim of this conference is to build on the social, cultural and critical dimensions of research and theorizing in diverse outdoor traditions, including: education (both learning and teaching), recreation, place, sustainability and therapy. There is an extended call for abstracts until 1 December 2021. The conference organisers welcome contributions in relation to outdoor education research featuring national parks and protected areas. Please see the conference website for further details.

Join this cross-disciplinary event to consider values, aesthetics and the way we relate to and care for protected landscapes in a time of environmental crisis. The symposium will bring together historical perceptions, future imaginings and current debates about landscape management in the UK. In this momentous year of decision-making locally and globally, is it time to shake up our views on beauty? How can we rethink the way we relate to the natural world, and how can we work better together to care for it? What do we want to gain and what do we not want to lose?

With an introduction by Kate Humble, TV presenter and writer, the afternoon programme includes presentations and provocations and time for networking and conversations. Presenters include professionals in the fields of environmental policy, protected area management, sustainability, visual art, literature, earth science, geography, farming, and more. An event report will include input from all delegates, including opinions shared during live Q&A sessions and in break-out rooms; and an Artist-In-Residence will also be making a live interpretive record of proceedings.

The event is being hosted by the Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas, and is being run by the PLACE Collective with the Wye Valley AONB Partnership and the Lake District National Park Authority.

Tickets £15 (student and low wage discount of 50% available on request). 

Book here.  

Our Vision is to be a national and international centre of excellence for transdisciplinary study and research into national parks and protected areas, that addresses complex local and global challenges, and develops innovative practices to enhance landscapes and communities.

Our External Objectives are: 

· To grow our understanding of ecological, social and economic processes and change.

· To encourage dialogue within and between all communities.

· To create a safe space for addressing the contested issues.

· To provide an inspiring programme of lectures and conferences for all.

· To work in partnership with local communities to support knowledge sharing and transformative sustainable business practices that contribute to thriving communities, biodiversity and climate action.

· To use art and literature as catalysts for conversations, critical thinking, engagement and communication.