The Lake District and its World Heritage Status

Greg Judges
Jul 24, 2017 · 5 min read

A short musing on why awarding the Lake District a place on the World Heritage List leaves me uncomfortable.

There has been some condemnation of UNESCO’s decision to grant the Lake District World Heritage status amongst those in the nature community who see the Lake District as a barren world far removed from the natural environment it claims to be. I do not aim to repeat these arguments, instead I thought it would be interesting to look at the decision from a heritage perspective whilst keeping these natural viewpoints in mind.

First, the Lake District was awarded its status on the basis of three of the ten criteria for World Heritage Status:

ii) to exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design

v) to be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change

vi) to be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance

From the selection of criteria, it is quite clear that UNESCO looked at the Lake District as a completely cultural landscape and they do not feel it meets any of the natural criteria. In UNESCO’s eyes it is not the natural landscape that is particularly distinctive, but what humanity has done to the landscape and done because of the landscape which merits the Lake District’s inclusion to the list.

This leads us onto an interesting debate on whether the actions of humanity on the natural world should be celebrated. UNESCO has itself admitted the Lake District has been completely changed by humanity and considers this to be for the landscapes benefit — it has ‘produced a harmonious landscape’. There are, unsurprisingly, arguments against this view of the Lake District which focuses on what has been lost to create this cultural landscape rather than what has been gained from it.

From a traditional heritage viewpoint, UNESCO are right to celebrate the cultural landscape. I do not dispute that the Lake District does hit all three of the criteria listed above.

However, the celebration of a landscape which has been changed entirely by human beings requires a high level of dissonance to be successful. A few photographs may clear this up a little:

© National Trust Press office 2013
© National Trust 2017

The first two images are of the Lake District. One is the cultural landscape as ascribed by UNESCO, the other is Ennerdale where the land is being allowed to return to nature. In the first image we see stark hillsides and little woodland attributed to grazing sheep over many centuries. The second shows woodlands returning to these hills as the first effects of rewilding and the lack of sheep begin to show.

© NASA 2002
© Le Devoir 2017

These next two images are from the Amazon rainforest. The first is from another World Heritage entry — the Central Amazon Conservation Complex — the second a cattle farm brought into existence by the logging of the same rainforest.

Here we have images of two environments which are being destroyed by humans and the animals they keep and yet in one we try to protect and in the other we actively encourage destruction. The cultural landscape created by humans in Brazil (amongst other places) is not celebrated but it is in the Lake District. The only difference is that the Lake District is lumpier, ‘lakier’ and, perhaps most importantly, in a developed region and so came into existence earlier.

How can we tell certain cultures to stop practices that damage the natural heritage of the world when we accept the destruction of our own natural heritage with the excuse that it is a cultural landscape? Why do we not allow them to continue their destruction, in the same manner we did, in order to create their own cultural landscape ready for the List?

We should also question whether cultural landscapes are relevant for the World Heritage List in the first place. These are landscapes which are lived in and shaped by humans. As with buildings, landscapes are not static — the needs of the people using them change and the building or landscape should change with them. By placing a landscape on the List, it becomes fixed to one moment in time with limited room to adapt.

Take the Lake District. Now it is on the List, sheep farming on the uplands must continue for the cultural landscape to continue. But what happens when all the young people move on and no one wants to be a shepherd or the significant public subsidy which sustains the farming runs dry? Will the national park pay faux shepherds to go and collect the sheep or, if that fails, to mow the hills when the tourists aren’t looking? Although seemingly silly suggestions, they are not too far removed from what happens at some heritage places around the world.

A landscape needs to adapt to the needs of the people living there. If the rewilding of Ennerdale is successful, maybe other valleys will want to follow suit. Perhaps in a hundred years people will look at the cultural landscape of the Lake District with forests, rivers and lakes full of beavers, lynx, boar and humans and wonder how anyone could think the current Lake District was worthy of a place on the World Heritage List. That landscape will also be a man made, cultural landscape created not by pushing aside nature but by working with it.

I understand awarding the Lake District a place on the World Heritage List. It is certainly a cultural landscape which means a lot to many people in this country and around the world. It undoubtedly hits three of the ten criteria and its inclusion was, on the whole, celebrated. And yet I wonder whether it was wise. The dissonance we have to display on the destruction/protection of the natural world and the lack of adaptability the Lake District now has makes me, on the whole, uncomfortable.

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