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WHAT IS WILDLAND? - a review | ||||
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National Park Service Act 1916 - USA Canada National Parks Act 2000 Guidelines for Protected Areas Management Categories – IUCN, 1994 Protected Area System in Australia REVISED National Parks & Wildlife Service - Ireland Zone Planning - permaculture and wildland Beyond Conservation – a wildland strategy Where are the wildest places in Britain? Wild Britain - A Partnership for Community, Commerce and Conservation 2002 NEW Natural Woodland: Ecology and Conservation in Northern Temperate Regions 1996 National Planning Policy Guidelines (NPPG 14): Natural Heritage, The Scottish Office 1998 Wild Land Policy - National Trust for Scotland 2002 Wildness in Scotland's Countryside - Scottish Natural Heritage 2003 Wild Land Policy - The John Muir Trust 2004Last updated 5th May 2007 |
It’s a brave person who would commit themselves to a definition of wild land in the UK. As will become clear, wild land has functional, perceptual and historical contexts, the relative merits of which are ceaselessly argued over. This review makes use of an array of definitions available online or published, and grateful acknowledgement is given. The review is anchored by some definitions from North America, which inarguably has some of the wilder landscapes in the world. You may also like to read the report of the Wildland Values workshop held at the WN meeting in Leeds. If you have other examples of online or published wildland definitions, please send them to the Wildland Network. The Wilderness Act 1964 - USA In 1924 Aldo Leopold, forester and ecologist, persuaded the Forest Service to protect the 574,000 acre Gila National Forest of New Mexico for wilderness recreation. This was in effect the first Government-protected wilderness in the world. Six years later, Congress enacted the Shipstead-Newton-Nolan Act to protect over 1 million acres in the Superior Primitive Area in Minnesota -the first federal law in American history to protect a wilderness area. In 1955 Howard Zahniser, Executive Director of the Wilderness Society, wrote a first draft of a Wilderness Bill. This Bill would designate lands to be protected from any form of resource extraction. Subsequently, President Johnson signed the Wilderness Act in 1964. The Act provides for a national system of wildland in America. In Section 2(c), it defines wilderness as: | ||||
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"A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." "An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value." | |||||
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The National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) was created with the passage of the Wilderness Act. It started out with 9.1 million acres within 54 individual wilderness areas. During passage of the Act some political compromises were made to allow activities that are generally incompatible with wilderness. The Wilderness Act expressly prohibits commercial enterprise, roads, use of motor vehicles, motorboats, and structures and installations in wilderness (with some narrow exceptions). However, many of these activities could be allowed by specific entities under the special provisions section of the Act, often as a result of an acceptance of existing rights or permits (“grandfather rights”) such as for mining or grazing. By identifying this section of the Act as ‘special provisions’, it acknowledges that the provisions in this part of the Act do not conform to the core concepts and stewardship principles described elsewhere in the Act. Most of the wilderness areas created under the Act were located in the western states. A few years after the passage of the Act, the Forest Service opposed the designation of new wilderness in West Virginia as it argued that eastern woodland was not without a significant history of human disturbance and thus did not qualify for wilderness designation. In 1975, Congress passed the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act which aimed to include eastern wild areas in the NWPS that showed evidence of human use, but were now returning to a natural state. The Eastern Areas Act recognized that in the more populous eastern half of the United States, there was an urgent need to identify, study, designate, and preserve areas for addition to the NWPS. The Act included a clutch of new wilderness designations in the Eastern states, including designating the Dolly Sods and Otter Creek Wilderness Areas in the Monongahela National Forest of West Virginia. Today, the NWPS has grown to include more than 106 million acres within 644 wildernesses. Wilderness in the United States comes in many forms, including glaciated peaks, swamps, natural beaches, eastern forests and sweeping desert. While many are in remote places, they can often be found inside or bordering national parks and national forests. Administration of this federally owned land is split between the Forest Service - 34.7 million acres (US Dept. of Agriculture), Bureau of Land Management - 6.2 million acres, National Park Service - 44 million acres; and the Fish & Wildlife Service -20.6 million acres (all US Dept of the Interior). About 4.4% of the continental US is protected as wilderness, although just over half of the land area is in Alaska. The largest wilderness is Wrangell St. Elias, Alaska - 9,767,944 acres, and the smallest is Pelican Island, Florida - 5 acres. The compromise of Special Provisions in the original Act has left a difficult legacy, with a recently proposed bill for new wilderness in Idaho including transfer of an amount of public land into private ownership for any local rancher willing to retire some or all of their public lands grazing permit. This transfer of public lands into private ownership as a special provision in exchange for gaining wilderness designation is not supported by wilderness organisations who believe that the grazing allotments should be bought out instead. Even then, vigilance is always required as designated wilderness is often under threat from illegal grazing, as well as other exploitative practices such as commercial fungi gathering and hunting bear for its organs. www.wildernesswatch.org/Wilderness.htm National Park Service Act 1916 - USA National parks in America were created by individual acts of legislation, starting with the first anywhere in the world in 1872 with Yellowstone. Four more national parks were created in the 1890s: Sequoia, General Grant (forerunner of King's Canyon), Yosemite and Mount Rainier. By 1916, the Department of Interior oversaw 14 national parks and 21 national monuments, but without effective administration. Thus that same year, President Wilson signed into law the National Park Service (NPS) Act, also referred to as the Park Service’s "Organic Act", setting up a park service in the Dept. of the Interior to manage those national parks and monuments. An important provision in the law states the purpose for which these federally owned parks are to be managed: | |||||
| "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." | |||||
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The young National Park Service dealt mostly with natural areas west of the Mississippi. A number of historic battlefields and forts in the east had previously become national military parks and monuments, but under War Department supervision. Other national monuments established in national forests fell under the Department of Agriculture, while memorials and park lands of the nation's capital came under a separate office there. In a 1933 government reorganization, all of these areas were united under Park Service administration forming a single national park system. A third variety of national park lands further enlarged the system in the 1930s - areas intended to serve mass recreation at least as much as to preserve natural or cultural features. The Blue Ridge Parkway and Natchez Trace Parkway, begun as Depression-era public works projects, were carefully landscaped for "recreational motoring" over scenic and historic terrain. Although new parks still arrive from time to time, the last major expansion of the system came in 1980 when Congress directed additions in Alaska totalling some 47 million acres. These spectacular national park lands more than doubled the acreage of the system. Presently, the National Park System has grown to 376 areas. The Organic Act is often characterized as having a "contradictory mandate" that requires the NPS to perform a "balancing test" - balancing between resource protection and public enjoyment. That "contradictory mandate" is said to draw the Park Service in two quite opposite directions with respect to its primary mission, and the inability to resolve the apparent contradiction has resulted in inconsistencies in management policies. This has led to inappropriate and, at times, illegal decisions being made with respect to park resources and values. Canada National Parks Act 2000 The law governing national parks in Canada uses the term "ecological integrity" which is defined in the Act as: | |||||
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“a condition that is determined to be characteristic of its natural region and likely to persist, including abiotic components and the composition and abundance of native species and biological communities, rates of change and supporting processes." | |||||
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As explained on the Park Canada website, ecosystems have integrity when they: | |||||
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"have their native components intact, including: abiotic components (the physical elements, e.g. water, rocks), biodiversity (the composition and abundance of species and communities in an ecosystem, e.g. tundra, rainforest and grasslands represent landscape diversity; black bears, brook trout and black spruce represent species diversity) and ecosystem processes (the engines that makes ecosystem work; e.g. fire, flooding, predation)." | |||||
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For the National Parks Act and National Parks Regulations to apply, national park lands must be owned by the Government of Canada and free of all encumbrances. Parks Canada apply a zoning system approach by which land and water areas are classified according to ecosystem and cultural resource protection requirements, and their capability and suitability to provide opportunities for visitor experiences. The zoning system provides a means to reflect principles of ecological integrity by protecting park lands and resources and ensuring a minimum of human-induced change. Two of the five zones, Zone I - Special Preservation and Zone II - Wilderness, provide considerable wildland protection. Zone I is an area within a National Park that deserves special preservation because it contains or supports unique, threatened or endangered natural or cultural features, or is amongst the best examples of the features that represent a natural region. Preservation is the key consideration. Motorized access and circulation is not permitted and, in some cases the fragility of the area precludes any public access. Extensive areas which are good representations of a natural region are conserved in a wilderness state. The key consideration is the perpetuation of ecosystems with minimal human interference. Zones I and II together constitute the majority of the area of all but the smallest national parks, and make the greatest contribution toward the conservation of ecosystem integrity. |
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"Zone II [wilderness] areas offer opportunities for visitors to experience, first hand, a park's natural and cultural heritage values through outdoor recreation activities which are dependent upon and within the capacity of the park's ecosystems, and which require few, if any, rudimentary services and facilities. Where the area is large enough, visitors will also have the opportunity to experience remoteness and solitude. Motorized access and circulation is not permitted." |
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Zones I and II together constitute the majority of the area of all but the smallest national parks in Canada. The other zones - Zone III (Natural Area with Recreation), Zone IV (Recreation Area) and Zone V (Service Area) - are small by comparison. The zoning system is not statutory. However, the National Parks Act provides for legally designated wilderness areas. Parks Canada has an Action Plan to convert existing wilderness zones (Zone II areas) in National Parks into legally designated wilderness. The 38 national parks/reserves that now exist occupy about 2.25 per cent of Canada or 222,283 square kilometres. They range in size from just under 9 sq. km (St Lawrence Islands National Park) to almost 45,000 sq. km (Wood Buffalo National Park). When the system is complete, it is likely to cover about three per cent. www.pc.gc.ca/progs/np-pn/eco_integ/index_e.asp www.pc.gc.ca/docs/pc/poli/princip/part2/part2a4_e.asp Guidelines for Protected Areas Management Categories – IUCN, 1994 Faced with over 140 names world-wide for protected areas of various types, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) adopted a single definition: |
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| Out of these have emerged six distinct categories of protected area in a system intended to have international application: | |||||
| CATEGORY | Protected area name | Area managed for | |||
| I | Strict Nature Reserve / Wilderness Area | Strict protection | |||
| II | National Park | Ecosystem conservation and recreation | |||
| III | Natural Monument | Conservation of natural features | |||
| IV | Habitat/Species Management Area | Conservation through active management | |||
| V | Protected Landscape/Seascape | Landscape/seascape conservation and recreation | |||
| VI | Managed Resource Protected Area | Sustainable use of natural ecosystems | |||
| The range of categories imply a gradation of human intervention, both in the past and in the future management of the protected area. The IUCN recognizes that the extent of past human modification of ecosystems has been more pervasive than previously thought; and that there is no part of the globe that can escape the effects of long-distance pollution and human-induced climate change. This they believe indicates that no area on earth can be regarded as truly 'natural'. To be able to gauge relative naturalness, the IUCN use a definition that has a cut-off date of European societal development to inform their notion of what is natural: | |||||
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Ecosystems where since the industrial revolution (1750) human impact:
Climate change is excluded from this definition. | |||||
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Using this definition of naturalness, Categories I to III are mainly concerned with the protection of natural areas where direct human intervention and modification of the environment has been limited; whereas significantly greater intervention and modification will be found in categories IV, V and VI. Size The Guidelines indicate that the size of a protected area should reflect the extent of land or water needed to accomplish the purposes of management. Thus, for a Category I area, the size should be large enough to ensure the integrity of the area to accomplish the management objective of strict protection, either as a baseline area or research site, or for wilderness protection. For a Category II area, the boundaries should be drawn sufficiently widely so that they contain one, or more, entire ecosystems, which are not subject to material modification by human exploitation or occupation. Though the primary purposes of management will determine the category to which an area is assigned, management plans can contain management zones for a variety of purposes which take account of local conditions (cf. Canadian National Parks). However, in order to establish the appropriate category, at least three-quarters and preferably more of the area must be managed for the primary purpose; and the management of the remaining area must not be in conflict with that primary purpose. Mangement Responsibility IUCN believe that Governments have a fundamental responsibility for the existence and well-being of national systems of protected areas. They should regard such areas as important components of national strategies for conservation and sustainable development. The actual responsibility for management of individual protected areas may however rest with central, regional or local government, non-governmental organizations, the private sector or the local community. In practice, protected area categories I-III will usually be the responsibility of some form of governmental body. Responsibility for categories IV and V may rest with local administrations, albeit usually working within the framework of national legislation. Protected areas are not isolated units and there is an obligation to see that their management is not negated by pressures from adjacent areas. For that reason, the planning and management of protected areas must be incorporated within regional planning, and supported by the policies adopted for wider areas. Ownership of Land In many countries ownership by some form of public body (whether nationally or locally based), or an appropriately constituted non-governmental body with conservation objectives, facilitates management and is therefore to be favoured in Categories I-III in particular. In the remaining categories, private ownership will be much more common, often being the predominant form of land ownership. Examples The IUCN Guidelines provide examples of protected areas that illustrate the differing categories: | |||||
| Protected Area | Reasons for classification | ||||
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SNARES ISLANDS NATURE RESERVE, New Zealand Strict Nature Reserve Category Ia |
Virtually pristine subantarctic islands, free of introduced mammals. Strictly protected to safeguard plant and animal populations, and natural processes. Research and monitoring is permitted. provided they do not have any long-term detrimental effects. There is no access for tourists. | ||||
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KOOTZNOOWOO WILDERNESS, United States of America Wilderness Area Category Ib |
Vast, largely uninhabited and protected wilderness of mountains, forest and coastal habitats, providing outstanding opportunities for solitude or primitive and unconfined types of recreation | ||||
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WATERTON LAKES NATIONAL PARK, Canada National Park Category II |
Together with the contiguous Glacier National Park in Montana, U.S.A., Waterton Lakes protects an important ecological unit while providing for tourism | ||||
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SKOCJANSKE JAME NATURAL MONUMENT, Slovenia Natural Monument Category III |
Skocjan's cave systems, with their unique flora and fauna, are of outstanding significance. The emphasis of site management is protection that accommodates large numbers of visitors. | ||||
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HALEJI LAKE WILDLIFE SANCTUARY, Pakistan Habitat/Species Management Area Category IV |
Haleji and its surrounding seepage lagoons are protected as important staging and wintering grounds for waterfowl. Active intervention is necessary to keep water channels clear and to maintain the habitat suitable for waterfowl. | ||||
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DARTMOOR NATIONAL PARK, United Kingdom Protected Landscape/Seascape Category V |
Dartmoor is a landscape that owes its origins largely to traditional hill farming practises. The semi-natural habitat continues to be used extensively for traditional agricultural practises, while becoming increasingly important for recreation. The landscape is protected, with strict controls on planning to ensure that the unique blend of natural and cultural heritage evolved over centuries of human habitation is maintained. | ||||
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TAMSHIYACU-TAHUAYO COMMUNAL RESERVE, Peru Managed Resource Protected Area Category VI |
Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo is a large, predominantly natural forest that is communally managed to conserve its biological diversity, while providing its semi-indigenous inhabitants with a range of natural products for local use or consumption. Sustainable use of wild resources is restricted to an area of subsistence use that surrounds a strictly protected core. | ||||
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The 2003 UN List of Protected Areas contains 102,102 protected areas covering more than 18.8 million km2, equivalent to 12.6% of the Earth’s land surface. The overview of global statistics indicates that 67% of the world’s protected areas have been assigned an IUCN management category, covering 81% of the total area protected. Among the categorised sites, the largest number lie within Category IV (Habitat/Species Management Area) and Category III (Natural Monument), but the largest area is covered by Category II (National Park) and Category VI (Managed Resource Protected Area). Interesting continental variations occur: the predominant category of protected area in North America is II (national Park) and that represents 37% of the area under protection. In Europe, the predominant category is V (Protected Landscape/Seascape), and that covers 46% of the area protected. In Britain, our national parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) fall into Category V (see Dartmoor above), our National Nature Reserves (NNR) are in Category IV as are the Marine Nature Reserves. Currently, our Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) do not seem to be categorized, but it is likely from their management proscriptions that they will fall in category IV and V.
IUCN (1994).
Guidelines for Protected Areas Management Categories. IUCN,
Cambridge, UK and Gland, Switzerland
2003 United Nations List of Protected Areas.
IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK and UNEP-WCMC, Cambridge, UK
World Database of Protected Areas
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| A wilderness zone had to be maintained in its natural state and would be used only for scientific research authorized by the Director and such recreational and other purposes that were specified in the plan of management. Particular activities were prohibited in a wilderness zone, except where they were for purposes essential to the management of the zone, and were accordance with the plan of management relating to the zone. Thus: | |||||
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In 1992, the Australian Prime Minister's Statement on the Environment confirmed a commitment to the development, in cooperation with the States and Territories, of a national comprehensive system of parks and reserves. Through this initiative the National Reserves System Cooperative Program (NRSCP) was established and administered by the Australian Nature Conservation Agency. In 1994 Australia adopted the IUCN definition of a protected area and the internationally recognised IUCN six level system of categories used to describe the management intent as the basis for documenting Australia's various types of protected areas (see above for the IUCN Guidelines). In 1995, the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) established 80 biogeographic regions throughout Australia as a framework for setting priorities within the NRSCP. A Biogeographic Region is a land area composed of a cluster of interacting ecosystems that are repeated in similar form across the landscape. The biogeographic regions of the IBRA are based on factors associated with climate, lithology, geology, landforms and vegetation. The IBRA undergoes revisions and the latest divides the Australian continent into 85 bioregions and with 404 sub-regions. The bioregions and sub-regions are the reporting unit for assessing the status of native ecosystems. Government now supports three processes to work towards a comprehensive, adequate and representative (CAR) system of protected areas - the National Reserve System (NRS), the Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) process and the National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas (NRSMPA). The establishment of CAR arose from a requirement in the National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia's Biological Diversity (1996 – see 1.4 Protected Areas). The NRS Program began in the 1996/97 financial year under the Natural Heritage Trust. Of the initial $85 million allocated in the first five years of NRS Program, about $50 million was available for land acquisitions. The program has been extended for a further five years from 2002/03 - 2006/07 under the second phase of the Natural Heritage Trust. The NRS Program funds projects which use the IBRA to identify gaps in the representation of ecosystems in protected areas, and to set priorities for land acquisition and off-reserve conservation management strategies. Priority for funding new land acquisition is given to those projects which add unrepresented or poorly represented ecosystems to the national and regional reserve system. The NRS focuses on ensuring rapid and significant improvements in the terrestrial reserve system, and is made up from nine Protected Area systems, one for each of the six States and two self governing Territories, and an Australian Government system. It thus represents the collective efforts of the States, Territories, the Australian Government, and non-government organisations to achieve an Australian system of protected areas as a major contribution to the conservation of its native biodiversity. Management objectives for all types of reserves in the NRS are required to meet the IUCN definition of a protected area to be considered part of the NRS, and all protected area categories across each jurisdiction have notionally been assigned to one of the IUCN protected area categories. The vision inspiring the NRS Program is: |
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| "Australian native ecosystems conserved through an innovative and diverse system of protected areas managed for biodiversity conservation across the landscape." | |||||
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A number of protected areas have been established on indigenous-owned lands (see The Indigenous Protected Area Programme) and a number of private protected reserves have been established under a range of covenanting programs. It is recognized that in order to meet the objectives of the NRS, private landholder involvement is an necessary component through the establishment and management of private protected areas. To be included in the NRS, an area must be a 'protected area', and it must: | |||||
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Together the 7,720 protected area reserves of Australia make up just over 10% of its land mass. The non-intervention Categories I to III constitute the largest group in both total number of protected areas and overall area (65%). In the wider landscape, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) is a mechanism for national environment protection and biodiversity conservation by regulating actions that are likely to have a significant impact on a matter of National Environmental Significance, and by providing protection for threatened species and ecological communities, migratory, marine and other protected species. On biodiversity, the Act provides for: | |||||
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Recovery plans set out the research and management actions necessary to stop the decline of, and support the recovery of, listed threatened species or threatened ecological communities. The aim of a recovery plan is to ensure the long term survival in the wild of a threatened species or ecological community. Since the passing of the Act, there has been some discussion on what constitutes an ecological community.
National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia's Biological Diversity
(1996) Department of the Environment,
Sport and Territories
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"a large area of land, (at least 10,000 hectares) which, together with its native plant and animal communities and the ecosystems of which they are a part, is in an essentially natural state. PAN Parks wilderness areas are that lands that have been least modified by man, they represent the most intact and an undisturbed expanse of Europe’s remaining natural landscapes." | |||||
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www.panparks.org/Introduction/Vision/WildernessConcept National Parks & Wildlife Service - Ireland The National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS) is part of the Department of the Environment, Heritage & Local Government (DEHLG). It manages the Irish State's nature conservation responsibilities under National and European law. NPWS is charged with the conservation of a range of ecosystems and populations of flora and fauna in Ireland, and the management and development of National Parks and Nature Reserves. Ireland has six national parks, nine National Nature Reserves and a further 68 Nature Reserves that are managed nationally. A new, basic national designation of National Heritage Area is just coming into being (see later). Kilarney National Park, Co. Kerry, was the first national park, opened originally as the Bourn Vincent Memorial Park in the 1930’s, with additional land added after the initial gift to the State of 4000 ha. There was a gap of almost 50 years until the 1980’s before Connemara and Glenveagh National Parks were opened, followed in the 1990’s by Wicklow, The Burren and Ballycroy National Parks. A National Park is generally an area of not less than 1,000 hectares, where the extensive natural plant and animal communities and scenic landscapes are conserved, and where provision is made for people to visit and appreciate these features. Glenveagh National Park, Co. Donegal is the largest at 16,958 ha, and The Burren National Park, Co. Clare is the smallest at 1,673 ha. All National Park land is State owned and is managed under the State Property Act, 1954, the Wildlife Act, 1976 and the Wildlife (Amendment) Act, 2000. The national parks encompass, in some cases, one or more Nature Reserves and are also often overlaid by the more recent European designations of Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and Special Protection Area (SPA). The Wildlife (Amendment) Act, 2000 brought into being a new, basic national landscape designation for Ireland of National Heritage Area (NHA). Some 1100 NHAs have been proposed, a few have overlapping designations of SAC and/or SPA and, amongst the national parks, Kilarney National Park is proposed for designation as part of a larger NHA. In spite of this multi-layering of designations, a National Parks Bill is also under consideration to provide them with a separate legal basis, and it is likely that the Bill will state that the primary purpose of National Parks is the conservation of wildlife, providing for public use and education where that is compatible with the conservation of wildlife. In lieu of that specific legislation, it has been the policy of successive Irish governments to abide by the criteria and standards for the National Parks laid down by the IUCN (see earlier). Ireland’s National Parks have thus been managed in accordance with these international criteria for the past 25 years, and are included in the UN list under IUCN II. A national park in IUCN II is a protected area managed mainly for ecological integrity and which provides for spiritual, scientific, educational, recreational and visitor opportunities. Two of the key considerations for management in the IUCN Guidelines for Category II are: | |||||
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"To eliminate and thereafter prevent exploitation or occupation inimical to the purposes of designation" "To take into account the needs of indigenous people, including subsistence resource use, in so far as these will not adversely affect the other objectives of management" |
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| The NPWS appears to put their own interpretation on the Guidelines, the spirit of which for IUCN II is the protection of natural areas where direct human intervention and modification of the landscape has been limited both in the past, but also more vitally in the future management of the protected area. Inimical occupation appears not to be an issue in the national parks and, in the case of Glenveagh, it is a landscape regarded as being an area having had the least human influence. However, the NPWS interpretation of exploitation, and of the needs of indigenous people, has an air of convenience to suit an historically farmed landscape for most of the national park lands. Thus by way of explaining their use of grazing animals as a management tool in the national parks, the NPWS assert in management plans that: | |||||
| "…… traditional practices by local people can maintain and enhance natural features and biological diversity. This applies in different situations ranging from the activities of indigenous communities at subsistence level in tropical forests, to European landscapes where some semi-natural ecosystems owe their very existence to harmonious interaction of human activities and natural processes. It is therefore increasingly accepted that national authorities must take such issues into account in considering what may be regarded as natural areas or landscapes and what human activities are appropriate in National Parks." | |||||
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As would be expected from the perspective of European conservation orthodoxy, the NPWS use grazing, especially that of local breed cattle, to maintain the flora of man-made, open landscapes by controlling the encroachment of coarse vegetation and scrub, and by the trampling of bracken. In the Kilarney National Park, grazing trials with cattle (Kerry/Highland crosses) are taking place in an uplands fenced area. These grazing trials, in association with the Department of Agriculture and Food, are also being used as a demonstration project to encourage development of an extensive approach to meat production in upland areas generally. The majority of the cattle in the National Park graze the lowland demesne grassland all year round. The possibility of supplying organic beef produced by the National Park to local restaurants and hotels is being investigated. Grazing in the national parks is thus a pervasive issue. In Wicklow National Park, the NPWS have no option but to accept the effects of livestock, as 56% of the State-owned land area has commonage grazing rights over it. However, in Kilarney National Park there are no grazing rights in the park, but the NPWS choose to run cattle there, and there is a continuing significant problem with in excess of 1,000 sheep trespassing regularly on the Kilarney National Park lands. Each of the parks is also under varying pressure from wild deer, feral goats and, in the case of Connemara, an iconic herd of pure bred Connemara Ponies. Parks make use of temporary and longer term exclosures to protect areas such as fragile, overgrazed wetland habitats and woodlands under threat. Glenveagh National Park has a 40 km-long fence, forming an inclosure that is home to one of only two large herds of wild red deer left in Ireland.
National Parks & Wildlife Service
Killarney National Park Management Plan (2.3Mb PDF)
Wicklow
National Park Management Plan Zone Planning – Permaculture and wildland Permaculture is an interdisciplinary earth science developed in the 1970’s by Australian biologists Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, and derived from protracted observation of self-regulating natural systems in the wildland of Tasmania. The concepts of Permaculture evolved in 1980’s into an applied, whole system design for sustainable human settlement, based on a land use ethic and the inherent qualities of plants and animals combined with the natural characteristics of landscapes. A nature-centred ethic for wilderness conservation is a fundamental principle. | |||||
| "Permaculturists recognise care for surviving natural assemblies as an essential for supporting and renewing the cultivated ecology of human use. | |||||
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There is also a commitment to rehabilitate degraded land using multifunctional pioneer species and long-term plant assemblies, and to create around them a complex living environment that includes elements of land gifted back to wild nature. The spatial planning of land use in Permaculture Design is based on a zonal analysis of activity – frequent activity is associated with zones of use nearer to the centre of settlement (Zones 1 and 2), whereas less or infrequent access or activity can be located further away (Zones 3 and 4). The characteristic of these zones is thus a decreasing intensity of resource extraction and management to the point where there is land that is gifted back to nature (Zone 5). In this wildland, there is no management and little or no resource extraction. People go there as visitors to observe and learn the lessons that they apply elsewhere in the other zones. The zonation of land use in Permaculture Design, and especially the designation of an area of wildland (Zone 5), has similarities with the many protected area systems around the world. The designation of protected land implies a gradation or restriction on human land use, such as the non-extraction and management in the national parks and wildernesses of America; the zonal system of designated use by Parks, Canada in their national parks; the protected area designations of the IUCN Guidelines; and the core zone of wilderness in the PAN Parks of Europe (see above for these). These protected area systems apply in the main to publicly-owned land in large scale. The advantage of a permacultural approach to land use is that it opens up a coherent route for small, private land-owners to incorporate wildland into their land use. The potential and scale of this wildland can be multiplied if adjoining small land-owners co-operate across boundaries in the overall spatial planning of their land use. Beyond Conservation – a wildland strategy Peter Taylor, WN member, believes the term wilderness is often used loosely in Britain. He argues in his book that very few areas of Britain are devoid of the present impact of agriculture and forestry, let alone past impacts. Thus while it may be possible to use the term in North America, it is however fraught with misunderstanding for the situation in Britain because wilderness has both an ecological and a spiritual dimension. He says: | |||||
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"For some, wildernesses are desolate places outside of the humanized realm, either to be avoided or brought under some kind of human dominion, and for others, they are places to practice humility, experience a certain vulnerability and acknowledge the creative and even destructive powers of the natural world." | |||||
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He goes on to say: | |||||
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"In Britain, an ethos of wildland is emerging in which human intervention is minimal and natural processes are respected." | |||||
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Beyond Conservation - A wildland strategy, Peter Taylor (2005) Earthscan ISBN 1-84407-198-7 Where are the wildest places in Britain? Steve Carver, WN member, leads research into the geographical basis of wildland at Leeds University. Thus a geographical definition of wild land may be: | |||||
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"Those regions or locations that are remote, devoid of human features and with natural or near-natural ecosystems." | |||||
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Steve has developed methodology using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to map wilderness quality gradients across Britain. Along with others, he has set up an on-line GIS mapping tool that allows novice users to create their own wilderness maps based on multi-criteria evaluation techniques (see the link below). Before users get to develop their maps, there is an introduction that encapsulates the British debate on wildland: | |||||
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"It is suggested by some people that wilderness is just one extreme on a continuum - a kind of sliding scale of human modification of the environment - from the 100% artificial buildings of the city centre through to the pristine nature found in remote locations. The position along this wilderness continuum at which wilderness occurs has perhaps more to do with individual perceptions than it does with ecological conditions. Even so, most definitions of wilderness stress the natural state of the environment, the absence of human inhabitation, and the lack of other human-related influences and impacts. It is perhaps safe to say that there is no true wilderness left in the British countryside………. Thousands of years of human settlement, agriculture and industry have created a landscape that, although apparently wild in parts, is at least from an ecological perspective, almost entirely artificial or at best altered in some way. Upland landscapes that may appear wild to the untrained eye, are often the result of early forest clearance and subsequent management for grazing and sport. Superficially, there is confusion among many people between that which is ecologically wild and that that is remote, dramatic or extreme." | |||||
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www.ccg.leeds.ac.uk/teaching/wilderness/ Recognising the difficulty surrounding the use of the word wilderness in Britain, WN member Mark Fisher chose instead to talk of self-willed land, a term based on the ecologically functional characteristics of landscapes with a remnant and returning population of their natural communities. The term is used by those who consider that wild nature can manage itself without the need for human interference: | |||||
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"True wilderness is a land that has supreme naturalness and is free of any human control. It is a self-willed land because plants and animals can thrive there, in their own unfettered communities." | |||||
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His website exclaims that there is no true wilderness in Britain today because the wildwood that once covered 90% of the land was displaced by farming. Nowhere has been left untouched by people and their farming. Hills and mountains have been over-grazed, and rivers and marshes constrained. Every landscape has been managed, leaving nothing to natural forces. Mark believes that Britain is unlikely ever again to have any true wilderness, but that self-willed land should be the expression of a future natural wildland state for some of Britain’s land: | |||||
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"Self-willed land for its own sake will only exist in Britain if land is held inalienably in the public good and that legislation exists to define its natural character, and thus the limits to human intervention." | |||||
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Wild Britain - A Partnership for Community, Commerce and Conservation 2002 Wild Britain seeks to encourage the restoration of a network of large-scale natural habitat areas, promoted as wild lands. Opportunity exists for restoration in the increasing marginalization of some farming, forestry and sporting holdings. Benefits of wildlands include nature tourism and a range of recently emerging ventures which address important inner urban issues such as youth at risk, rehabilitation and healthcare. Other benefits come from flood mitigation, alleviation of water and soil pollution, carbon sequestration, cost savings from managed coastal retreat, and biodiversity conservation. Restoration could involve up to two million acres over the next 25 years. The Wild Britain Approach has separate components for England, Wales and Scotland, which seek to identify and value all these benefits, and to assess how best to translate them into specific ventures bringing potential income and employment for local communities, farmers and landholders. Wild Britain does not aim to turn the clock back, it offers far more than just conservation gains, and is seeking to accommodate the needs of a modern society, as well as helping support sustainable development in more deprived rural areas. It is also underwritten by belief in the fundamental principles of wildness which can instill such a profound sense of self-awareness and belonging among those who experience it. The Wild Britain approach has secured broad support within the UK. It also been endorsed by national park personnel in several European countries and within IUCN - The World Conservation Union. Through Britain re-establishing its own natural habitat area network, and by doing so for economic as well as conservation reasons, then proposals for preservation of vanishing habitats and species in less developed countries will carry much more credibility. A key feature of Wildland Britain is the identification and setting up of zones within the natural habitat areas. Three zones are postulated: “core zone” – an inner area with no human impact other than minimal management for the well-being of essential habitat or species. Emphasis on nil disruption of visual appearance or atmosphere of wildness. Grazing by domestic livestock only where strictly needed to maintain a specific habitat, and then without preventing natural regeneration by young trees etc. Footpaths to follow game paths. No extractive activities. “buffer zone” - around the core and with minimal impact activities only. Any grazing by livestock would be carefully controlled to ensure natural regeneration of native vegetation. The only buildings (other than culturally or archaeologically significant remains) would be shelters or bothies, disguised for minimal impact. “transition zone” - outside the buffer and with the emphasis on maintaining a stable landscape. No clear felling, other than to recreate native habitat. Allowance made for foraging requirements of wildlife from within the core and buffer zones. Any development of facilities for wildland activities should be low profile in design and located so as not to impede potential expansion of the buffer zones in the future. The core area would be as large as initial opportunity allows, and expand outwards over time into the buffer zone, which would itself grow into the transition zone. Emphasis should thus be on phasing out built structures and heavy impact activities in the buffer zone. The size of zones will vary with local opportunity, and the zonal pattern will also vary. Where possible, these zones should encircle each other, but the overall pattern should be opportunistically designed to accommodate local landforms etc – there could even be more than one core. As a rule of thumb, when in a core area, only core or buffer zone should be visible. |
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Features |
Core |
Buffer |
Transition |
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Buildings or constructions |
None |
Local material/temporary - minimal |
Minor |
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Ruins, archaeological remains |
Left |
Left |
Left |
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Roads |
None |
None |
Minimal |
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Tracks |
None |
Phase out |
Few |
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Paths |
Minimal |
Few |
As required |
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Fences |
None |
Minimal, phase out |
Minimal |
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Tree felling |
None |
Minimal, no trace left |
Selective, no clear felling |
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Dead timber |
Left |
Left |
As required |
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Shooting rights |
None |
Closely controlled |
As required |
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Fruit, nut, mushroom picking |
Only by ramblers |
Selective |
As required |
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Livestock gazing | |||||