Natural England's Uplands Vision document is a "step in the right direction" but ignores economics, says the CLA; the NFU is challenging Upland Vision to ensure that agri-environment schemes and the market place are given equal recognition for their dual contribution to the future of the uplands; and the Tenant Farmers Association angrily likens Uplands Vision to a "fairytale".

The CLA says that  Natural England's newly launched Uplands Vision was welcome but missed the key point – economics. CLA president Henry Aubrey-Fletcher says: "We are pleased Natural England has produced this report as it will open up debate. However, the future of upland land management is hanging by a thread. Miserable market returns for products such as milk, beef, sheep and wool mean that upland farms are surviving purely on public payments and yet their average farm business income is only £10,400.

"Natural England rightly aims to make upland management sustainable but the key factor they are missing is the economics of such areas. Without upland management, the food, fibre, clean water as well as sporting and recreation interests that are enjoyed by everyone would not exist. For management you need people and people need an income.

"Natural England needs to acknowledge market failure is the core issue affecting upland areas before any sort of vision can be realised."

Meanwhile, NFU uplands spokesman Will Cockbain has sounded the warning, on the day Natural England launches its Upland Vision 2060, which explores in detail the future of the natural environment. "Extensive livestock grazing has shaped and conserved the English uplands for generations. The effort of hill farmers has ensured a productive and accessible countryside, rich in cultural and environmental heritage - an outcome that we should all celebrate," he says. "Over the next 50 years, farming will matter more than ever in a changing climate. The English uplands will have a growing opportunity to respond to the food production challenge - to produce more and impact less. We are in no doubt that farmers and farming will remain central to any future vision of the uplands. The primary purpose of the uplands will remain food production; as a source of high quality meat and breeding stock for lowland livestock producers. Alongside this primary purpose, Natural England's vision correctly highlights the many public benefits that farming provides in addition to food production - sadly little of this value resides within farm businesses.

"So the challenge for our organisations is to capture the real value of these benefits and translate them into an economically sustainable bottom line for the current and future generations of upland farmers."

TFA Uplands spokesman Mike Keeble says: “The authors of this report have clearly taken their inspiration more from Lewis Carroll than from the experiences of those who live and work in our upland communities. It is long on aspiration and short on the practicalities involved in being an active land manager in some of the harshest yet paradoxically most beautiful environments in our country.

“I accept that the document is visionary but it takes little account of some of the major issues being faced in the uplands and how we get from where we are now to where Natural England thinks it wants us to be. Current Natural England policies are doing more to hinder than help this process. The cornerstone of our upland communities is ruminant livestock production and this is being undermined and eroded by ill thought out schemes which on the one hand do not understand the complexities involved in upland management, including the centuries old principle of common grazing rights and yet on the other use simplistic policy tools that promote de-stocking and as a consequence the significant encroachment of bracken.

“The English uplands have been one of the most studied, researched and examined aspects of our countryside. They have been eulogised over by poets, songwriters and composers. They have been the focus for a myriad of initiatives, schemes and policies. Despite all of this attention it is a sad indictment that we have as yet been unable to produce a sustainable uplands strategy for its long-term viability."

Natural England says the document, called Vital Uplands - a 2060 Vision for England’s uplands examines how the uplands could be sustainably managed over the next fifty years to secure the food production role that they have played in recent decades while delivering a wide range of other public benefits. Natural England’s Acting Chair, Poul Christensen says: “Our Vision is the starting point for a dialogue we want to have with upland stakeholders up and down the country about how we can all work together to shape the future of the uplands. The uplands provide society with a huge range of services – they are vital for food production, carbon storage and climate regulation, flood management, and water supply, as well as providing inspirational landscapes for recreation and homes to many rare and important species. Working with partners and stakeholders we want to explore ways in which hill farmers and other upland land managers can deliver a wider range of environmental services that will put them and upland communities onto a more sustainable and economically successful footing.”

Christensen continues: “The vulnerability of upland environments, the delicate economic state of many upland hill farms, and the ongoing challenge of climate change mean that a debate about the future direction of upland management is timely. It is increasingly clear that a business as usual approach will be less and less able to address the challenges of the future and that we urgently need to consider how best to sustain the value of the uplands. We hope the publication of our Vision will be a catalyst for a wide-ranging discussion among all those with an interest in the future of the uplands on how these vital landscapes can be managed in the future.”

The report describes how the Uplands might look and be managed in fifty years’ time, with future land management targeted towards delivering:

• Sustainable production of food, wood and other raw materials
• Mitigation and reduction of climate change
• Resilient upland ecosystems
• Vibrant upland communities and economies
• Clean water supplies from upland rivers and lakes
• Reduction of ‘natural’ hazards – such as flooding and wildfire
• Health and wellbeing benefits

To achieve these goals, Natural England is looking to explore how upland communities can be better supported by focusing land management on the following critical food and environmental services:

Upland soil and peat resources need to be managed sustainably. Action is needed to ensure that eroding peat soils and blanket bog are stabilised, properly vegetated, and can actively absorb carbon. At present - because of erosion, oxidation, and burning - up to 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide are being released per year from English peatlands, comparable to CO2 emissions from domestic aviation.

Open upland heaths, bogs and grasslands are a major part of what makes our upland landscapes distinctive and these habitats need to be sustainably managed alongside grouse moor management that involves sustainable grazing and burning.

The level of upland grazing needs to be matched to deliver different environmental services. In some areas, higher grazing levels will be needed for food production; in others, lower grazing is required to secure benefits such as water quality improvement and peatland re-vegetation.

More, and better managed, woodlands. Grazing levels may need to be adjusted to allow natural regeneration of native woodlands, increase woodland cover and link existing woodland areas. In 50 years’ time Natural England would like to see up to 25% of the uplands with some form of woodland cover.

Green energy. The uplands can provide green energy in the form of renewable wood-fuel, water power, ground source heat, solar and wind technologies in appropriate locations.

Low-carbon growth. More can be done to promote upland business, built development and transport focussed on low-carbon growth.

Accompanying the Vision, Natural England also announced three pilot projects – in Cumbria, the South West uplands and Yorkshire – which will explore how the provision of a broader range of environmental services can be turned into genuine business opportunities for farmers and land managers. The pilots will go live in 2010 and will trial ways in which local upland management can be geared to the delivery of multiple public benefits.

Poul Christensen says: “The uplands provide a range of critical environmental services that deliver wide-ranging public benefit and that need to be sustained. By adapting the way the uplands are managed there are real opportunities to maximise these benefits and to strengthen the economics of upland hill farming, helping secure the livelihoods of hill farmers and upland communities. The uplands face many challenges and in the face of this we need a 21st century approach which recognises that food production, a healthy natural environment and the economic stability of the uplands go hand-in-hand.”

Not wishing to be left out, the Government’s amusing Commission for Rural Communities says in what it calls a ‘report’ that “the greatest threat to the future of upland communities [is the] ambiguity regarding the significance, value and role of upland communities themselves.” 

CRC goes on to say that there is a risk that upland communities will continue to be characterised by disadvantage unless "we see a shift in people’s perceptions of the uplands, including those who live and work there, from 'less favoured' to 'highly favoured' places". A CRC inquiry into the uplands is scheduled for completion in February 2010.