Making smaller footprints on our wild places
Panellist Sunita Welch reports on our second Our Wild Future event which discussed visitor pressures in wild places.
I work for the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority as the Public Engagement Manager and was privileged to be invited to be part of a John Muir Trust 'Our Wild Future' panel – via zoom – in mid-November. Although I live at the end of the broadband, in South Wales, it was great to share experiences with my fellow panellists and respond to questions about the 'Smaller Footsteps' theme via the chat.
The discussion ran very smoothly. I hadn’t met any of my fellow panellists* before and learnt a lot from them and we’ve connected on some other platforms since.
The shared experience of thinking about how our summers had been and the impact of various timings of easing of travel restrictions and how these were implemented was good to have. We all feel a little apprehensive about what 2021 might look like.
For me the relationship between people and place is the key – this is where I do all my work. We live (certainly in the UK) in a human constructed landscape. There is no wilderness left in the UK. The Trust uses the useful term ‘wild places’ and I think this is helpful for people when thinking about protected landscapes in the UK. So, given that people and place are inextricably linked, all our solutions for place must be linked to people.
This summer there were a lot of negative stories about the influx of people into the countryside and to our coasts. What we didn’t see so much of was an understanding of the shared values and universal concepts: family, love, friendship.
If you took a deep dive into Instagram, that’s what was hiding in there. True it was family, love and friendship beside a badly-parked car, or campfire, but all the same we saw images of family and friends together - feeling safe. Lots of posts were captioned with: “Re-united with my family… having a great day outdoors with loved ones". This must be part of what our landscapes are for.
I am still worried about our future generations and how they are accessing the outdoors. Even the children of one of my fellow panellists (living in a rural area) were spending less time outside through their education – until additional support was brought in. What about all the young people in our urban settings in big schools with big challenges? How will they connect to our special places?
Being part of the second Our Wild Future panel was an excellent experience. It’s provided a fresh reminder that we all need to be kind to each other and show empathy and understanding - remembering to walk in others’ shoes - and that we should be striving for nature and people to recover together.
*Joining Sunita on the panel were Ali Austin – Nevis Property Manager at John Muir Trust, Lucy Wallace – Ramblers Scotland President and Jim Mann – Founder of Trees not Tees.
- Read about the first Our Wild Future discussion - The Future of Wild Places
