The Black Mountains Land Use Partners are preparing for big changes and big challenges. As the UK primes itself to leave the European Union and Common Agricultural Policy, partners find themselves on the cusp of monumental changes that will revolutionise how we manage rural land. Policy directives in Wales such as the Well-being of Future Generation (Wales) Act 2015 and the recent Welsh Government consultation document Sustainable Farming and our Land point towards a future in which land owners, farmers and other organisations deliver multiple benefits to society from the land that they own and manage. Rather than being paid for specific tasks completed, people will be paid for the environmental goods and services they provide to the public, such as food production, clean, consistent water supplies, carbon storage, and healthier ecosystems where people can recreate both mentally and physically.
But it is still early days in the world of payment for ecosystem services (PES). While the idea of paying people to provide a wide array of environmental good or service to society makes sense in principle, how this works in practice, however, is largely untested, especially on a landscape scale across Wales.
“Without a thorough understanding of land managers’ motivations, disposition, attitudes or concerns,”
Notes Phil Stocker, Chair of the Black Mountains Land Use Partnership and CEO of the National Sheep Association,
“there is a very real risk that many PES schemes will remain theoretical. The success, or failure, of PES will depend on its practical implementation.”
The Black Mountains Land Use Partnership is exploring these very realities locally. Partners have teamed up with AECOM to better understand what resources and services are available in the area, understand what challenges may stand in the way of making these ecosystem services/ public benefits ‘market-ready,’ and investigate the feasibility of bundling services together versus offering them as individual benefits.
The primary aim is to develop a portfolio to attract sponsorship for the management of the ecosystem services provided in the Black Mountains Project Area. It will also be important to identify user groups, beneficiaries, and potential purchasers and investors.
The funding is through the Welsh Government Rural Communities - Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, which is funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Government's Sustainable Management Scheme project.
“We feel that PES gives the partnership a long-term, sustainable means of repairing the Black Mountains and re-investing in their future”
Continues Harry Legge-Bourke, landowner of Glanusk Estate and Project Board member.
“The Partnership would like to position ourselves to pilot future agri-environment approaches in the Black Mountains, to test the practicalities of environmental
payment schemes in a real landscape setting involving multiple stakeholders.”“If we can work out the details, then PES can be a benefit to the land owners and graziers who manage the land as well as wider society. We all win,”
Adds John Morris, Vice-chair of the Black Mountains Graziers Association,
“but we all have to do our part to make it work.”
Note:
The Black Mountains Land Use Partnership is a collaborative venture among local landowners, graziers and relevant regulatory bodies. Established in 2015 via the Welsh Government’s Nature Fund, the Partnership promotes the restoration and sustainable management of the natural resources of the Black Mountains, an area covering over 24,600 hectares of upland and lowland habitats. The Partnership comprises representatives from the Black Mountains Graziers Association; major landowners including Glanusk Estate, Tregoyd Estate, Bal Mawr/ Bal Bach Estate, Duke of Beaufort Estate, Michaelchurch Estate and Ffwddog Estate; Welsh Water, Natural Resources Wales, Natural England, Young Farmers Club and Brecon Beacons National Park Authority. In 2017 partners received a 3-year, £1 million grant from the Welsh Government's Sustainable Management Scheme to undertake bracken management, peatland management and visitor management projects in the
Black Mountains.