Independent report

Towards a flourishing uplands: phase 1

Published 9 April 2026

Applies to England

Authored by Dr Hilary Cottam - January 2026

Preface

In Autumn 2024, the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs invited me to review the challenges facing English upland farmers and farming communities.

Upland areas in England are defined as areas of elevated land with rugged terrain, moorlands, hills and mountains. They are high-ground areas, typically above 300 to 400 metres, located beyond the limits of enclosed farmland, comprising largely moorland, heath, bog and rough grassland. These landscapes are characterised by dramatic scenery, high carbon storage, and significant livestock farming, covering vast tracts of northern England and the southwest.

These landscapes are ecologically rich, supporting a range of wildlife and containing peatlands and a significant proportion of the UK’s drinking water. England’s uplands will be critical to any meaningful attempts to restore nature. These landscapes are also home to farms and common land which for centuries have sustained a rural way of life including farming, conservation and stewardship. Places of immense beauty the uplands include England’s national parks and are widely visited.

Each of these roles the uplands play in our national life are currently in tension with one another:

• farming
• environmental restoration
• tourism
• community life and homes

I am not a farmer or an expert in rural affairs: my expertise lies in transforming social systems in partnership with communities and in the view of the Secretary of State it was a systems approach that was required. I was invited to think widely about the social, economic and environmental challenges and opportunities facing English upland areas and to propose ways forward.

The methodology I proposed for the work was exploratory, place-based and participatory. A series of walks and workshops were designed to engage with a wide range of those who live and work in the uplands. My working methods are described in more detail in Cottam, Hilary (2018) Radical Help.

The intention behind this approach is not to seek statistical validation through including large numbers in the process, but rather to observe, to listen deeply to a range of voices and to actively seek out both those with power and influence and those who are seldom heard. The working methods are iterative: those included in a first visit are asked who might be missing and should therefore be included in a second visit. The review was undertaken in partnership with the Defra Policy Design Lab – a unit which applies participatory research and design methods the early stages of policymaking in Defra.

In this report I summarise the 19 insights that resulted from the time spent walking with farmers, environmentalists and community residents (teachers, health professionals, pub owners, mechanics, mothers and many more); a wide representation of those who live in these precious and beautiful lands. I am immensely grateful to everyone who generously shared their time and their frank views with me during the review phase and to Defra colleagues and experts.

Walking, observing, listening and learning between January and July 2025, with the Defra team, both the enormous challenges faced by upland areas and their immense wealth – in nature and local knowledge – was abundantly clear. It was also clear that the challenges facing England’s uplands are connected and tangled together. In short, a piecemeal approach – attempting to address challenges in isolation – will not secure a flourishing uplands. The favouring of one point of view over another will not provide a sustainable way forward. As almost everyone we met recognised the future of the uplands requires thinking about people, place and nature on a par and developing new ways of thinking about social, environmental, economic and cultural flourishing. The principle of ‘on a par’ and its implication for policymaking is explained in Chang, Ruth (2017) Hard Choices, Journal of the American Philosophical Association.

I am delighted that the current Environment Secretary, Emma Reynolds, has asked me to build on the insights from the review. Working with Dartmoor and then Cumbria we will seek to develop new ways forward in practice, working in deep partnership with communities. This was announced at the Oxford Farming Conference in January 2026, where the Environment Secretary said:

The overall vision is to develop a place-based approach for what these communities need; co-designing solutions to specific problems. By developing a common understanding of how land can be best used for food production and the public good.

It’s vital we build governance that reflects the local challenges and opportunities of these areas. Together we will look at pooling public, private and third sector resources. Laying the foundations for new income streams. And creating the skills and networks that let communities lead their own transformation.

That’s the most important thing here, that communities lead change from the ground up.

The Secretary of State, Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs, and the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State have jointly provided a strong political mandate to think boldly, long term and to start in the shoes of upland communities.

In this report I set out the ‘review’ process and insights based on the visits, followed by a set of principles that will inform implementation work which will start in July 2026.

This report is a rapid and therefore bald summary of often complex observations and ideas. As noted above, it should not be assumed that the insights represent the view of Defra officials or those of Defra Arms Length Bodies. It should also not be assumed that every insight will be addressed in future work however the insights will shape further conversations and project design in what is an iterative process.

Uplands participatory review

Between January and July 2025, in partnership with the Defra Policy Lab I undertook visits to:

• Dartmoor
• Exmoor
• The Pennines
• The Lake district
• Yorkshire Dales
• North York Moors

During these visits we walked with farmers across their farms getting a close look at a wide range of farming practices; we ran a series of community workshops in local pubs including teachers, health workers, residents and small business owners and we had a series of dinners with those we called ‘notables’, that is people of local influence including people with formal ‘power’ such as the Directors of National Parks, and those with informal ‘power’ and influence rooted in their networks and local standing.

We also met with experts, sector representative bodies, academics, senior officials, policymakers, Ministers and Non-Executive Directors in Defra, Cabinet Office, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and 4 of Defra’s main Arms Length Bodies (Forestry Commission, Natural England, Environment Agency and Rural Payments Agency).

Towards a flourishing uplands – 19 insights

Insights in a design context are not simply analytical observations, they reveal system level patterns and motivations that may not be initially obvious in conversation and critically, they are about identifying opportunities for action.

The following design insights are closely connected to one another, and they are not presented here in an order of importance but should be understood as nodes that must be addressed in a complex system. Again, it is important to note that the insights do not represent either the views of Defra or of the author, rather they are an attempt to summarise points made repeatedly by those we met in all upland areas.

Challenges for the next generation

There is a new generation with new ideas about the future of food, farming and the environment, who are struggling to access land as either owners or tenants. Farming in England is unique in comparison to most areas of work or industry in that it is a closed system. Farm ownership and tenancies are largely inherited from one generation to the next making it extremely difficult for those from other walks of life to gain access. 

All flourishing eco-systems depend on the fertilisation and cross pollination from outside: farming is no different and thus it is critical to consider how a young generation of ‘outsiders’ can gain access to land and tenancies. It should be noted that the aspiring new entrants we met during the review had all found innovative ways to start working on the land; they have knowledge and networks but they require financing. It is important to note that new entrants are not looking for subsidies and are keen to farm with financial autonomy. New entrants do however require a financial mechanism for purchase/land access and a priority system to enable first refusal on tenancies and farms as they come onto the market. We understand such schemes exist in other European countries and at least one of the locations we visited had institutions who would like to collaborate in the design of a solution.

Farming also has a next generation of incumbent farmers and a new generation of young people who have grown up in farming areas that we need to reach in new ways. This group is distinct to new entrants but also faces challenges in accessing on-farm housing, knowledge and networks, all issues discussed below. It can be particularly complex for next generation farmers in close knit families to take a new approach and sensitive support is required.

Farmers innovate and learn within trusted peer networks

Farmers look to their peers for advice: they collaborate in small clusters and networks and we saw numerous examples of farmer generated research, innovation and experimentation in each area we visited. Many of these farmers are taking huge risks to change the way they are working with little to fall back on. Farmers are largely distrustful of government bodies who are paid to offer advice: these bodies are seen as punitive, playing a controlling function, and are kept at arms-length by innovative farmers in particular. Unfortunately, within the design of current systems, significant sums expended do not currently touch farmers or every-day farming practice, whilst farmers are innovating almost in spite of the system. This challenge is not unique to Defra or UK government, in Radical Help I describe the way in which a combination of inappropriate risk frameworks and legacy systems can draw finance into a gyroscope of actors and bodies who despite good intentions become blockers of change.

Successful and innovative farmers have diverse relationships

Farmers are learning from each other often over quite wide geographies. The Pasture for Life network is an example, bringing together farmers across the UK who have adopted high profit, no input stock farming through shared learning. Other farmers have social networks that enable them to access high value food systems. Neals Yard Dairy for example or the London based Ginger Pig butchers where sales elevate incomes by a factor of at least 3 compared to supermarket contracts. There is currently almost no support to foster wider access to these networks which depend on relationships formed through former professional contacts and social class. The Duchy of Cornwall are notable as one landowner doing some of the needed bridging work but this remains a missed opportunity to boost farm profitability and to support new forms of generative, nature friendly farming on which these markets depend.

Farmers are locked in expensive vertical relationships of power

A highly stratified vertical system of relationships is held in place – Defra at the top, arms length bodies in the middle, farmers at the bottom – by funding and regulatory systems. 

The farmer or landowner largely experiences this system as a one-to-one relationship in which they have little power.

“It’s just you and your representative from Natural England”

we were constantly told

“they are the judge, the jury and the paymaster”.

Representatives from the various bodies are additionally perceived to cause confusion by being in competition with each other. Defra schemes administered by Natural England and the Forestry Commission for example, both trying to hold relationships and encourage bids for their scheme, in the perception of those we met. Where representatives can spend extensive time in communities and build strong relationships and a real understanding of place, they can be valued. However, there is an acknowledgement on the part of upland communities that pay is low and the retention of experienced representatives is a challenge;

“they are ‘super humans’ but the pay is so low they never last”.

There is also a frequently made observation that training is vertical so a Natural England representative [adviser] may for example have recently studied best environmental practice but they have little knowledge of farming and how best to implement their knowledge in place.

Vertical systems are well resourced. Defra for example frequently conduct listening exercises into particular problems or future policies. We heard complaints about frequent field visits and an absence of mechanisms to share what is learnt. There is a widely held perception that people give their time but cannot see their local insight and knowledge playing a role in the design of current systems to the detriment of everyone concerned. From the perspective of those who live and work in upland areas it appears that resource can always be found to extract knowledge upwards but budgets to connect innovative place-based systems and actors together in place are by contrast under-resourced. Finance and skills for sustained facilitation are required in place. Strikingly, many places have used Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) money to help with place-based facilitation but this remains short term, ending when grants end.

“Where is the “we”?” as one farmer put it to us.

The system needs to be turned sideways, with all resource possible invested into collective, horizontal networks in place, with Defra learning from these relationships and where necessary facilitating connections to external expertise in the nations and beyond.

“We want to be system makers, not system takers”, as one group of farmers eloquently explained to us, summarising a widely felt need.

Nature and farming are oppositional forces within existing systems

The relationship between upland farmers and environmentalists has been described to us “civil war” and in all upland areas social tensions are acute. There is extreme anxiety in the face of uncertainty – what will Defra do next – and there is widespread resentment on the part of farmers - most of whom see themselves as guardians of nature - that they are being forced to pay the high costs of environmental problems made elsewhere.

“I look down there [at the traffic] and up there [at the planes] and I think about how I have been squeezed and squeezed for environmental reasons, but my farm is not a cause of this, we have always cared for our land.”

Almost everyone we have met believes that environmental strategies are compatible with farming done in the right way;

“climate change is very, very real; the best environmental work will be done around the fulcrum of good farming”.

These are arguments that closely link to ideas and discussions around the food economy below.

Farmers talked about their stewardship of nature, their experiments in nurturing birds, and plants, their livestock and their emotional connection to their landscapes, often over generations. At the same time there is realism: we were told that some farmers will “cheat”. We saw how elderly farmers can lose control, taking hazardous decisions through poverty, and how some farmers don’t take care of land or livestock. The farmers who do not take care are few but they have an existential impact. 

There is widespread resentment that everyone is surveilled but those who do environmental damage are rarely brought to book. Everyone argues that technology should be better deployed, seeing a space to use technology for surveillance which would enable human resource (currently spent policing) to be diverted towards fostering stronger bonds in place amongst the majority that want to respond to environmental imperatives in new ways.

Local food systems are at the heart of thriving local economies, but the required infrastructure is absent

If the food system is not working, farming is not working. Currently the food system is not working (detailed in the Farming Profitability Review, by Baroness Batters), depressing local economies, national health and the potential for nature recovery. There is significant existing work in this area (practice and research) and many referred to:

1. The elevated health costs of a broken food system, citing for example the research from the Food Farming and Countryside Commission (FFCC) that shows the national cost of poor diets is equivalent to our national health spending. In 2024 the FFCC calculated that the nation spends over £250 billion addressing the multiple effects of poor diets, the equivalent of the NHS budget.
2. Emphasising the difference between food security from a regional/community point of view and a government point of view. The former emphasises the benefits and multiplier effects of affordable, accessible, nutritious food, sustainably produced. The latter emphasises global supply chains and consumer costs at the supermarket till regardless of illegal farm labour, distorted agricultural economics and the very real risk of food scarcity in a time of climate change.

Defra’s commitment that the state will procure British food is a very good start and there are already places in Britain – East Ayrshire and Sheffield for example, doing impressive work with local food procurement through anchor institutions. These initiatives are having a measurable impact on: health, local budgets, farming growth and sustainability. We saw an example of a small-scale initiative in the Uplands where a FiPL funded milk fridge procured to sell local milk to tourists led to surrounding primary schools also taking the decision to buy local milk. 

We repeatedly heard a belief that there is a high demand for British food internationally and that it is “entirely possible” to build a livestock economy without subsidies. Many people spoke of their perception that in the next decade food security will be one of the most pressing issues.

“Facing into climate change we will face real challenges with food production and with global scarcities and we would be foolish to think we can import our way out of this, The Far East have more purchasing power.”

In this context it is not just that farmers like to produce food, it is an imperative that they are encouraged to do so in the right way.

“We will have very big food price shocks”.

Those involved with farming and nature recovery alike also believe that food subsidies in the shape of cheap imports and distorted markets create high costs elsewhere.

“We’ve had 3 generations of de-valuing food – it’s going to take time to reverse”.

“Think nutrition, not calories”. 

We heard both an interest in and demand for food innovation. In practice attempts to innovate rapidly run up against parish, National Trust and National Park planning constraints. People want poly tunnels and solar powered greenhouses but find “the system says no”. As with all areas of rural innovation financing mechanisms for food innovation are largely absent: those wanting to move into horticulture or market gardens face the same constraints as farming new entrants more generally, unable to secure loans. An additional constraint are the definitions currently drawn around environmental projects from nature credits to tree planting. It was suggested to us for example that fruit trees might qualify or that credits could be used for food infrastructure tied to generative production but currently funding mechanisms do not allow for this wider systemic possibility.

Tackling the food system requires: anchor investment (through expanding the potential of bio-diversity credits for example), an emphasis on facilitating local relationships and networks and a political grappling with mainstream actors with different interests. In the view of many farmers food systems also require a re-visiting of regulation which is geared towards global supply chains, favouring large scale, industrial food production but further putting a break on local, sustainable food systems. Many farmers talked to us about the challenges of tuberculosis (TB) as an example where they believe a domestic solution exists but cannot be used because all farming must be treated as if it is entering a global supply chain.

Core infrastructure is missing from markets, to butchers, from abattoirs to vets. The closure of local abattoirs is a particular source of distress and reduced profits.

“We opted out of a major supermarket chain when they decided our cattle now needed to be slaughtered in York”

an Exmoor farmer explained telling us that he could not bear the idea of his cattle suffering the journey and therefore forfeited the better prices. Others who have moved into lower density production find that abattoirs cannot deal with small batches: they might be told when they can have a slot at a time that their animals are not yet at the right weight for example. Local abattoir businesses have found themselves embedded within complex international supply chains that control disposal adding to their difficulties of surviving as stand alone, local businesses. But investing in local abattoirs can generate local food systems and a local economy – we saw this in Dartmoor and in Cumbria, where farmers are selling to a local restaurant for high prices and the owners have generated well-paid, highly trained work in a new hospitality sector. 

Often vets too are in short supply:

“why would you train for 7 years and then live here with no schools, nothing.”

In short, the lack of social infrastructure discussed below limits the possibility of retaining or attracting those with the skills required to generate food or other economies.

Re-imagining the Commons

Livelihoods in the uplands often depend on access to and management of the Commons, ancient systems of shared rights. Today relationships on the Commons are strained and a significant cause of local strife. The challenges include competing local views – farming versus re-wilding for example and legacy issues that have accumulated through regulation change over the decades. In many places significant numbers of ‘commoners’ have rights but no interest in farming (for example on one Common there may be 50 commoners with 7 interested in grazing) making it hard to come to common arrangements. There are also ongoing implications of the post war registration of commoners under which grazing rates were frequently inflated. 

In the Lake District, approximately 28% of the park is designated common land and on Dartmoor it is approximately 37%.

We encountered a range of responses and challenges. In Exmoor for example a group of commoners have successfully re-structured rights to the benefit of all. In Dartmoor a group had almost built a functioning culture but were still attempting to persuade one recalcitrant member to co-operate, holding up change over many years. We heard numerous stories of bitter dysfunction elsewhere. It is striking that this is an area of deep and widely respected scholarship, none of which seems to be connecting to the problems at hand. The Nobel prize winner Elinor Ostrom has demonstrated over decades of research that local, common ownership is a successful mechanism for the generative stewardship of resources. Success however requires adhering to a set of simple, transparent structures – it does not happen in other words because people are ‘angelic’. Upland farmers do not have easy access to this knowledge or support to restructure.

We heard how, in recent years, long-standing disputes have reached new heights as a growing number of organisations have undertaken research activities designed to advance discrete lines of argument. Commons are frequently both areas of rich cultural heritage and of ecological importance. The two can be in conflict leading to research that has argued for the primacy of re-wilding, the importance of farming, the challenges of fire risks and so on. In other cases commoners have been taken to court by environmentalists for failure to live up to agreements. For example: this issue has been raised in a legal challenge by Wild Justice on Dartmoor commoning and wildlife habitats. The exposure for farmers is therefore increasing without the support to manage extremely complex legacy systems of agreement.

Rural communities are struggling with inadequate access to all services

There is a strong sense in rural communities that a lack of social infrastructure and support is leaving them vulnerable to total collapse. We saw how upland communities are experiencing a crisis in social sustainability. It’s also noteworthy that farming and rural communities feel that their challenges and realities are mis-understood and there was an articulated resentment about many media representations of farming and rural life including Countryfile.

“the system is straining in every way in every place”

“if the school goes, it all goes”

“some places feel so empty – all those holiday cottages – it’s hard to bring up children”

Internet connectivity remains a problem in many places. Expensive satellite internet has to be used to access faster internet connections where full‑fibre broadband is not available. Public institutions with less finance are effectively dis-connected. Public transport is almost non-existent except where tourist hotspots ensure some routes. There is little child care and almost no adult care (a looming problem which will be exponential in scale with so many retiring in their healthy 60s to areas such as the Dales and the Lake District – then what?). Newcomers often do not get involved in their local community, in part because the infrastructure is so ragged it’s hard to get started. You can’t any longer simply go to your local church for example, because there is no vicar and a service may take place every 6 weeks.

Emergency services are in reality provided by farmers ‘it’s that grouchy farmer that always rescues you in a flood or digs you out of trouble’, one community group commented noting that the decline in farmers and no realistic increase in local government services is leaving them vulnerable to health and environmental shocks.

Schools are treasured:

“when it works, it’s brilliant, my children have a childhood money can’t buy”

but schools are being amalgamated so primary school children may travel 10 miles and have no friends around them after school. In the National Parks teachers cannot afford to live close to the school, further putting off staff staying in the area. Curriculums which are nationally dictated often feel less relevant. Wrap around activities are something schools try to provide but budgets make it tight and poverty proofing means that schools try not to have bake sales or any other fund-raising activities which will shame poorer families. 

At secondary level private schools are the best option for many – if affordable. For most this is not an option which can mean families coming in, making a start of a new life and then moving out again.

Recreation facilities from playgrounds to cinemas are limited and rarely public and accessible;

“all the facilities now are in posh hotels, if you want your kids to be able to swim, you have to pay to do it there”

There is a lack of local meeting places with pubs closing for example. Young people feel isolated until they can drive.

Primary health care is not well distributed with many having to travel some distance to see a local doctor. With hospitals even further away and requiring the ability to drive there was a particular and frequent complaint that the general practice default is to always refer, rather than grip any problem from blood tests to family challenges. Greater health expertise needs to be rooted in the community.

Mental health was a much talked about growing challenge. In Exmoor and the Lakes for example we saw farmers’ networks using advice on book work as a proxy for mental health support. Advisors start a conversation knowing the real issues will then emerge. But it’s taking a toll as we heard in the Lakes;

“there’s been a definite change in demand in the last 3 years [to mental health] – we’re anxious. It’s a chain of dissent” [i.e. there’s nowhere left to go]

“they ring on the pretence of fuel but the conversations then turn to the real social problems. There are landlord and tenant [problems] – they’re also frequent and growing. It gets to me - not necessarily knowing there are solutions. Farmers are looking for solutions that aren’t there.”

The workshops revealed a realism about public service challenges. There is no money in public systems and at the same time the informal care that might have once been provided by farmer’s wives is not there – everyone is working full time to survive. More than once however the idea of 4th responders was suggested, a request that local people could receive training and above all permission to take on some new ‘barefoot roles’ supporting families and neighbours. Those who have experienced mental health challenges themselves for example would like to step in;

“I want to be the 4th emergency service”.

Rural poverty

“Everything costs more in a rural economy”

In community workshops many stories were shared about the impact of acute rural poverty. As of 2026, 9.7 million people live in rural England, where 27% of the population is over 65 and 11% of households experience fuel poverty, with high-intensity rural poverty (deep poverty) frequently exacerbated by the high cost of living. This has been documented by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) most recently in the UK Poverty 2026 report, which also highlights that rural poverty is frequently undercounted, with residents facing a “rural penalty” of higher living costs, including transport, energy, and food. In many rural areas, insecure work, low pay, and poor-quality housing contribute to significant hardship. Rural poverty is also documented by Defra in its Statistical Digest of Rural England, and in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), English indices of deprivation report, 2025, amongst other sources.

A flourishing uplands requires a re-thinking of national budget allocations that currently take little or no account of rural realities or of some of the systemic shifts required to create new ‘green’ generative work and ways of living.

Housing

There is no flourishing uplands without places to live and work but local planning laws make it very hard to build new homes in the locations where existing residents want to live (on a family farm for example) and national tax structures and financing make it almost impossible to refurbish old buildings. These challenges are acute in the national parks where there are also widely held grievances that the incoming wealthy allegedly find a way round planning laws and constraints, but for a local:

“you have to move onto a housing estate, you can’t do up your nana’s house”

We observed how a carbon accounting of construction in environmentally precious areas (the uplands) would be game changing both for those who want to live and work in the uplands and for thriving rural economies. 

Closely related to the lack of affordable housing for local people or public service professionals is the vexed issue of second homes and the purchase of homes for use as holiday-lets/Airbnb rentals. Few can envision a thriving uplands without some form of control on second homes, in national parks in particular.

Re-use, re-make, share

Income derived from Defra grants and schemes must be used on new things – such as barns, machinery and other capital items – but a strategy to allow re-use, common ownership and repair would immediately boost local economies through a social and economic multiplier effect. Currently, people working in trades such as mechanics, garages, builders, are all closing not only depriving upland areas of much needed skills but also having an impact on the wider economy: their children no longer attend local schools, they no longer go to the pub and so on.

The science guiding decision making (at Defra) is contested and data rarely takes whole system factors into account

Stocking levels and the right to winter animals on the fells which reputedly makes the flocks hardy and genetically resilient – something critical to the long-term viability of lowland flocks – were issues that were hotly and continually debated with us as were fire risks, the merits of tree planting in some areas, the practices of controlled burning (swaling) and much more. As the review progressed, we requested the evidence on which decisions were being taken and discovered that it is hard to find clear, peer reviewed scientific arguments that are being used as the basis for decision making. It was also noteworthy that many arguments are based on research which is now dated and therefore problematic, given the fast-changing environmental conditions and pace of scientific learning. Accessible, peer reviewed science will be critical to easing tensions in England’s uplands.

Defra is structured to support large scale (wealthy) farmers in mass ways

Every aspect of Defra schemes from the application process, to the need for supporting surveys (for example RSPB surveys), the design of the schemes, to the disbursement and evaluation processes favours large land owners who can pay agents and advisors to support with the necessary paper work and who have the cashflow to withstand the fluctuations and delays that are associated with all government schemes. It is striking to also witness those in receipt of the largest sums are often those who have significant off farm income from other sources and business. We visited estates where owners are registered offshore for tax purposes. Surely it is wise (1) to make UK tax registration a sine qua non for Defra grants and (2) set a ceiling on income after which schemes no longer apply, in order to prioritise income and support to smaller (less intensive) farming and to those with lower incomes.

It is also important to note that the same activities can have very different impact at scale – for example shooting or re-wilding, or dairy herds, all of which should be taken into account. 

Amongst most of those we met, there is a consensus view that the future of the uplands lies in generative, nature friendly farming that tends to be small scale and detail oriented. This requires a very different approach to the flows of money and expertise. There is an urgent need to re-gear Defra to enable thinking and practice in small scale networks within large scale systems.

[Over] Tourism

“We’ve reached peak pod”

There is a complicated relationship with tourism in upland areas: the money from the holiday cottage keeps you on the farm but the tourism has led to intense over-crowding in some places with deleterious consequences for nature, whilst second homes have crowded out local thriving as discussed above. A significant proportion of current tourism is very low value for local people - think middle class family driving in with their boot stocked by a major supermarket chain.

In Dartmoor and in the Lake District in particular tensions arise from disparity in resident versus visitor numbers and the very different needs of the 2 populations. For example, The Local Plan from the Lake District National Park Authority, estimates 40,000 permanent residents in the national park with annual visitor numbers totalling 17.7 million in 2024. Dartmoor has a resident population of approximately 35,000 people, as reported in the Dartmoor National Park Authority Annual Review 2024/25. Visitors to Dartmoor National Park total 2.3 million people per year staying for more than 4 hours, with 7 million visits of 1 day or less per year from the local area. We also noted many surrounding urban/ peri-urban areas that have no access to the park.

Despite the pressures, it is striking that most people who live in the uplands are proud that the beautiful places they call home are visited nationally and from all over the world and they believe in open access and supporting the public benefits that result from access to nature. They are also seeking to explore alternative models that are generative not only for visitors but for nature and local social and economic systems. Autonomy is being sought to raise tourism taxes, investigate national park charges, control second homes and invest in local amenities from food to leisure that will lead to local, generative economic growth.

In the Lake District where anger at tourism is highest, the UNESCO world heritage status has become a bitter source of contestation. The status was awarded in part because of how the land is managed and farmed (including practices such as hefting). The UNESCO status could provide the potential to manage tourism in a very different way with permits for some over-used areas, and terroirs for food for example – but currently there is a lack of facilitation expertise or resource to bring people together to explore alternative forms of tourism that could be generative for people, place and nature.

Arbitrary boundaries and the potential of mosaics

The uplands are denoted by a geographic metric of height. Geographic boundaries currently dictate what is possible on the land – whether you are for example above the moorland line or within the boundary of the national park. However, we continually observed how connections, relationships and time, would be a better delineation of boundaries for innovation and better represent the resources, flows and connections on which flourishing could be built. More than one person suggested thinking in terms of mosaics, not lines enabling a negotiated process of access and use.

“Farmers and local populations know the critical bits and can think differently.”

We heard a constant plea again to think small and to reach overarching goals on nature or farming through allowing farmers and residents to steward places and resources in patchworks over longer time frames, creating system change.

Industrialised environmentalism is taking a human toll

Biodiversity net gain schemes are currently being taken up by large estates who are ending tenancies to change the use of their land often with immediate effect. The parallel that comes to mind is the closure of the mines and the de-industrialisation without transition in the 1980s for which Britain is still paying the social and economic costs 50 years later. In the North Pennines/Lakes we heard panic and fear induced by a combination of large landowners taking the opportunity of carbon credits and large-scale schemes to end tenancies – 70 tenant farmers will lose their farms this year for example with just one estate coming out of farming.

“Things are being quickly lost that once gone can never be replaced”

There generally seems to be a lack of wider political and public awareness about how detrimental industrial environmentalism and financialised nature is, in its current form, for both people and planet. Investment is needed within a new approach.

Agricultural colleges - distant in space and time

Many agricultural colleges have closed and amalgamated making them hard to reach physically. Just as important, curriculums on offer are widely considered to be out of date and a significant challenge is that farming skills and environmental skills are rarely integrated. Given the trust in knowledge gained from peers it was frequently suggested that the opportunities to do placements and learn best practice from others across the country would be extremely valuable. We heard ideas in Dartmoor about new forms of scholarship that would enable farmers to go out and learn and then return and share with colleagues – broadening the collective networks of those who are innovating and learning through doing which is widely prized. Such schemes would be particularly valuable to next generation farmers, keen to do things differently to their parents but with few opportunities to see and learn.

Existing structures of control lead to dependent infantilised cultures

The economic structures within which farming takes place are unique and extraordinary to the outsider. We witnessed and heard of a dominant culture laid down over many decades within which farmers with deep knowledge and connection to their lands, wait to see what Defra will decide, before they take action, feeling unable to make decisions on their own authority. We repeatedly heard people tell us they just want to know what Defra wants. We also heard acute anxiety about the short time frames and continual changes which govern many of the schemes on which farmer livelihoods depend.

In the context of a long history of subsidised farming the plea to “just tell us what you want” is logical, but within the review we attempted to continually invert the question asking, “what do you [this community] want?” The question uncovered a range of responses including ideas for innovation. It also uncovered the extent to which many farmers have lost the muscle of independent decision making, waiting in all cases for government to fund or subsidise before taking action. For example, farmers are paid to cut their hedges in a given time frame which is increasingly problematic with the uncertain weather patterns that climate change has already given us. It would be better for farmers to decide in a given year when to cut their hedges but as one farmer explained to us, they would not take such a basic decision unless Defra both gave permission and a payment;

“it would be better for me and for wildlife to cut my hedges a few weeks later and preserve the berries, but why would I do that if Defra did not pay me more?”

In the case of this farmer annual turnover is in the region of £250,000 of which 25% is derived from subsidies but the thinking and culture across the farm business is driven by Defra subsidy regimes.

It is also noteworthy that underpinning this culture of dependence on Defra, is a culture of fear. We heard time and again that it is not just that farmers feel they must wait and see, small farmers in particular are terrified of getting things wrong and facing penalties. To continue with the story of hedging, most small farmers told us they under count what they could be paid for, just to be sure they don’t get things wrong. Farmers in other words feel trapped between the commands of Defra and the monitoring or in their words, ‘policing’ of arms-length bodies.

There is an urgent need to unravel these cultures of control and dependency through moving away from short term targets which are micro-managed towards investments in trusted local relationships and co-operatively agreed longer term visions and goals. The evidence suggests most farmers would collaborate and would be open to innovation within cultures where there was freedom to think and plan ahead. The evidence suggests that most farmers are keen to collaborate in this way and would greatly value new, sustained relationships and the ability to plan longer term. The continued suggestion was to use artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor farmer action through existing satellite systems enabling the sums spent on the human ‘policing’ of resource to be re-purposed towards the facilitation of farming clusters for innovation and learning. This approach would require a process of enquiry with farmers and a commitment to the long-term funding of local facilitation skills but is likely to deliver not only solutions to the Commons as set out above, but progress towards innovative and nature friendly farming. It is important to note that Defra’s new Farmer Collaboration Fund will take steps towards this model.

Finally, it should be noted that there is a belief that shared and open data would be critical to better enforcement of rules and norms (such as improving current standards) and the Dartmoor Land Use Management Group are keen to pilot a data observatory which could also create a transparent approach to science resolving the related insight above.

When Defra gets it right

We have heard many observations about how Defra processes could be improved:

“fund outcomes”

for example, or

“give us longer time lines”

There is particular and real distress about the frequently moving goals (classification of rare breeds changing annually for example, or parameters of funding applications changing annually most recently with Sustainable Farming Initiative). Small farmers have a constant challenge of cashflow, which all existing schemes exacerbate. As noted above we were clear that our review would not address necessary short-term adjustment of schemes, but would focus on what is required for a system transformation that would enable flourishing communities, eco-systems and local economies. It is important to note in this context however that there is widespread support for FiPL grants (Farming in Protected Landscapes). FiPL is small scale but loved because it centres innovation, partnership and local decision making;

“FiPL was so innovative in the beginning” – it was administered locally, designed to bring people together (not just farmers) and so on.

FiPL brings together climate, nature, people and place but it is important to note the goals are around physical not cultural assets. It is a powerful shift in terms of schemes [system optimisation] but in not putting humanity, communities and culture on a level with land and nature, it still lacks elements that will be critical to future work.

Lessons from the nations

It is striking that many interventions that would be critical to a flourishing Uplands are already either standard practice or in stages of experimentation yielding data, in the nations. Scotland has different regulations on land ownership for example where in the Highlands and Islands crofting has prevented over tourism and some second home ownership. Scotland has also accepted tourist taxes as a norm and implemented consensual actions on headage. Wales has new ways of sharing land which has enabled new entrants, and 20 years of successful learning sets, through which networks of farmers have taken up environmentalism through a structured learning methodology. More recently in Wales, a wide group of stakeholder organisations have been working to develop a farmer-led approach to green finance, exploring a mechanism that could bring small farmers together. In Wales rural housing enablers under Homes England have the power to build 6 to 8 houses in all small hamlets for local residents.

During the review, a member of the Defra Policy Design Lab team conducted a rapid desk-based research exercise looking at ways in which emerging issues have been managed in Europe. In conclusion we can see that England has much to learn from the nations and from other experiments in Europe. It is currently very difficult for upland communities to access expert learning from other places and it is intended to find new learning mechanisms and ways to access international expertise in a future phase of work.

Towards system change

Many, if not most of the issues revealed by the Review are known within Defra and some are the subject of long standing workstreams which are endeavouring to research the problems more closely. The Review demonstrates however the critical inter-connectivity between the challenges within the Uplands – it is very unlikely that one issue can be addressed in isolation and critically the relational nature of the challenges must be understood. In many instances it is possible to imagine rapid technical fixes however the complex social and cultural systems of the Uplands make implementation impossible. 

In this context the possibility of a flourishing Uplands requires a widening of the time horizon, a widening of the frame through which individual challenges are currently faced and a widening of who is involved in the creation of new ways forward. 

Moving towards a different future requires work at the system level which centres social processes and relationships. In this context and drawing on lessons from successful system change initiatives globally, and an understanding of Defra’s current work practices and longer-term goals it is clear that a new approach is needed which must be guided by 4 principles.

A focus on system change

Defra have many expert workstreams which might broadly be defined as system optimisation: work seeking to improve and optimise current schemes and policies – this is important and sometimes complimentary work but it will not enable upland communities to migrate to ways of living and working that will be secure and generative in current environmental, social and geo-political contexts.

A focus on leverage points

An ambitious system change project, however bold will be relatively small in a big, complex and historical system. Setting future work up for success requires an understanding of how we can intervene at ‘leverage points’, those places that not only allow us to support impactful work but the points which create space for others trying to work in a similar way, as set out in The Donella Meadows Project (1999) on Place to intervene in a system. Leverage points include people and places where there is existing energy. This focus will enable us to move beyond projects and trials to re-set the rules, culture and goals that are required for transformation.

A focus on social process

We are seeking to change the rules and the culture, to enable a shift in mindsets that pit farming against environmentalism and to posit a different vision of uplands as places of equitable growth and flourishing for places and all living beings. Transition is as the Secretary of State has articulated, not simply a technical process, but a social process in which new public values are created. Time and investment are required in a social process that starts with local voices and enables these voices to transform policy at the centre: an inversion of current ways of working which are top down and technical.

A focus on communities, place and nature

People, place and nature must be held on a par in all work and experimentation as we seek to meet the bigger vision of ecological transition within which the uplands work sits.

A proposal towards a flourishing uplands

“The secretary of state has the power to fence things off, can [they] not fence off something very different here?”

In response to the insights and learnings gained through the participatory review, and in partnership with Defra officials who understand and embrace the need for a different approach I have worked with the ministerial team to shape a collective experiment to explore in practice a system transformation that can meet the principles above and embrace the 19 insights. The purpose is to engage local communities in the design of transformative work of a calibre and depth that can be used to inform policy change and create the conditions for economic, environmental and social flourishing.

Seeding and supporting this system change in England’s uplands will be a long-term endeavour requiring a shift in mind sets at all levels, new practices and new forms of finance and investment. In this context the project has been framed as a seven-year collaboration between upland communities and government with funding secured for the first 2 years of practice. A small, highly skilled team will lead the work within Defra, and is expected to be in place in July 2026.

The intention is to collaboratively explore the structural changes required to enable flourishing through deep practice in one place. Dartmoor has been chosen as the location for the work in the first 2 years, with Cumbria joining the project in Year 2. Dartmoor has been chosen on the strength of local interest and the capacity of local leaders to work in coalition towards bold transformative ends. The addition of Cumbria is expected to bring a wider cross fertilisation of ideas. It is important to note however that this system changing work is not a trial or a pilot, it is not intended to start in one place and ‘scale’ to others. We will instead be offering inspiration, new principles and learning about collaboration that all upland areas may take up and interpret according to their local realities [think code not blueprint]. The project will be a constructive rent in current systems enabling a way forward for all who are interested to explore further.

Defra have established an Executive Board to guide the work and to respond to the systemic and structural challenges that will emerge (the need for policy change or new forms of financing for example). The board will be jointly led by myself and the Defra Director General for Food, Farming and Biosecurity and its membership includes the CEOs of relevant ALBs.

Initial steps and potential outcomes

During the Review we heard a strong desire for local places to be the authors of their destiny and for a halt to be called to top down, short term directives. The work agreed by the Secretary of State responds directly to this desire. In this context where the work will be iterative it is hard to set out milestones and clear outcomes at the outset. What we have is a ‘true North” a clear direction of travel towards Uplands that are wealthy in terms of their restored and regenerated natural resources, their local economies and their social networks.

Key elements that we will be considering and testing include the following:

• a new narrative for the uplands, rooted in local communities, able to hold nature, place people on a par, sufficiently developed to be used by local institutions enabling a wider change in mindsets
• a set of core capabilities that can define flourishing in the uplands for people, nature and place and which can tether the above narrative in every day practice
• at least one system change project evolving in practice, demonstrating a new form of generative social economy for local people
• collaborative/Mutual networks of local farmers testing new, rooted ways to farm with and for nature
• a network of local facilitators who can take on paid roles to support local innovation – modelled perhaps on the Scandinavian ‘hosting’ model used very successfully in communities around Barrow/Morecambe Bay
• new forms of ‘rule making’: the principles that can be taken up elsewhere and applied to local conditions

The Uplands Project is designed to show how a government department can lead system transformation and develop better policies in partnership with communities. Monitoring and Evaluation will be critical to the success of the work and the project requires a framework that can both be participative with local communities and can provide the hard data that is required for policymaking. The framework will include quantitative and qualitative elements. As part of our approach to monitoring and evaluation and to our commitment to open learning we plan to host quarterly in person learning events, primarily for those in other upland areas who wish to learn alongside us and share their expertise.

We will publish updates on this work on the Defra Farming Blog.