2011 is going to be an exciting year for researchers on the CLIF project. We have been invited to take part in a Linking the Lizard initiative in order to help the National Trust engage the local community about the future of one of their farms. So here is a bit more detail:
- Linking the Lizard are a group of local representatives from the National Trust, Natural England, Cornwall Wildlife Trust, Cornwall AONB Partnership and National Farmers’ Union interested in working in partnership in order to develop a sustainable approach to managing the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall.
Working in PartnershipThe best prospect for maintaining these places and our resources like clean water on which we all depend is for working at the larger scale rather than landowners and farmers simply managing small sites in isolation from each other.The National Trust and its partner organisations, the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, Natural England, the Cornwall AONB and the National Farmers Union have got together to see how they can work more closely together, not only to benefit the health of the land that they look after, but to make a closer connection between the work that they do and the communities, businesses and visitors of the Lizard Peninsula.
Some of the benefits we think might be:
Caring for Wildlife
- Making the Lizard a better place for wildlife, including all the rare plants, birds, insects and mammals that live here by joining up special places.
- Caring for the landscape, the air, soil and water.
- Working with farmers to keep the special habitats in good condition.
- Linking management of the land with the sea
A landscape to inspire, places to explore, adventures to be had
- Involving local people in the future of their area through finding out more about what people want from the land.
- Working together with businesses to promote the Lizard and the opportunities for varied use by the community and visitors to the outdoors.
- Better footpaths, cycle and horse riding routes around the peninsula
- Exploring new ways for people to experience the outdoors such as coasteering, kayaking etc.
- A better sense of the rich history of the area
Adaptation for a changing climate and a low carbon future
- Making more space for wildlife in bigger, joined up areas, so that species can adapt and move to change.
- Storing carbon in soils and vegetation to help mitigate against further climate change.
- Finding ways to encourage community led responses to a low carbon future
- Building resilience in the farming system and in the population to adapt to a low carbon future.
- The National Trust own a farm on the Lizard that has recently come up for tenancy and the Trust have identified this as a unique opportunity to get the local community involved in deciding its future
The National Trust is opening a dialogue with the local community, visitors and anyone with a love of and an interest in Britain’s most southerly point to see how we can work together on the future of Tregullas Farm at the Lizard.
Throughout 2011 we will be holding a series of events, meetings and discussions to hear what the local community and others think.
We want to hear what is special about this land, what you would like to see grown here, whether you want to get involved in some way, and whether the Lizard community needs extra space, land or buildings to help it thrive. This might mean more space for wildlife or recreation, allotments or a community farm, or even a community renewable energy scheme.
If we can match our aims and objectives with your vision, there is a great opportunity here. We really want to listen to your ideas so that you can help us come to a decision about the farm. In the meantime we will be letting the farmland and the farmhouse on short-term agreements until we know what will be possible here.
Opportunities like this don’t happen often – maybe just once in a generation – so this is your chance to get involved and shape the future of the farm.
- The farm is Tregullas Farm at Most Southerly Point on the Lizard Peninsula.
The National Trust’s tenant at Tregullas Farm has decided to leave after 15 years looking after the land and the landscape so we need to find a new tenant (or tenants) for the 250 acres of farm and cliff land in this amazing place. There is a lot that is special about Tregullas Farm; good fertile soil, fantastic views, a village on the doorstep, lots of footpaths, rare plants and Cornwall’s first breeding choughs for 50 years! At the farm, new multi-purpose buildings were put up 15 years ago and the traditional farm buildings re-roofed with Cornish slate. It’s been run as principally a beef and arable farm over the past 15 years and prior to that was a mixed dairy and vegetable (potatoes and cauliflower) farm.
To date our involvement has been surveying and reviewing the geographical literature on partnership working and participatory methodologies in order to help the Linking the Lizard team shape a year long programme of community consultation about the future of the farm, prior to the advertisement of the tenancy in March 2012.
Our intention is to document this process of partnership working in order to investigate how our previous work on the value of familiar landscapes to understanding/responding to environmental changes and land management by the National Trust and Natural England plays out on the ground.
The website for this project can be found here.
To date we have helped the team plan four events as part of the community consultation process. The first event was held just before Christmas and invited local residents to meet the Linking the Lizard team and hear a little bit more about the plans for 2011 (Kate will post about this event in due course, she’s currently in Bulgaria at a conference – I bet it is pretty chilly over there at this time of year).
It is a pleasure to be involved in this project and we look forward to reporting back as it progresses.
