Virtual enclosure, ecosystem services, landscape’s character and the ‘rewilding’ of the commons: the ‘Lake District’ case

Abstract

It is paradoxical that, while there is a generally increasing recognition of the scientific and cultural importance of conserving ‘semi-natural’ pastoral environments, and the negative effects of their widespread abandonment and overgrowth, British ‘rewilding’ activists and environmental managers are effectively advocating policies that will have a similar negative effect on the character of the semi-natural pastoral commons of places like England’s iconic Lake District. This situation, it will be argued, owes to the mindset of ‘virtual enclosure’ whereby the character of landscape is pre-defined by an assumed, behind-the-scenes, Euclidean/Ptolemaic spatial logic that leads to the comprehension of nature as a bounded scenic property; an (e)state of nature with its own economic system and services. This mindset is antithetical to both the practice of pastoral commoning and much contemporary natural science and conservation policy. It fits well, however, with older teleological ideas of nature, as well as modern ideas of privatisation, private property and management control.

Keywords:

• Commons
• rewilding
• virtual enclosure
• flooding
• ecosystem services
• Lake District

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Grahame Bathe for his critical input concerning commons and nature conservation; Andrew Humphries for his insights into common grazing and local history; Julia Anglionby for her judicious and judicial mind; Dorothy and Glen Wilkinson and Joe and Hazel Relph for their patience in explaining their grazing practices and customs. I would also like to thank the people working with Natural England, the Lake District National Park, The National Trust, United Utilities, the Open Spaces Society, the Friends of the Lake District, the Federation of Cumbrian Commoners, the Foundation for Common Land and other organisations, as well as the many farmers and other private individuals, who gave their time to explain to me their take on the complexities of farming, community, land use and land regulation in the Lakes. None, of course, are responsible for any errors made in this manuscript or for my conclusions.

Notes

1. This article is primarily concerned with the spatial logic of enclosure. Enclosure, however, is a huge and complex topic that is explicated in more detail in the following works: (Barrell,1972; University Press, Darby, 1976; Gadsden, 1988; Kjærgaard, 1994; Neeson, 1993; Smith, 1967).