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Uplands
The UK uplands are the hills, valleys, moors and mountains that form a distinctive and beloved part of our countryside. Habitats range from pastures and hay meadows in the valley bottoms to more extensive areas of rough grass, heather moor, blanket bog, woodland and mountain summit.
These habitats, shaped by altitude, latitude, soils and climate, have been influenced by man over thousands of years.
The RSPB has a long history of involvement with and in the UK's uplands, some of the UK's last great wild areas.
In 2007, the RSPB published The Uplands - Time to change?, available to download from this page. In this document, we highlighted the importance of the uplands across the UK and called for a wide-ranging debate on the future of our upland areas.
Much has happened since the publication of this document. In 2009, Natural England published 'Vital Uplands' - a 2060 vision for England's upland environment and 'Mapping Values: the vital nature of our uplands' - an atlas linking environment and people.
The uplands have also been at the centre of a number of major inquiries including those by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the National Assembly Wales, the Commission for Rural Communities and EFRA Select Committee. In March 2011, DEFRA published a review of uplands policy in the English uplands.
Benefits for people and wildlife
Along with others, we believe that we must find better ways to ensure that the full potential of the uplands is realised, that the people and wildlife that live there thrive, and that the uplands deliver the full range of environmental, economic and social benefits for the whole of the UK.
We feel that the great range of benefits, for people and the environment, which the uplands can deliver is currently undervalued, and at risk. As a society, we need to be much clearer about what we want and need from the uplands, and how we support and sustain land use that delivers the wide range of public benefits that the uplands provide including food production, provision of drinking water, carbon storage and space for people to enjoy in a myriad of ways.
Politicians, policy-makers, landowners, land managers, environmentalists, economists and all who benefit from the uplands must work together to secure the right sort of policies and support measures to enable land managers to adapt to climate change and to deliver multiple societal demands for food, timber, water, carbon storage, wildlife and space for access and recreation.
The upland landscape will continue to change as it has done for millenia. Future support measures must seek to reward only those land use and management activities which make a positive contribution to sustaining our uplands for the benefit of society as a whole.
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Last modified: 19 April 2011