Concerns about the Lake District World Heritage Site

In May 2025, I sent the following letter to the UK National Commission for UNESCO in London to express my concerns about the negative impact that The English Lake District World Hertiage Site is having on nature and people.

UK National Commission for UNESCO
98, 3 Whitehall Court,
London, SW1A 2EL

Re: Significant concerns about The English Lake District World Heritage Site

It was good to talk to you about our concerns about The English Lake District World Heritage Site at the World Heritage Watch event on Tuesday 13^th May. I’m grateful to you for being open to receiving more information about the growing concern that I and many others have about the impact that the site is having on nature.

Since its inscription in 2017, it has become increasingly obvious that The English Lake District World Heritage Site promotes a false perception of farming, is not economically sustainable, is working against crucial efforts to restore the natural environment and mitigate the impacts of climate change, is driving a wedge between culture and nature, does not help sustain farming livelihoods, is not wanted by local people and is contributing to damaging overtourism. I will provide examples and evidence to demonstrate each of these failings in turn.

The English Lake District World Heritage Site promotes the false perception that current farming practices are traditional and environmentally benign

Although the nomination documents give multiple reasons for the Lake District being designated as a World Heritage Site, it is sheep farming that dominates the narrative. Across the main nomination volume’s 716 pages, the word sheep appears 357 times, far exceeding references to other types of livestock, all of which were just as important to the area’s farming culture until relatively recently. Rightly or wrongly, and whether or not this was the intention of the authors of the World Heritage Site documentation, to most people, the primary focus of the designation is to preserve sheep farming, a practice which is both ecologically catastrophic and economically precarious.  

Until relatively recently, farming in the Lake District was considerably more diverse and existed within the natural carrying capacity of the landscape. The farm steadings demonstrate that historical agricultural diversity in physical form. Most farms have built facilities for poultry, pigs, cattle and horses, as well as sheep. Few farms keep all these types of livestock today. A scan of old maps show how ubiquitous orchards and vegetable plots were, as well as small arable fields.

The post-war intensification of farming, the associated farm subsidies and a raft of new technologies had a profoundly transformational impact on these traditional farming enterprises. Incentivized by headage payments many farmers dispensed with cattle, pigs and poultry and focused solely on rearing sheep, knowing that the subsidy would make the practice worthwhile. Tractors and quad bikes took the place of the distinctive and now threatened fell pony. The requirement for labour fell as machinery took over. The subsidy regime rewarded scale and volume, and so the smaller farms dwindled, often being subsumed into larger units and the houses being sold off as private residences.

This intensification was dire for the natural environment. Huge areas of fell land were horribly overgrazed, converting formerly diverse upland pasture, bogs and heaths into close-cropped mats of unpalatable grassland. Grants paid to drain bogs were taken up enthusiastically, leading to vast releases of carbon dioxide from the drying peat and a huge increase in flood risk for communities downstream resulting from the land’s newly acquired ability to rapidly shed water. Synthetic fertilizers arrived on the scene, enabling the switch from slow-grown, species-rich hay-making to monoculture silage, which is usually cut multiple times per year, to the detriment of Curlews, Corncrakes and many other species which previously found refuge amid the growing hay.

This post-war period of change was rapid and comprehensive, but farming has always been in a state of flux, constantly needing to adjust in order remain in step with changing societal demands. There have always been oscillations between agricultural booms and depressions. When the industrial revolution was in full swing, wool was in great demand. Small dairy herds were commonplace until milk bulk tanks made them unviable. Today, as the demand for lamb and mutton declines, and now that it generally costs more money to clip a sheep than you can earn from selling its fleece, sheep are no longer the valued commodity they once were. Indeed, as multiple reports have shown, in the absence of government subsidy, rearing sheep in the uplands is ordinarily a loss-making enterprise.     

The hill farming system in the Lake District today is a pale shadow of what it once was, both ecologically and culturally. And yet, it is this system that the World Heritage inscription celebrates and is constantly being used to defend.  

The Lake District World Heritage Site is not economically sustainable in its current form

If the Lake District World Heritage Site is dependent on the continuation of sheep farming, then frankly, it is doomed. Since leaving the EU, the UK Government has been in the process of changing our system of agricultural support. In place of blanket payments that were offered under the EU Common Agricultural Policy (a system which offered poor value for money and damaging environmental outcomes), the English Government is rolling out a system based on the principle of ‘public payments for public goods’. This system will reward farmers for restoring wildlife habitats, sequestering carbon, reducing flood risk, improving water and air quality and providing improved public access. This shift can’t come soon enough. The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world, and in midst of climate and ecological collapse, there is no time to lose if we are to avoid the worst of the impending catastrophes.

With such a harsh climate where thin soils and nutrient poor vegetation predominate, farming in the Lake District has never been easy or highly profitable. These are exactly the conditions that are best suited to large scale nature recovery. With generous grants on offer, the Lake District’s farmers have the opportunity to switch to a more environmentally benign model of farming, one which in many ways is more traditional, which would be more economically sustainable and would provide what society desperately needs. This doesn’t mean an end to farming, but it does mean adopting a new approach. Switching to a system which does not rely on costly, often ecologically harmful inputs, will not only make farms more viable, but will deliver huge benefits to nature and be more akin to the genuinely traditional farming system that persisted for centuries.

In the UK, as the awareness of the damaging impacts of conventional farming is growing, meat consumption is declining. This trend is particularly stark for lamb and mutton. A resurgence in the value of wool seems highly unlikely. With the recent move away from blanket subsidy payments, which have until recently propped up many uneconomic farming enterprises, sheep are simply not going to financially sustain Lake District farmers in the way that they once did.

The farmers of the Lake District must be offered support and advice as to how they can adapt their farm businesses, moving away from the production of sheep and other loss-making produce to more mixed businesses that take full advantage of environmental payments, alongside less intensive, sustainable food production and diversification.

I have always felt that the emphasis of the Lake District World Heritage Site should be on people and their livelihoods, not on some romantic notion of a farming system which is no longer fit for the modern age. For farming and farmers to survive, they must adapt, just as they have always done. Attempting to maintain things as they are is neither tenable nor desirable.

The Lake District World Heritage Site is working against crucial efforts to restore the natural environment and mitigate the impacts of climate change

The World Heritage Site designation is giving many Lake District farmers the false impression that continuing to farm in the way that have been is a viable prospect, disincentivising them from entering into agri-environment schemes. But the designation is also working against nature recovery in other ways.

As in many other parts of the UK, rivers have been heavily modified in order to try to reduce local flooding issues. Straightening, dredging, the removal of bankside vegetation and constructing artificial banks and levees have all contributed significantly to the degradation of river habitats and to increasing downstream flood risk. The restoration of rivers is urgently needed, particularly in light of climate breakdown, which is increasing the likelihood and severity of flooding events, as well as increasing the temperature of rivers, impacting many aquatic species, including Atlantic Salmon. Viewed through the lens of the World Heritage Site, these straightened rivers are perceived as cultural artefacts, complicating efforts to restore them.

The same applies to efforts to restore trees to the landscape. With the exception of the highest fell-tops and peatbogs, the Lake District was once largely wooded. The crucial role that trees and woodlands play in both mitigating and adapting to climate change is widely understood. Now that the Lake District is a World Heritage Site, the geographic threshold for which an Environmental Impact Assessment for tree planting is required has fallen to zero, meaning that additional paperwork is required to carry out even small-scale planting projects.

Heritage Impact Assessments are now required for a wide range of projects and developments, including for environmental schemes, adding still more red tape.

All of this additional bureaucracy places a needless burden on the delivery of nature recovery at precisely the moment in time when we need it to be happening with the greatest urgency. As a result of its designation as a World Heritage Site, it is now more difficult to restore the natural environment inside the boundary of the Lake District National Park than it is outside. 

The Lake District World Heritage Site is driving a wedge between nature and culture

I live and work in the Lowther Valley, in the East of the Lake District National Park. For the past 12 years I have worked on large scale nature restoration projects in the area. For most of that time, I was the site manager for the RSPB at Haweswater. A couple of years after World Heritage Status was granted, a delegation from the Lake District World Heritage Site Steering Group came to give my RSPB colleagues and me a training session, designed to help us understand what being in a World Heritage Site meant for our conservation work at Haweswater. They talked us through the cultural concepts from the nomination document, and the new paperwork we now had to complete to enable the steering group to ensure our activities didn’t impact on the World Heritage Site’s attributes.

In the discussion afterwards, I asked how the RSPB’s presence at Haweswater was perceived from a World Heritage perspective. I was told that when the application was being prepared for UNESCO, the steering group had been forced to accept that there were a number of ‘warts’ on the face of the potential World Heritage Site. One of these warts was the RSPB’s presence at Haweswater. I asked for clarification in order to understand the basis of what was a deeply offensive comment. It was explained to us that we weren’t ‘authentic’. Because we didn’t fit the stereotypical profile of family farmers, we were considered second-class citizens.

I am a long-term resident of the Lake District. My children were born here. I contribute socially and economically as much as the next person. My work has contributed to nature restoration, job creation and community development. I find it distasteful in the extreme that my ‘authenticity’ and by extension, that of many other people working in similar roles across the Lake District, should be called into question.

The World Heritage narrative has promulgated the idea that farmers are more worthy, more ‘authentic’ than other people. I have frequently heard farmers, emboldened by the Lake District’s World Heritage Site status, referring to themselves as the ‘indigenous people’. This is deeply divisive, dangerous language. Of course farmers and farming are important, but no more so than any other human being. This has contributed to a sense of tribalism, with farmers on one side and nature conservationists being on the other. 

The truth of the matter is that nature and culture and deeply intertwined. This is as true today as it’s always been. A vibrant, successful farming culture depends absolutely on the natural environment being in a robust, healthy condition, and there are countless species and habitats that rely heavily on the light-touch farming that the Lake District is best suited to, but which has largely been lost over the past decades.

There is a win-win on offer here. If farmers embrace new approaches to farming and land management, and are supported in making that transition, we will achieve nature recovery and a thriving, highly valued farming culture. The Lake District’s World Heritage Status in its current form is actively working against that becoming a reality.   

The Lake District World Heritage Site does not contribute to sustaining farming livelihoods

The World Heritage Site has no government budget allocated to it. No money flows to farmers to maintain the farming practices that the nomination document extols. The sums of money that would be involved in doing such a thing would be astronomical, and in light of how environmentally damaging these practices are, no right-thinking government would be prepared to commit them. The designation has likely contributed to an uplift in tourism, but little of the additional income being generated reaches farmers. I have it on good authority that The National Trust, who are major landowners in the Lake District, have prevented some of their farming tenants from entering environmentally ambitious and lucrative stewardship schemes, due to a perceived negative impact on the World Heritage Site’s attributes.

If the designation was genuinely committed to the “continuing vitality” and “organic evolution” of the Lake District’s farming culture, as the nomination document purports, then the focus would be on sustaining livelihoods and supporting a transition to new models of agriculture that are fit for the current age. Instead, with its primary focus being on the maintenance of sheep farming in order to retain an entirely subjective impression of “exceptional beauty” the World Heritage Site is being used to defend and protect a model of farming that is bad for farmers, bad for the environment and bad for wider society.

The Lake District World Heritage Site is not wanted by local people

I attended the first Lake District National Park Partnership meeting that took place following the inscription of the World Heritage Site. National Park officials, including the chair of the partnership, Lord Clarke, shared findings of a survey of National Park residents. The results showed clearly that a significant proportion of local people were not supportive of the designation, did not understand what it’s benefits would be and did not feel that they had been properly consulted during the application process. The minutes of this meeting do not provide adequate detail on this point, summarised in the bland statement: “Steve Ratcliffe acknowledged further work is required on engaging local residents about world heritage status”. This is effectively an official admission that World Heritage Status was granted without the support of residents. As one of those residents, I can attest that my views were not sought and that my support was not given.

Other surveys have been carried out subsequently. One, by Cumbria Action for Sustainability in 2019 showed that many concerns about World Heritage Status, and the overtourism that it contributes to, remain. 76% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement; “Parts of the Lake District are full. Our infrastructure cannot cope with more visitors.”

I believe that if a similar survey were carried out today, the results might be even more stark. The designation has been imposed on the Lake District’s residents, and a significant proportion, myself included, are now forced to live with the many negative consequences.

The Lake District World Heritage Site is contributing to damaging overtourism

Around 20 million visitors come to the Lake District each year, making it the most visited UK National Park by some margin. When work began on the lengthy process of applying for World Heritage Status in 2001, the Lake District was in the throes of an outbreak foot and mouth disease, which had devasting impacts on farmers and the wider community. In part, World Heritage Status was sought as a means of helping the rural economy to get back on its feet in the wake of this disaster.

In 2001, 13.8 million visitors came to the Lake District. By 2005, partly in response to a targeted marketing campaign, the figure had grown to 15.5 million. Concerns about overtourism and the associated negative impacts are widely recognised. Some are listed on the Lake District National Park Authority’s website, even as it continues to promote the area as a destination in order to drive footfall. It was abundantly clear prior to the Lake District being awarded World Heritage Status, that the last thing the area needed was more tourism, and yet still the National Park Partnership persisted and still UNESCO awarded the status.

It is notable that two earlier attempts to gain World Heritage Status had failed. This, and the fact that it took 15 years to finally secure the designation can be read as an indication of how poorly the Lake District fits UNESCO’s usual criteria.

The declining quality of the water in Windermere, the Lake District’s largest and most popular Lake, has received considerable media attention in recent years. The 7 million visitors that come to Windermere each year, and the hotels and other infrastructure that support them, contribute vast quantities of nutrients to the catchment. Investment in sewage treatment facilities by Water Company United Utilities has not kept pace with the growth in visitors. Sewage discharges, septic tank overflows as well as diffuse pollution from agriculture have acted in concert to severely impact the ecology of the Lake and the quality of its water. Windermere has been the focus of this debate, but the same problem is playing out to some extent across the whole of the Lake District.  

I strongly believe that for the good of the Lake District’s fragile natural environment, for the sake of its lakes, rivers, fish and birds, for the sake of the people who live and work in the area, farmers included, that the World Heritage Site’s status should be revoked.

Yours Sincerely,

Lee Schofield