Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
issues are now being addressed by both academics (e.g., Hodder and Bullock 2005;
Peterken 2005; Agnoletti 2006) and policy-making bodies, such as Natural England
and the Forestry Commission in the United Kingdom. In 2003, for example, the Eu-
ropean Union Ministerial Conference in Vienna addressed the issue of forests and
forest history. They took the decisive step to include social and cultural values in sus-
tainable forest management in the “Vienna Resolution 3” (Agnoletti 2007). Following
work by supporting organizations, such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), signatory states committed themselves to
“preserving and enhancing the social and cultural dimension of sustainable forest
management in Europe.”
Overcoming Cultural Severance through Traditional
Management Practices
Cultural severance has major impacts on large-scale restoration projects. For maxi-
mum success in sustainable outcomes, and to embed projects in regional cultural his-
tory, knowledge of former landscapes and their history should inform site restoration.
Techniques considered in this long-term study included site restoration and recovery
through reinstatement of sympathetic and traditional management at such sites as
Woodhouse Washlands and Wharncliffe Heath. Additionally, new sites can be devel-
oped within landscape creation schemes wherever possible using seed and materials
from regional donor sites. Case study examples include an opencast coal mining site
at Tankersley and a wetland nature reserve at Blackburn Meadows.
In 2006, I wrote about four case studies with specific sites and groups of sites, all in
northern-central England (Rotherham 2006). These included dry heathland and an-
cient woodland (Wharncliffe Heath and Wood), riverine meadow landscape (Wood-
house Washlands), acidic grassland and relict woodland (Westwood), and ancient
coppice woods (Ecclesall Woods, Gleadless Valley Woods, and Owler Carr Wood).
These studies generated broad conclusions and common threads, the areas reflecting
inextricable links between landscape history, site utilization, and subsequent abandon-
ment. Recognition by conservationists was followed by a desire to restore or re-create in
part the former ecological character as perceived by the stakeholders. However, this
raised key issues about economic history and the relationships between environmental
resources and local people. It posed questions about how people value and use sites,
both now and formerly. These landscapes were once exploited but conserved because
they were essential to sustainable local living. Today, they are valued for leisure, recre-
ation, and conservation but are not necessarily managed. If they are managed, it is rad-
ically different from in the past. The individual projects helped demonstrate huge po-
tential for landscape recovery but also identified concerns and tensions.
Heath, Common, Fen, and Bog
Much of Europe's northwestern seaboard was formerly characterized by heathland
vegetation with peat, turf, gorse ( Ulex spp.), broom ( Cytisus spp.), and ling or heather
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