Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Box 16.3
Yorkshire Dales National Park, UK
similar to today's landscape. The willingness to pay for
today's landscape was around £24 for all respondents,
but the minority who preferred 'conserved', 'sporting' or
'wild' landscapes valued them far more highly (at around
£34). Residents valued landscapes consistently lower
than visitors, this discrepancy being particularly marked
for the 'abandoned' landscape. The results show that
although the overwhelming consensus is to preserve the
status quo,
there are some important differences in
preferences and values among minority groups, who
might be important players in the pragmatic process of
landscape management.
However, the study uses the data in a different way.
The results are aggregated to demonstrate that today's'
landscape generates total 'benefits' four times higher
than the cost of maintaining it. In contrast, the costs of
the 'conserved', 'planned' and 'sporting' landscapes are
far higher than the benefits they generate.
The conclusions thus support the
status quo.
The upland limestone country of the Yorkshire Dales
National Park (UK) is in IUCN terms a category 5
protected cultural landscape (see Plate 16.4). Its field
pattern was established during the 1760-1820
enclosures. The landscape depends on traditional sheep
rearing, which is now under threat. Research (O'Riordan
et al
. 1992) was designed to assess user and resident
preferences for pictures representing eight different
versions of the Dales landscape that could be created in
response to different types of change in the farming and
land management systems. A parallel study by Willis and
Garrod (1993) attempted to assess the monetary value
put on these future landscapes. The authors did not seek
separate assessments of the ecological, social or
heritage values but attempted to obtain one overall
assessment that took all these attributes into account.
About half of the respondents chose landscapes
depicting the existing situation as the scene they liked
best. Most of the others chose the 'conserved' or
'planned' landscapes, options that were visually most
Plate 16.4
Agricultural
landscapes of the Yorkshire
Dales.
management objectives and to prioritise
resource allocation.
However, cultural geographers would warn
that this approach may only be valid if all the
stakeholders are drawn from one homogeneous
cultural group and therefore are likely to share
common cultural values. Social geography
research highlights the role of landscape in the
expression of cultural identity: in a multicultural
state the issue of whose landscape is valued most
highly is intensely political.
Techniques that seek to assign monetary values
to landscape must also be entirely culture-specific,
and strictly limited to Western capitalist cultures.
Even inWestern cultures, the assumptions on which
the technique is based need to be far more closely
analysed before being built into any policy-making
process, not least the assumption that people are
capable of assigning money values to environmental
goods in a rational manner. The clarification of
which aspect of landscape is being valued (aesthetic,
ecological, cultural, functional, etc.) is also crucial,
