Tourism vs Landscape

A working landscape, not a wilderness

The Lake District became a national park in 1951, covers 2,362 square kilometres, and was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2017. The wording of that inscription is the most useful thing on this topic, because it was awarded for an agro-pastoral landscape: not for wilderness, but for a place shaped by centuries of hill farming. The open fells that visitors photograph look like that because sheep have grazed them. That changes what the conflicts are. Around 40,000 people live inside the park and something like 18 million visitors come each year, and the tension is not between people and nature. It is between users, all of whom have a legitimate claim. Farmers work the land that made the view. Water companies flooded valleys to supply distant cities, and Haweswater was completed in 1935, drowning the village of Mardale Green to serve Manchester eighty miles away. Forestry planted conifer blocks that a later generation is now unpicking. Walkers, climbers and boaters want access to all of it. An answer that casts tourists as vandals or farmers as obstacles has therefore misread the node. Each use brings something and costs something, and the examiner wants the specific clash rather than a general complaint. One more thing to carry through the module: the benefit and the cost land on different people. Visitor spending reaches businesses, while the worn paths, the parked cars on verges and the house prices land on residents.

Six terms, and the second is the analytical move

The second is the one that turns a list of measures into an argument, because almost every strategy in this topic is doing one of those two things.

How a path is destroyed and repaired

Six stages take an upland path from use to damage to repair. Put them in order.

• Thousands of boots compact the surface along a popular route up the fell
• The vegetation holding the soil together dies where it has been trodden
• Rain runs down the bare line instead of soaking in, and carries the loosened soil away
• Walkers step around the resulting mud and the scar widens across the hillside
• Repair teams lay a stone surface along the line, with the material lifted in by air where no track exists
• Vegetation returns either side of the new surface, and the scar narrows again

Why build car parks at the busiest places?

A park authority invests in parking, toilets and hard surfacing at the four most crowded lakeside towns rather than spreading the money around. Which explains the thinking?

• Because concentrating visitors where facilities can absorb them keeps the pressure off everywhere else. A place built to take crowds suffers contained, manageable damage, while the same number of people spread thinly would put cars on verges and boots on unrepaired paths across the whole park. The congestion in those towns is a cost accepted deliberately in exchange for quiet elsewhere.
• Because those towns generate the most income for the authority.
• Because it is cheaper to build facilities in towns than in the countryside.
• Because visitors prefer towns to open country.

Four users, one set of fells

The grade-9 note asks for specific conflicting land uses and specific mitigation, so each column names a user, what it needs, and the clash it creates. Every response in the third column is real and dated.

Match each measure to what it is doing

Name the two uses, then name the measure

The content map is blunt about what this node wants: specific conflicting land uses and a specific mitigation strategy. "The area should be managed carefully to protect it for the future" is the sentence to avoid, because it could be written about anywhere and commits to nothing. Build it in two moves instead. First, name the two uses and what each needs: hill farming needs gates shut and stock undisturbed, while walkers need access across the same ground. Second, name the measure and what it does to the pressure, which is where the analysis lives: a repaired path concentrates boots onto a surface built to take them, a speed limit removed one use so the others could continue, and a frequent bus disperses the load by making arrival without a car the easy option. That gives you the strongest available frame: almost every strategy here either concentrates pressure or spreads it. Saying which, and why that suits this valley, is worth more than three measures listed without reasons. Two habits worth keeping. Attach a date, since a measure with a year on it proves you studied a place rather than a topic. And respect all the users: the people who farm here are working, the people who live here need housing they can afford, and the visitors are not vandals. The conflicts are real precisely because every claim in them is reasonable.

Complete the upland management record

The Lake District was designated a national park in _____ and inscribed as a World Heritage Site in _____, in that case for a landscape shaped by farming rather than for wilderness. Its reservoirs came earlier and at a cost to the people already there: the dam completed in _____ drowned the village of Mardale Green to supply a city eighty miles away. Two later measures show the two ways of managing pressure. A speed limit of 10 knots has applied to the largest lake since _____, which removed one use so that others could continue, and a partnership has been repairing worn upland paths since _____, concentrating boots onto surfaces built to take them.

Spot the three sound upland management statements

Select the THREE statements that could stand as they are in an answer.

• The open fells look as they do because they have been grazed for centuries, which is why the World Heritage designation recognised a farmed landscape rather than a wild one.
• Equipping a handful of lakeside towns with parking and facilities concentrates visitors where the ground can absorb them, accepting congestion there so that quieter valleys are left alone.
• A reservoir built for a distant city took the valley from the people living in it, so the benefit and the cost of that land use fell on entirely different populations.
• The area needs to be managed carefully so that it can be protected for future generations.
• The main problem in national parks is that too many tourists come and damage the landscape.
• Management should aim to return the fells to their natural wild state by ending grazing.

A 9-mark evaluation, marked

Using a named upland area, assess the effectiveness of strategies used to manage the impacts of tourism. [9 marks] The Lake District, a national park since 1951 and a World Heritage Site since 2017, receives something like 18 million visitors a year against a resident population in the order of 40,000, so the pressures are severe and the strategies fall into two kinds. The first concentrates people. Bowness, Ambleside, Grasmere and Keswick are equipped with car parks, toilets, cafes and hard surfaces so that crowds gather where the ground is built to take them, which leaves the quieter valleys comparatively undisturbed. It works, and it works by accepting a cost: those four towns are congested in summer, and that congestion is the price paid deliberately for calm elsewhere. The second kind repairs and separates. Fix the Fells has maintained upland paths as a partnership since 2001, building stone surfaces with material flown in by helicopter where no vehicle can reach, which halts the widening scars that form when walkers avoid the mud and lets vegetation recover on either side. On the water, a 10 knot speed limit imposed on Windermere in March 2005 ended power boating and water skiing, separating two uses that could not share the same lake. Both are effective and both show the limits of the approach: path repair treats damage that is already done and must be funded continuously, and the speed limit resolved the conflict by removing one user entirely, which is a decision with losers. The strategies that have worked least well are those meant to disperse. Buses and lake launches reduce car use only where they are frequent enough that leaving the car is the easy choice, and on narrow valley roads private cars remain the default for most visitors. Nor does any of this touch the housing pressure, since second homes and holiday lets continue to raise prices relative to local wages, and a village that loses its year-round residents loses the school and the shop with them. Overall the measures are effective against the physical damage, where concentration and repair have visibly worked, and much weaker against the social pressures, which nobody can fix with a car park. It is also worth remembering that the landscape being protected is a farmed one, so conservation and hill farming are usually allies here rather than opponents. What earned the marks: a named place with dates throughout; strategies grouped by what they do to the pressure rather than listed; a cost named for each one; a distinction drawn between physical and social impacts; and a judgement that says which worked and against what.

Find the two that would cost marks

Five sentences from answers about managing tourism in an upland area. Two would lose credit for the argument they make rather than for being factually wrong. Tap those TWO.

• The national park should be looked after properly so that it stays beautiful for future generations.
• Facilities at four lakeside towns gather visitors where the ground is built for them, which leaves the quieter valleys alone.
• The trouble with these areas is that far too many tourists come and ruin them for everybody else.
• A 10 knot limit has applied on the largest lake since March 2005, which removed one use so that others could continue.
• Ending grazing would let the open fells scrub over, changing the landscape the designation was awarded for.

Build the conflict sentence

Assemble a sentence that explains a land use conflict instead of asserting one.

Four decisions for a park authority

Each is a real choice. Decide what it does to the pressure before you decide whether to do it.

• A popular route up a fell has worn into a scar several metres wide as walkers step around the mud.
• A village has lost its school because so many houses are now holiday lets that few families remain.
• Power boats, swimmers and anglers are all using the same lake and the conflict keeps recurring.
• A proposal suggests ending sheep grazing on the high fells to let nature take its course.

Assess the management

Using a named upland area, assess how effectively the impacts of tourism have been managed. [9 marks]

• Scale: designation dates and the ratio of visitors to residents
• What each land use needs from the same ground
• Strategies that concentrate pressure, spread it or repair damage already done
• A year proves you studied a place rather than a topic
• The designation protects a farmed landscape