HNV Farmland in Maramures (Romania)

Countries


Case studies

South Wales

De Cymru (CYM)

High Nature Value Farmland - South Wales

Scottish Hebrides

High Nature Value Farmland - Scotland Machair

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Projects

HNV farming in the Northern Upland Chain

Northern Upland Chain
(LNP)

The Northern Upland Chain Local Nature Partnership (LNP) brings together a wide range of partners to encourage effective action to benefit nature, people and the local economy.

Current EFNCP involvement

One of the issues being faced in the Partnership area is discontent at the approach of current agri-environment schemes. The Partnership, through the Yorkshire Dales National Park, is working to develop an alternative results-based approach. EFNCP is supporting this work and assisting Natural England in trying to secure funding to turn this into a working pilot scheme.


High Nature Value farming project - previous EFNCP involvement

Photo: Tim Cook, Creative Commons Licence

In order to start to develop a new approach to supporting HNV farming in the NUC, representatives from the LNP have been collaborating since January 2013 through a HNV farming working group. The aim of this collaboration is to build a shared vision with the farming community for safeguarding the future of extensive farming and the wildlife it supports.

With funding from Natural England, an initial project was established which worked with, and through, four groups of local farmers to:

  • Celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of extensive upland farming to nature conservation and the provision of other public goods, such as beautiful historic landscapes, production of high quality water and food, carbon storage.
  • Identify and increase understanding of the threats to these extensive or 'HNV' farming systems.
  • Identify opportunities for securing a long term future for these farming systems.
  • Explore and test some of the approaches identified with a view to informing future land management policy and support measures including agri-environment schemes.

Photo: Rebecca Barrett

Four case study projects were set up, one in each of the four constituent protected areas. EFNCP and Cumulus Consultants carried out the North Pennines AONB work, which is reported on this webpage. Some of the reports for the other case studies are publicly-available here:

A meeting of stakeholders was held at which EFNCP summarised the findings of the reports; group discussions were held and further recommendations were elicited.

Photo: Anton Ciritis, Creative Commons Licence

Subsequently, a report was written and an account of it was given to both the LNP steering group and to a public meeting.

The recommendations covered a wide range of issues:

  • Empowering HNV farmers
  • Addressing immediate issues
    • Basic payment rates
    • Identifying and/or rewarding active farming
    • Setting scheme rules and payment rates
  • Building trust and understanding
    • With conservation agencies
    • With policy makers
    • With the wider public
  • Addressing viability
    • Understanding the system
    • Designing on-farm actions
    • Calculating payments
    • Succession and retirement
    • Advice, facilitation and training
    • Collaboration between farming businesses
    • Wider community aspects


 
Logo Printversion EFNCP
European Forum on Nature Conservation and Pastoralism
Online: http://www.efncp.org/projects/united-kingdom/hnv_eng_wales/hnv-farming-northern-upland-chain/
Date: 2024/03/29
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