Keeper of the countryside

Protect and prosper! No, not another Vulcan greeting from Mr Spock of Star Trek fame, but the mantra of Wilf Fenten, a Dales resident who for decades has been a tireless campaigner in protecting the landscape so that visitors and locals can all benefit.

You might wonder what areas in Provence, Ukraine and Spain have to do with the Yorkshire Dales but the answer is that they too are faced with the pressing conundrum of balancing visitor numbers with the impact that has on a sensitive landscape.

Wilf has seen first-hand what we can learn from our European neighbours and how they in turn can benefit from our own experiences. Wilf might at first seem an unlikely candidate to champion the cause of the Yorkshire Dales. Born in Germany, he came to London as a young man and embarked on a career as a translator but his enthusiasm for “green” issues was already coming to the fore.

“Whilst I was a translator, I very much trained myself in areas such as cultural heritage, landscape and conservation.”

During his time in London, he married Hilary, now a committee member of the Council for Protection for Rural England with particular responsibility for the environment of the National Park. Together with their two sons, family holidays were spent walking in the Dales and in 1989 they bought a 17th-century farmhouse in a hamlet on the outskirts of Horton-in-Ribblesdale.

“The boys had grown up and gone to university we felt it would be the time to move into the kind of landscape we liked,” explains Wilf.

In 1994, he became a member of Horton Parish Council. “That was tremendous, because although I wasn’t born in Yorkshire, parishioners felt they could elect me.” Two years later, in a hotly contested election, Wilf became a member of the National Park Authority and remained so until 2010.

“When we went to the hustings meeting, people asked me what I did for a living and at the time I was still a translator. Someone said ‘What sort of job is that?’ Then somebody else added ‘But he also keeps sheep’ so it was ‘Ah, he’s a smallholder’ – so that made it all right!”

Wilf was then in a position to make things happen… “When we moved to the Dales, we realised how much pressure there was on the landscape with sponsored walks and huge groups coming and ever-increasing use of the car by visitors.

“I’m not saying we should prevent visitors from coming but we must find ways of encouraging people much, much more strongly, to find other ways of coming to protected areas without their car or if they do come by car, leaving it at their hotel or B&B and moving around in different ways.

“I also felt something had to be done about the massive increase in the use of green lanes by 4x4s and motorbikes. I was appalled by the way they ploughed up our landscape.

“We pressed for some Traffic Regulation Orders which would close green lanes to off-roaders but not to farmers and those who needed to use it. I didn’t realise at the time that it would take probably 10 years.”

Wilf believes prevention is better than cure. “If mountain bikers or walkers damage the Dales, instead of simply restoring the damage we need look at different forms of tourism, which are kinder to the landscape, more responsible.”

Wilf realised that national parks all over the world were grappling with similar issues and when in 2005 there was the prospect of doing some work for the pan-European umbrella organisation, Europarc, for all national parks and nature parks in protected areas on a freelance basis, he grabbed the opportunity.

“Europarc had worked out some solutions which not only were good for the landscape but which really enhanced the economic and social benefits for people who live in the area.

“One example was in Provence where a group of protected areas got together and developed local produce. Their slogan is ‘Premium products for premium landscape’. Many of those products are a little more expensive than you’d find in your local supermarket but they are supreme products and people buy them for special occasions. The result was that some of the farmers who barely made a living are now much better off and can combine agriculture with tourism in agri-tourism.

“Our main office is in Bavaria but thanks to modern communication I’m very lucky in that I can work from home. There is a certain amount of travel but all our travel is project-related and has the aim to achieve the opposite, namely, reduce travel.

“At the moment, our greatest project is tackling mass tourism along the German and Dutch North Sea coast. The coastal area has just become a World Heritage Site of huge dimensions and people have suddenly become aware that they need to find a different kind of tourism.

“We have a team in the area working very hard to find better ways for visitors to enjoy themselves in the area, and that will be quite a challenge.”

Wilf cites another example from Europe: “There is a nature park near Barcelona called La Garrotxa. There they had a quarry on one side of a volcano which employed 18 people but it was doing tremendous damage to the landscape so the local authority bought the quarry and turned it into a geological nature park – it’s now employing over 80 people and people get there by an electric train so they don’t need to use their cars.

“They have two small restaurants nearby which only provide local food in season and it’s now become a pilgrimage for people who like good food.

“So what used to be a very rough area is now very well developed, it looks good and it also brings great social and economic benefits to all concerned.”

Hilary wholeheartedly supports Wilf’s endeavours and they are great devotees of energy conservation and renewable energies.

“For example,” says Wilf, “I would be totally opposed to large-scale wind farms in the Yorkshire Dales but I also realise that we must find other, better ways to promote renewable energy.

“I was involved in a great scheme for an anaerobic digester, a kind of biomass plant to generate electricity and heating in Langcliffe Quarry, simply from food waste and that would do no harm to the environment at all. So these are ways of being involved in greening the Dales.”

He also relates another success story close to home. “The Forest of Bowland next to the Yorkshire Dales, is an AONB, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It isn’t a national park, it is the equivalent of a nature park but they have raised the profile of their area and that of local businesses in the last five years in such a way it’s unbelievable.

“Years ago, only between 10 and 15 per cent of local businesses would promote themselves as being in the Forest of Bowland. They would say ‘We are the Gateway to the Dales’ or the ’Gateway to the Lake District’.

“Now over 90 per cent of all businesses promote themselves as being in the Forest of Bowland and there are lots of sustainable tourism projects. It’s absolutely brilliant and I think the whole of North Yorkshire could learn from that.”

Does Wilf have plans to put his feet up any time soon?

“On the contrary – what I’m doing is fantastically interesting and one can really do some very important work. If I go to a National Park on a business visit, I meet people who are the experts in their field. They show me fascinating things in the national parks which the ordinary tourist would never see.

“We were offered a project in western Ukraine, part of the Carpathian mountain range. We went into an area, where visitors are not allowed to go, to see virgin forest. I’d never seen virgin forest before. It was springtime, the beech was out, interspersed with wild cherry and fantastic conifers up to 150ft high. It was one of the most momentous experiences of seeing woodlands which had not been touched by human beings – ever. And I had the best interpreters of the landscape with me. So that was fantastic.

“At the same time, I came with a team who worked out a strategy for three national parks in Ukraine, about how these parks could best work for the next five years. So we were able to disseminate knowledge from the rest of Europe in an area which has to start from scratch after the fall of Communism. So you feel you’re doing something really worthwhile and enjoying yourself at the same time.”

Both Wilf and Hilary are adamant that visitors to the Dales need to become more involved.

“As a practical example, the German section of the Europarc Federation has just developed a video game for young people which has been an absolute hit. People can download the guide book which enables them to take part in special tasks in the National Park. They also have what’s called a Junior Ranger programme in Germany, Austria and France and that’s been a success. When those young people come to national parks they can then teach their parents what to look out for. That’s a fantastic approach.”

Wilf is the first to admit that protecting the landscape never comes cheap… “It always needs money but we must get away from the idea that that money is a cost – that money is an investment. You would not think twice about councils investing in facilities such as car parking, waste disposal, road building and so on but we also need to invest in green infrastructure. Unless we do that, we will not protect our landscapes in the long run.”

“I certainly would like to see many more Charter Parks.” These are parks which have been awarded the prestigious European Charter for Sustainable Tourism.

“We have a slogan ‘Protect and prosper’. We’ve learned all over Europe that protecting a landscape means, if intelligently used, local people prosper and visitors enjoy the area more. What more can you ask for?”