RELU PEOPLE AND THE RURAL ENVIRONMENT FORUM

Outline of the ‘UK’ Report:

Securing ‘Total Land Management’:

Issues for Policy and Research from the RELU programme

Dr Alan Woods

RELU Land Use Policy Analyst

How has this report come about?• Two analysts funded to identify lessons and challenges for policy

emerging from selected RELU projects.

• The process - Discussion Paper, Project Tour, Land Use debate, Challenge paper, meetings with the ‘Policy community’.

• Two independent reports for the UK (AW) and Scotland (VS).

Who is this report for and what is it trying to achieve?• A contribution to the policy debate – not an academic treatise.

• RELU projects provide the starting point.

• For the ‘Policy community’ the report illuminates challenges from RELU research and provides a route-map.

• For researchers the report shows how research can assist the policy community, and flags up current questions.

• For funders, the report identifies issues for future consideration.

• The contribution to ‘knowledge exchange’ is also being assessed.

1. INTRODUCTION

2. THE CHALLENGE: SECURING ‘TLM’The context for UK land use• Global economy, Climate change, Development goals.

• The market - and market failure in delivery of some land services.

• Enduring private and public property rights and responsibilities.

• The need for long-term thinking - on inter-generational scales.

• Technological change and innovation in land management.

• UK strategic approaches to land use.

A view of the land-use challenge• ‘Total Land Management’ (TLM) - ‘taking an integrated approach to

realise the potential of land to deliver a range of services to society in ways which are both effective and economically efficient’.

• TLM embraces all society’s interests in land at all spatial scales

• TLM recognises all land services as legitimate – and so too must decision-support tools, policy mechanisms, and policies.

• TLM is about ‘multifunctionality’ – but with priorities and trade-offs.

• For any area of land, TLM means identifying potential, deciding which services are required, and using policy mechanisms to secure them.

TLM requires better understanding of the potential of land• RELU projects help us understand better:

• What range of services could be provided and how they interact.

• How land management practices impact on different services.

• The extent to which services can be provided as co-products.

• The points at which trade-offs between services have to be made.

• That we need new measures for services – not just for commodities.

TLM requires better understanding of how services are valued• Current policy reflects the diverse values placed by society on land

services via regulation, and incentives.

• RELU projects are collecting opinions/preferences about land services. Some are placing comparable values on different services.

• This work contributes to the continuing debate about how much weight should be given to different services.

• Do we need to do more to understand what is distinctive about the land services which can be provided in different parts of the UK?

3. HOW TO SET OBJECTIVES FOR ‘TLM’?

TLM challenges the spatial and temporal scale of planning• RELU projects are illuminating scale issues - spatial and temporal.

• Different spatial scales are relevant for planning and securing the delivery of different services.

• Whatever the ideal spatial scale for setting objectives, in our current property rights framework, delivery takes place essentially at the scale of the land-holding (a ‘house with land’, a farm, or an estate).

• Where objectives cannot be delivered at a land-holding scale alone, society will need to encourage concerted action (e.g. via formal designations, targeted initiatives, or new mechanisms).

• Legislation is stretching our timescales for planning (e.g. Water Framework Directive and Climate Change Bill). Some estates have their objectives firmly fixed on the generation after next.

• Yet most policy mechanisms guarantee delivery of services only 5 or 10 years ahead. Do we need new mechanisms to secure the public interest in land services over several decades – or in perpetuity?

3. SETTING OBJECTIVES - CONTINUED

How to make the right decisions?• Identifying the potential for land to deliver different services is

essentially a technical exercise. Determining priorities - which services should actually be delivered on any one area - is quite another matter.

• Decisions are the sum of interactions between the market, national policy, the land manager, and a wide range of people with influence.

• Decisions are often contested - land managers say their freedom to exercise property rights is infringed, NGOs that land managers are not being adequately encouraged, or required, to deliver specific services.

• Priorities will alter over time, in response to new pressures (e.g. should we invest in food production - given population growth, biofuels?)

• Equally, it will often be possible to argue that a particular service would be delivered more effectively elsewhere (e.g. ‘my land should be safeguarded for food production - not flood protection’).

• RELU projects are showing how decisions about priorities are managed, or could be managed better through new governance arrangements.

4. HOW TO GOVERN ‘TLM’?

Who should be involved in decisions about land services and how?• RELU projects are considering who to involve in decisions about land

services, alongside land managers. The projects are:

• Underlining the value of dialogue, involvement and collaboration.

• Illuminating who the actors are and their motivations.

• Involving people with local knowledge and/or expertise.

• Emphasising the heterogeneity of land managers.

• Considering who best to involve at what spatial scale.

• Improving understanding of the issues among actors.

• Suggesting a role for practical toolkits for engagement.

• Bottom-up, inclusive, local-community-led approaches are widely favoured but may be at odds with current top-down exclusive models.

• Sharing experience of the institutional arrangements (both across the UK and internationally) may be helpful.

• Should there be a stronger role for setting objectives for land services at regional/territorial levels (as part of strategic planning initiatives)?

4. GOVERNING ‘TLM’ - CONTINUED

What policy mechanisms and tools are available?• The mechanisms include: providing information, advice, and training;

capacity-building; voluntary agreements; regulation; economic instruments; and creating new markets.

• Tools include: using appraisal approaches, spatial technology (GIS) applications, scenarios, indicators, multi-criteria analysis.

• NGOs can contribute (e.g. NT policy work, RSPB advisory services).

How could the mechanisms and tools be better deployed?• Challenges for the policy community include:

• Securing guaranteed delivery of land services over time-scales of >5 years (e.g. covenants, sale-and-leaseback, public ownership?)

• Taking action today to minimise costs for future generations.

• Fostering concerted action between land managers where services need to be delivered at a scale beyond that of individual holdings.

• Costing incentives for providing land services.

• Integrating approaches to policy mechanisms to maximise synergies.

5. HOW TO DELIVER ‘TLM’?