In Birmingham we may be forgiven for thinking that the uplands have little importance to the fortunes of our city.

Yet we secure our drinking water 75 miles away from Mid-Wales; we have major flood protection resources in the uplands which give birth to our rivers that flood after prolonged rain and there is food production. 

Furthermore how many of us escape to the uplands to walk, relax and enjoy our landscapes.

With Cannock Chase, the Staffordshire moorlands and Peak District, all within easy reach, these uplands play a key role in delivering sustainability. 

I have been the co-editor of a book about the Scottish uplands which I believe offers important lessons for us in here in the West Midlands as we pursue our narrative of sustainability. 

The mountains, moors and heaths of our uplands cover significant parts of the UK landscape.

Many are designated as national parks and Sites of Special Interest due to their natural beauty and biodiversity, but they are also important workplaces. 

Whilst ownership is complex involving many different landowners, uplands collectively provide vital environmental ‘services’ which benefit society; drinking water, flood protection, carbon sequestration, biodiversity, together with opportunities for recreation. 

Ultimately, decisions about the sustainable management and delivery of these services are driven by the governance frameworks, the motivations and aspirations of land managers and the extensive range of agri-environment schemes and wider rural development incentives. 

The book focuses on three main themes.

• private landownership: informed by detailed investigations on 6 upland estates and a survey of 60 private estates covering 548,000 hectares (or 1.3 million acres) of the Scottish uplands..

• community landownership: looking at the impacts, processes and experiences of people living and working on four community owned estates.

• developing a sustainability tool for the owners and managers of upland estates.

The book is a collaboration involving a diverse mix of rural researchers, each bringing their particular lens into a complex problem. Set within 4 PhDs funded by Henry Angest, this research has been condensed into a volume that can help inform those who are interested in land management and planning globally. 

I have modified the key findings for those of us who are engaged in the management of the built and natural environment in the West Midlands. 

1. a ‘proactive’ visionary approach to land  management is crucial for sustainability. The presence of a visible, involved landowner is crucial for developing successful partnerships.

This creates an opportunity to manage land for public as well as private benefit, using novel approaches to reflect particular geographical, environmental, economic and social strengths. However management of this kind costs money and should be incentivised in some way by government agencies.

2.   Land needs to be managed for the long-term. This poses considerable challenges with short-term political and economic imperatives. Here landscape -scale plans based on evidence and collaboration are more likely to deliver both public and private goals for the long-term overcoming disintegrated policies and decisions that increasingly feature.

3. We need to maximise connections between and beyond uplands across to neighbouring cities and towns in order to avoid the dangers of disintegrated management of the natural and built environments. Uplands are not islands but a piece of a complex jigsaw contributing multiple benefits to society within a wider landscape scale-picture.

There is a need for effective partnerships across business, community and environmental domains to maximise this.  Cultural and socio-political factors are often the greatest barriers to collaborative management, and increased willingness to share decisions is needed for effective change management. Here planning interventions must recognise the linkages between uplands and cities in order to maximise multiple benefits. 

4. There is a virtuous circle of community engagement and collaboration evident within new reconstructions of sustainability. Positive relationships and mutually acceptable outcomes tend to occur when communities are actively involved in upland management moving away from paternalistic roles.

However, conflict is a fact of life in dealing with the upland management; the key was how that conflict was managed. Here, the importance of leadership and transparency in decision-making was key within new narratives of sustainability based on shared visions. Such engagement activities have the potential to deliver real value for money (and effort) in the long term by developing social capital and wider community understanding.

However, power imbalances remain a fundamental constraint on the success of partnership working between upland communities, and there is potential to consider how continued dialogue could be sensitively facilitated.

So in conclusion Birmingham and the West Midlands are inextricably linked to uplands so the separate treatment of city and countryside is unhelpful and dangerous.

In addition, the innovation in upland management thinking has direct relevance to the way we manage the West Midlands.

  • 'Lairds, Land and Sustainability: Scottish perspectives on upland management'
    J Glass, M Price, C Warren and AJ Scott (eds) 2013
    Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.