europeantrees

Terroir is a French word that has been subject to much abuse by the English speaking world. It is often limited to the speech of wine enthusiasts, where its meaning is severely restricted to this one product of the land. Look beyond the confines of this purposefully pompous use and terroir can lead to an understanding of the interconnected landscape and help towards establishing real sustainable development.

Terroir existed and still does exist in pockets of the British rural landscape. It is the antithesis of modern land management as defined by the NFU, CLA and a host of other large mainstream UK lobbyists. And if embraced again in Britain and elsewhere would strike fear into the heart of Monsanto, Bayer and many other multi national corporations, particularly the food industry.

Terroir has been translated as meaning a sense of place and certainly it ties in with more modern concepts of landscape that cross the boundaries between Art and land management planning. But it is much more about the sense of taste. The French really do know about taste and celebrate it, live for it and terroir is in reality little more than the reason behind that taste.

Any ambiguity surrounding the English definition of terroir is because of the fact that there is a complexity of natural and managed elements within a landscape that are interconnected and which together create something tangible to human beings not just living there, but abroad that can be found in the taste of both wild and farmed food.

The geology, topography, vegetation, elevation, biodiversity, geography (including human), water cycle, climate, archaeology, cultural heritage, agriculture, forestry and most importantly soil in a particular location have an effect on what can be produced in that location. ‘Paysage’, the literal translation of ‘Landscape’ is what you can see resulting from this – ‘Terroir’ with no translation is what you can taste.

Any and all changes which affect any of the above in a location are thus only carried out after scrutiny of the science. If the science changes the French are often amongst the first to adopt a precautionary principle and ban. The installation of terroir into the culture helps as a highly effective buffer against biodiversity decline. However there is considerable pressure and financial incentives upon the French agricultural community by lobbyists to adopt practice designed by multinational corporations, a process which has been perpetuated by CAP.

Terroir is threatened by globalisation and trans-boundary policy making particularly by the EU – yet paradoxically is also aided by EU recognition of regional produce.

Imitating the produce of a location and producing it in another location, often in another country lowers the quality and the price – devaluing the original landscape (as well as reducing that imitating location’s ability to produce its own high quality product). When the French demand that imitation products cannot share the name of their location, this is because of terroir – how can you call a fizzy wine made in Spain, Bulgaria or England champagne?  Doing so defies the real logic of terroir and confuses every French person who has grown up comfortable with this word. When other countries demand protection of a product’s name linked to a geographical location it is usually solely due to economic protectionism.

Taste is vitally important if the non French speaking world are to broaden their horizons with the economic potential of a location. Why call a cheese made in the same way as that in the village of Cheddar, yet produced in North Yorkshire ‘Cheddar’? It is not the same product. And instead of using ‘food science’ to manipulate the product to taste the same, why not celebrate the difference instead of spending vast quantities of money to outsell very high quality ‘farm’ produced cheeses which have a unique taste and have chosen to celebrate the place it was made by rightly naming the product from it.

One product that exemplifies terroir in the UK and enjoys large revenue and status is Whisky. Many distilleries are now owned by multi national corporations who actually use the highland identity – its terroir – to sell their goods.  Is corporate ownership and terroir incompatible? No – and in doing so you preserve by default the bottom line of sustainable development.

Terroir is what the English speaking world define, but rarely understand, as sustainable development but with added benefits, because the most important factor of terroir is that it ultimately results in pleasure.

Terroir is to enjoy Sustainable Development

Wild Boar in France are not an endangered species, their habitats face no immediate threat and their population remains relatively stable. But as trends in hunting have changed so has the woodland.

One big problem is that an increasing amount of hunting terrain is managed for the ‘tourist hunter’. These hunts are more often on sites of ancient semi natural woodland historically. But the management to ensure a lack of disappointment for a Parisien businessman paying considerable money has altered the woodland to a state that resembles a badly maintained zoo enclosure

 My son calls such woodlandscape ‘Africa’ and it is easy to see why. Large patches of a woodland, up to 2 ha are fenced in by camouflaged netting and the Boar are fed daily at carefully defined feeding points close to the comfortable high chairs used by the hunters.

The bored Boar have little space to migrate in and subsequently spend their days consolidating the soil and rooting out complete trees – particularly those of higher biodiversity value such as Oaks. The resulting canopied desert tends to be Sycamore dominated with absolutely no other ground flora or wildlife at all. The insect life tends to be solely mosquito’s and ticks.

Young Wild Boar – my apologies I am no Gordon Buchanan. 

Yet neighbouring woodland types, open and actually with a higher density of Boar per ha, do not suffer hardly any damage and yet are little more than scrub with standards. What is interesting is that the scrub is the favoured habitat for Boar and their activity is restrained almost in a way to ensure that damage is not just limited but actually managed, particularly surrounding their favourite wallow patches.

The Boar clearly manage open woodland to suit their lifestyle. When it is constrained the Boar manage the woodland to ensure a closed canopy where they are protected from the elements and in open areas they keep low scrub areas maintained to ensure   protection from not just the elements but to protect themselves from interfering humans.

Enter an area as in the above picture at your own peril.

Rio + 20 turned out to be much worse than anyone could have predicted. The slogan ‘The Future We Want’ is assured a place in history as a moment when the corporate world, its lobbyists and the politicians who are too lazy to look at the issues for themselves, may have succeeded in taking control of mainstream environmental process for global sustainability. But that vital social element intrinsically linked to environmental and economic sustainable progress was ignored to the extent that any mention of sustainable development at Rio was erroneous.

Proven in England’s NPPF debate was the fact that so many commentators from the corporate world and policy makers & shapers simply do not understand the most basic premise of Sustainable Development and assume it to mean sustained economic growth. This was clearly what many policy makers attending Rio+20 also assume.

It was a defining moment; it was the moment when two directions were born – theirs and ours. The future is not certain, although we know what they want, we do not know quite yet what will become the standard guidelines taken by us who clearly want a future that will actually be sustainable.

And is this division such a bad thing? As many governments across the globe have clearly spoken on behalf of lobbyists rather than their population is this not the time to simply progress towards true sustainability and ignore them, as they will us. The funding from their financial commitments will never ever be allowed to fall into the hands of those that actually understand or practice sustainability so why should we allow ourselves to be upset by this.

The Uruguayian President, Jose Mujic, made a speech which whilst receiving a feeble splatter of hand clapping at Rio + 20, was perhaps the only speech worthy of further publicity:

“Development cannot fly in the face of happiness, it should promote human happiness, love, human relations, relationships between parents, children and friends is the most important treasure we have in life and when we fight for the environment the first element of environment is human happiness”

The starting block in realising sustainable development when taking proper account of the social element are communities in their landscape, wherever in the world that may be. And it is or should be embarrassing that western democracies cannot grasp the very simple fact that those fighting to protect their rights to live a happy lifestyle in their landscape, without the burdens of the inflicted addiction caused by over consumption, may be perfectly comfortable in their landscapes so long as it isn’t at risk from being removed from them by those wishing to offset their guilty conscience.

And there is a rapidly growing movement in the landscapes of western countries that is also very much at odds with the chosen direction of policy makers through what they have been fed by their more powerful lobbyists. The problem for them is that it is not a small band of hippies – a possible risk of some activists climbing a tree, but a core group of public, practitioners and professionals from all backgrounds, political leanings or none at all but who either have continued with sustainable development since before the first attempts at explaining it to policy makers, or have come into it subsequently through seeking a lifestyle to improve the well being of themselves, their families and their wider community.

Are they really going to stand back and watch the celebrations of their efforts branded with corporate logos? Absolutely not. Without clear commitment to help towards a map to help people in making the decisions for their landscapes themselves, what else can be expected but what policy makers and developers would label Nimbyism.

The abyss created between communities in their place and the corporate world by the feeble ‘Future We Want’ text at Rio+20 relinquishes any duty from our policy makers in producing effective policy making with regards sustainable development. But unfortunately they will only do the right thing in these times of austerity and back off when the last of the money committed by corporations has been used up – but this won’t take long as the PR and media army is a hungry army.

The concept of ‘green and blue tramways’ is popular across Europe, but missing from the UK – where the green and blue ‘corridors’ are provided by hedgerows, verges and canals. This separating of such corridors into their respective functions, even if now redundant in terms of human use, is detrimental to the perception of the nature that colonises all these areas, it becomes fragmented and thus more easily abused by misguided (and too close to be potentially illegal for comfort) activity. As is seen by the frankly inexplicable actions by Network Rail, which just don’t seem to make any sense; the description of a ‘scorched earth’ policy by the Tree Savers of Whitstable is sadly the only explanation of their policy which fits.

The importance and value of these corridors in both biodiversity and wider landscape terms is not lost on many planners working in the UK and abroad and the study of infrastructure against nature is largely balanced in favour of nature, perhaps too much in some other countries – as anyone driving on the périphérique around Paris can easily see in places as the rapid succession of naturalised (often non native invasive species) vegetation destroys some infrastructure as well as ensuring regular traffic jams due to fallen tree limbs.

Many years ago I remember a talk on road and rail verges advocating their potential as a sustainable source of biomass by short rotation coppice, with a very handy adjacent extraction route. The idea was instantly trashed by forestry peers stating that the public, who struggle with the clear felling of remote plantations, would simply not tolerate such practice – biodiversity would also need a refuge, fingers of green space to which to retreat during times of cyclical harvesting, which are clearly not spared by the Network rail lineside vegetation management system, which seems to have no defined buffer zone and removes vegetation at a considerable distance away from the tracks and underlying infrastructure.

Railways are one of the very few pan-international habitats. Case study is available from across the world and therefore all global engineering (and wider) research with regards lineside vegetation management is viable and should be considered.

But Network Rail appear to have a unique and incompatible lineside management regime with all other case study, even at odds with research and guidelines produced in the UK .  And when climate change threatens this valuable and most sustainable of transport infrastructure the current perceived vegetation management policy is also seemingly at odds with the recommendations (back in 2003) which not only call for further research but stress the importance of maintaining embankment vegetation for long term safety purposes.

The costs of large scale mechanical clearance because of a failure to apply consistent sensitive and targeted vegetation management rise even further when it is decided to ignore the potential consequences of such work carried out at a time of year contrary to all guidance in reference to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (and in particular the amendment to this act in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, where the new offence of ‘reckless’ disturbance is introduced) as well as the huge loss of ecosystem services values. Add to this the cost of protest – halted work, last minute negotiations and subsequent need to pay for external independent ecological surveys and one wonders how Network Rail can justify the costs of such an approach to themselves let alone the taxpayers (although they clearly spend no money in PR in this regard).

And in a year when high visitor numbers are expected to visit an Olympic ceremony celebrating the British landscape the nearest potential visible vestiges of this rich, green and pleasant land – railway verges, will be noticeably devoid of anything green or pleasant leaving many tourists to believe that such a landscape is as mythical as some of the stories born out of it.

Where do the large containers filled with the wood chippings of the current favoured management regimes of Network Rail go. ‘An area the size of the Forest of Dean’ chipped and simply going to waste is a monumental financial waste also, a mammoth missed opportunity, albeit based on what any forester would consider a non sustainable management system when looking at the protestors photos and videos of the resulting land after the preferred system of management currently used by Network rail is carried out.

Community is the solution

All the talk of rights for indigenous people across all continents is as relevant in all European countries, (including the UK, arguably the first to reach the unenviable position of having reached the stage where it must adopt real and sustainable development in order to not only produce a tangible case study but also for its very survival in a world of land grabbing and rapidly diminishing biodiversity).

All communities living in their landscapes are disenfranchised and the situation is getting worse.

The UK has per head of population invested more than any other country into its natural environment, without huge success. The NGOs and Quangos have profited from this but they now need to live up to their responsibilities and work alongside communities, including the practitioners with the answers within those communities.

Communities are the customer and producer in the economics of sustainable development.

Legislation should be simple; ban the imports of illegal or unsustainable timber. Do not try and impose further restrictions on elements within a landscape or further fragment other landscapes by disproportionate funding.

A transient population, one that is still fixated on moving towards financial centres, is at odds with long term sustainable development.

Offsetting, be it carbon or biodiversity or any other similar notion, accelerate and perpetuate such population movements.

People who live in their landscapes, know their landscapes.

Forestry, Agriculture, Arboriculture and even some elements of Landscaping & Construction can only progress sustainably by combining traditional knowledge with innovation, to install policy without the input of those in a community in a landscape working with land and development is to halt the progress of engineering, research, science and therefore sustainable development.

We need to change the existing notion of stakeholders and introduce the real stakeholders, the people in a landscape, at every level and from the start – if started already without public input, then start again.

To do otherwise as is happening at present is to perpetuate the arrogant and wrong notion that ‘the people are stupid’ – which many freely admit to thinking.

The valuation of the natural elements of a landscape go well beyond the limitations of ecosystem services into the intangible, into the realm we just don’t know enough about. This is science and the present situation is one where governments can decide the science is wrong, if they wish to is very dangerous. Science should define the policy.

To take one element of a landscape, one of the largest and most significant elements because the supply of the air we breathe depends on its existence – A tree:

There are several real methods of valuing a tree or a forest. These methods are varied and interchangeable to suit what we need to ascertain. But all of those involved in different tree valuations are unanimous in that the values are not necessarily the true value of that tree, (the scientist within). But such values are always higher than those attributable by carbon offset alone.

And in taking a tree, the largest living organism ever to exist on the planet, which is almost pure carbon and an invaluable material for the widest needs of human beings and fixing a value only based on offsetting carbon is ignoring the proven and more importantly the unproven attributes the existence of that tree has.

If we want to tackle the carbon issue properly, we can do so in parallel with helping to reclaim degraded land and make it suitable for agriculture as well as ensuring that carbon storage for business only has to be offset just outside the windows of the majority of the population into the green space and landscaped parks of our towns and cities. We need to look at soil.

A healthy soil is one that is full of carbon and full of biodiversity that provides the base of a larger ecosystem that we can see and admire, not least trees and forests which are so intertwined with soil to make it impossible to separate tree from soil.

The French talk of terroir, the lack of a decent translation of is a serious and regressive blow for the English speaking world, is the taste we can gain from a landscape. All natural elements in a landscape add to this taste, trees, humans, rivers, rocks etc,. This could be the basis for a new landscape economy, probably the most viable and palatable case study for sustainable development that exists.

Trotting off to Rio with a briefcase full of ill though out, un-researched think tank blurb to forward on is not the answer.

Get back to your community, your landscape and listen to those that know how to dig and get digging yourself and at the end of the day sit back and taste the drink and food of your landscape. Further buy and sell the drink and food of other landscapes. Enjoy sustainable development, it’s wonderful (but can give you a hangover if not taken in moderation) and you can now also use the internet and watch communities around the world doing exactly the same thing.   

“Think globally, act globally, think locally and act locally”

Maywood copyright of Ginny Batson
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ginbatt/sets/72157626225987200/

Understanding the value of natural elements in a landscape, means understanding the role of those who work in it.

Ecosystem Services has introduced a monetary value that is a simple new way of thinking, a way of talking in the same language of the financial world using their terms. A platform to discuss why it is important to protect the remaining vestiges of the natural world as a resource for human’s continued existence.  It was a method of explaining to the financially minded the basic ethos of sustainable development and its connection with working with biodiversity and natural elements in the landscape.

The trouble is, as so well proven in the UK’s debate surrounding the new ‘National Planning Policy Framework’ that many , many people had come to accept sustainable development as meaning ‘sustained economic development’. At the same time the UK government choose to dive head first into the economics of biodiversity at the deep end.

Many scratched their heads at the disparity of rolling out ecosystem services by way of the very progressive UKNEA against the new planning rules, when finally published. To those working in land management and settling down to the comfortable and all encompassing landscape approach to sustainable development such policy meanderings were more than confusing, they were potentially dangerous. But conservationists, particularly those in UK corporate NGOs were assured, victories were claimed.

The social aspect of sustainable development had been thrown away. In its place the fourth pillar, rarely acknowledged before in the UK the ‘Cultural’ pillar had been introduced not only in place of the social, but stealing this title also. The think tanks rushed off to discover all they could about heritage.

Did a ‘localism’ agenda and the ‘Big Society’ initiative highlight a potentially catastrophic future to corporate NGOs? The realities of sustainable development in place in all landscapes would, could break the fragmentation of habitats and empower those who can provide an economic stability location by location (The farmers, foresters, landscapers, others with traditional skills and knowledge, and most importantly the general public) this doesn’t sit well with concentrated efforts solely on precious habitat and profiting from a volunteer workforce.

Suddenly and silently ‘engagement with people’ disappeared as an essential from policy pdf’s influenced by corporate NGO lobbying into a consideration –a large step backwards.  

The argument that the UK corporate NGOs can speak on behalf of the people is hard to criticise and an understandable stance to take, it can help in looking out for stray policy and thus highlight to people as and when protest is needed. But it still ignores what people and practitioners know in their place. The landscape approach (firmly in the hands of a growing independent movement utilising the web as its face and gaining credence because it talks the language many public relate to) sits well with an ecosystem services approach but it is at juxtaposition with the governmental direction.

Trying to straddle the two concepts of a ‘green economy’ based purely on values ascertained by ecosystem services and real sustainable development based on a combined landscape and ecosystems services approach has been hard for some organisations and there is now floating about the ether much nonsensical NGO speak, struggling to justify a stance and trying to cater for both.

The real values get distorted in NGO PR speak and this only fuels a rising sceptical public opinion of what these values can do, for example: ‘Trees raise house prices’ – this is true but doesn’t even touch on what the true value of a tree is. In fact it is counter productive because tree valuation systems are much more precise and better defined than the silly and non professional system of property valuation that had helped in creating the worldwide economic crisis we are in now.

And how can you on the one hand shout for extra tree protection by legislation, even on occasion using the sad truth to bolster your argument that many councils fell trees without remorse (whilst in truth it is due to the huge costs of litigation should something go wrong) ignoring the fact that the councils’ cannot afford to replant, and then also state that trees raise house prices! This makes no sense as the over protection of trees and the removal of responsibility by the councils will turn people away from tree planting. There is far too much ill thought out publicity re trees, which highlight nothing more than an almost callous attempt to hoover the donations of concerned public, which in turn further decreases potential funding for re planting. This is further compounded by the fact that the true tree valuation systems that exist; Helliwell, CAVAT, CTLA and even iTrees, can help in providing a real source of money to councils to charge for damage and wilful destruction of trees (a working model of a viable mitigation system).

This continual demonising of a model that is not perfect but is better than any alternative on offer is potentially a very damaging own goal to those who are trying to straddle all issues with trees to gain funding because whilst we sit in the sandbox waiting for carbon and biodiversity offsetting to fail, which it will – but will take a long time before failure is accepted, we will see a steady decline in the health and number of trees; be they non woodland, forest or ancient woodland trees, and this will be a fact hard to shake association with off when displaying a banner of being the leading or even just a player in the conservation, planting and protection of trees.

And as the UK continues to be as vain as it is in believing itself to be a valuable case study in terms of land management and biodiversity particularly with regards offsetting there is a risk that other countries will be fooled into believing those in charge at this brief moment in time of that utopian rural landscape seen on biscuit tins. Of course in reality it was centuries of work by land management practitioners, working in their landscapes who had succeeded in creating this serene sustainable scene and forgetting their role is as fatal to real sustainable development progression as ignoring the rights of indigenous people across the globe.

Sustainable Development NOT ‘Green Economy‘

In Rio 1992 a clear message was given to countries with the advanced technology and highest GDP at the time by developing nations along the lines of ‘You have failed to sustainably protect your own natural resources, you have deforested and been unable to halt biodiversity losses, why should we listen to you telling us to protect what we have when we have a higher population to feed and wealth is still the only proven method to do this.’

Various initiatives loosely based on sustainable development and protecting biodiversity were subsequently tested and after 20 years very little success is evident, and the most successful are hidden away because they do not make vast sums of money suddenly appear in the trading centres. So what is to be placed on the table now – the ingredients to making that money appear – a new ‘green economy’, or GDP+ as Spelman likes to call it. And this time round it has the endorsement of many of the NGOs who sat in the fringe discussions or were outside waving banners 20 years ago.

Carbon trading is clearly not working, but it will continue to be touted because the corporate NGOs, unlike businesses and even policy makers, can re sell a dead horse again and again and still profit.

My use of corporate NGO here is important if we are to protest against offsetting as there has to be a distinction made between the three main types of NGOs in the arena. There is a huge difference between the majority of small NGOs that get on with what they do and the ‘Corporate NGO’, whose existence and complicity with policy making and businesses needs a new tier of small NGOs dedicated in watching them.

For example take the International Tree Foundation, one of the oldest NGOs dedicated to trees and sustainable forestry in the world. They have always and continue to help people in their place grow trees for a localised purpose and this has a huge knock on in progressing real local sustainable development. Because people, whether a farming community in rural Africa or a Village school committee in England, invariably know exactly what the issues are in that locality, the initiatives are tailoured and precise with an injection of money paying towards tools, trees and help in getting an existing community going forward on a sustainable track.

Now take the WWF, a powerful and wealthy organisation, one that has embraced the ideals of REDD+ and of believing that empowerment is through greater financial control in the hands of large environmental NGOs, without accreditation but manipulating certification. But money cannot make an instant community. Money corrupts, it always will and the more money there is the bigger the corruption to the extent of even creating pseudo communities just to get hands on the cash.

The former is Sustainable Development, the latter Green Economy.

The proposed ‘green economy’ to be sold at Rio +20 is based on arrogance, on a basic assumption that local people are incapable of managing their own resources. The NGOs and Think Tanks have led policy makers towards a utopian vision of trading the carbon and now the biodiversity of a specific location into a wider international economy.

This is not about rewarding a community for what they have in their landscape; the carbon or biodiversity which communities from the green belt of London to an Indigenous tribe in the Amazonian have protected or maintained, but is to take this carbon or biodiversity pool, sell it’s existence and give them a little something back in return. Money for an immeasurable resource to be used as an incentive for companies to more than wash away any guilty conscience but to actually believe they are philanthropists.

Biodiversity offsetting is a means for a developer to buy off community protest about the destruction of a habitat through payment to a corporate NGO, allowing the company to consolidate funding a social aspect of Sustainable Development, (tax relief partnering with an NGO), with funding planning gains  

So the community loses local habitat that may also be vital green space for wellbeing as well as biodiversity, the council loses out also with reduced potential funding for local community needs and the developer loses out by allowing the sale of something no scientist on the planet can truly define.

We haven’t yet fully investigated the links to biodiversity and carbon, particularly in soils, we really don’t know what is to be traded and science is far from adequately funded to provide the answer anytime soon. Combined with the malfeasance of PR or thinktanks ‘translating’ their own (often bizarre) take on research secured away from most of us behind pay walls it all plays into the hands of lobbyists who can say what they want with no consequence.

The ‘green’ economy is coming, but forget the sustainable or environmental definition of green and choose one or all of the following more fitting definitions.

‘not fully developed or perfected in growth or condition; unripe; not properly aged’

‘simple; unsophisticated; gullible; easily fooled’.

‘having a sickly appearance; pale; wan’

This deviation from the road towards real Sustainable Development is purely because of money and the fear upon the realisation that true SD comes from a bottom up approach. It starts in a location, with the people in that location and the empowerment of a local economy. It can start with the most valuable and essential asset in that location, the soils and the trees that soil can grow.