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Thesis-Full-V5-Viva-Corrections Stakeholder narratives of Dartmoor’s Commons: tradition and the search for consensus in a time of change Stories from Dartmoor - hill-farming, wildlife, peatlands, historic landscapes and re-wilding: whither the Commons? Adrian Colston PhD Thesis The Centre for Rural Policy Research University of Exeter April 2021 Stakeholder attitudes to the narratives of the Dartmoor Commons: tradition and the search for consensus in a time of change. Volume 1 of 1 Submitted by Adrian Colston to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Politics In April 2021 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: ………………………………………………………… i ii Traditions which appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented. Hobsbawm (1983) The time of the Elves is over – my people are leaving these shores. Who will you look to when we’ve gone? The Dwarves? They hide in their mountains seeking riches – they care nothing for the troubles of others. Elrond Tolkien (1956) Dartmoor’s surviving commoners are already the beneficiaries of the dissolution of the rights of others. As such, it is perfectly reasonable to ask whether year-around grazing with Scottish Blackface sheep or Galloway cattle on Dartmoor is in any meaningful sense traditional. Kelly (2017) Those traditional cattle enhanced the land in a most astonishing way because of their non-specialised grazing ……. This kind of grazing on extensive pastures, near enough replicating that of aurochs, was very sympathetic with nature and enhanced biodiversity wonderfully. Dennis (2020) The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realise that he is taking over the wolf’s job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence, we have dustbowls and rivers washing the future into the sea. Leopold (1949) The number of sheep thus summered and kept the year round upon the forest of Dartmoor, the depasturable parts of which, in a dry summer, is one of the best sheep-walks in the kingdom, is not easy to ascertain; but if any inference can be drawn from the returns made from Widdicombe and Buckland in the Moor, their numbers must necessarily be very considerable indeed. Vancouver (1808) Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill. Gandalf. Tolkien (1954) By now the creaturely world is absolutely at the mercy of industrial processes, which are doing massive ecological damage. How much this may be repairable by economic and cultural changes remains to be seen. Berry (2017) .. the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life… The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us… If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. Churchill (1940) The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose off the common But leaves the greater villain loose Who steals the common from the goose. 17th century folk poem My culture – and never doubt for a moment that you’re going to be hearing a lot more about my indigenous and cultural rights, predates the artificial boundaries of the National Park. Coaker (2017) I’m not from that very narrow group of local families that make up the hill-farming patriarchy of Dartmoor A Dartmoor hill-farmer Yes there has been overgrazing, but … the environmentalists have lost more than we ever did. Another Dartmoor hill-farmer Dartmoor takes its rent. Scratch Dartmoor’s back and it will pick your pockets. A Dartmoor hill-farmers’ expression Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens. Gimli. Tolkien (1954) iii iv Contents Declaration i Quotes iii Acknowledgements xiii Glossary xv Abstract xvii 1. Setting the scene 1 1.1. Preamble 1 1.2. Research Questions 5 1.3. Dartmoor 5 1.4. Giving Dartmoor’s wildlife a bit of context 7 1.5. Commons and conflict 8 1.6. The Commons of Dartmoor, their traditions and the hill-farming 9 culture 1.6.1. The History of Commons 9 1.6.1.1. The Medieval Period 11 1.6.1.2. Improvement and Enclosures 11 1.6.1.3. Productivity and Wilderness 12 1.6.2. Agriculture and the environment post 1945 13 1.6.2.1. The age of Productivism 13 1.6.2.2. The era of Environmentalism 13 1.6.3. The Governance of the Commons in the 20th and 21st 14 centuries 1.6.4. Changes over time in traditions and customs 16 1.6.5. Culture 18 1.6.6. The economics of hill-farming on Dartmoor 20 1.7. Concluding remarks 22 2. Dartmoor’s environmental context - the basis for the narratives 23 2.1. Introduction 23 2.2. Conflict and the natural environment 24 2.2.1. Sheep and cattle numbers in the 20th and 21st centuries 24 2.2.2. Sward burning on Dartmoor 26 2.2.3. The impacts of increased grazing levels during the 20th 27 century 2.2.3.1. Impacts on heather 28 2.2.3.2 The science behind the search for sustainable 29 grazing levels. 2.2.3.3. The spread of Molinia 33 2.2.4. Favourable condition 35 2.2.5. Concluding remarks on grazing and the natural 36 environment 2.3. The impacts of atmospheric pollution 37 2.3.1. Nitrogen pollution 37 2.3.2. Concluding remarks on atmospheric pollution. 43 2.4. The ecological impact on the Historic Environment 43 2.5. Rewetting the Mires 45 2.6. Conflicts around re-wilding 46 2.6.1. Re-wilding and Dartmoor 49 v 2.7. Conflicts from the Anthropocene - climate change 50 2.8. Concluding Remarks 53 3. Methodology 55 3.1. Introduction 55 3.2. A Qualitative Approach 57 3.2.1. Introduction 57 3.2.2. Interviews and interviewees 57 3.2.2.1. Introduction 57 3.2.2.2. The Sampling of Interviewees – non hill- 58 farmers 3.2.2.3. The Sampling of Interviewees: hill-farmers 59 3.2.2.4 Interview guides 60 3.2.2.5. Field visits 62 3.2.3. Case Study – Molland Moor, Exmoor 63 3.2.4. Analysis 63 3.4. The use of narrative in the social sciences 64 3.5. Introducing Policy Narratives 66 3.5.1. Introduction 66 3.5.2 Narrative Policy Analysis 67 3.5.3. The Narrative Policy Framework 69 3.5.4. Making use of the micro- and meso-level hypotheses 73 on Dartmoor 3.6. Concluding remarks 74 4. The Era of Headage Payments: 1973- 1994. The Over-grazing Narrative 75 emerges 4.1. Introduction 75 4.2. Hill-farmers’ views on the impact of the headage days on the 77 moor 4.2.1. Overgrazing 77 4.2.2. Fighting for lears 80 4.2.3. Swaling 80 4.3. The drivers of the headage payment problems 81 4.3.1. Headage payments led to more animals on the 81 Commons 4.3.2. Increasing numbers and winter feeding 82 4.3.3. The use of less hardy and bigger breeds of cattle 83 4.3.4. The Commons were used as a ‘dumping ground’ for 83 stock. 4.4. The farming system on the Commons during the headage days 84 4.5. Conservationists’ views on the impact of headage payments on 86 the moor 4.6. Hydrological perspectives on the headage era on the Commons 88 4.7. Archaeologists’ views on the impact of the headage days on the 89 moor vi 4.8. Into the ESA 90 4.9. Changes to hill-farming: cutting numbers and stopping 93 overwintering 4.10. Cutting the cake: arguing about the money 95 4.11. The clashing of cultures: scientific knowledge and local 96 knowledge 4.12. Concluding remarks 98 5. The agricultural impacts of the agri-environment schemes: 1994 to 101 present 5.1. Introduction 101 5.2. Broken and disrupted lears 101 5.3. The overwintering of cattle 103 5.3.1. New infrastructure 104 5.3.2. The economics of Galloway cattle 104 5.3.3. The impact of overwintering on the hardiness of the 106 cattle 5.3.4. The issues of cross bred Galloways 107 5.4. Impacts on swaling practices 108 5.4.1. Introduction 108 5.4.2. Gathering stock and shepherding 111 5.4.3. Dartmoor ponies and gorse 112 5.4.4. Gorse, nitrogen, climate change and severe weather 113 5.4.5. Molinia swaling on peat and the blanket bog 115 5.4.6. Monbiot and swaling 115 5.5. Impacts on the in-bye land 116 5.5.1. The intensification of in-bye land 116 5.5.2. Allocation of time between the in-bye and the 118 Commons 5.6. The implications and impacts for Commons not in the ESA or 120 other agri-environment schemes 5.7. Concluding remarks 122 6. Attitudes towards Molinia: towards an under-grazing narrative 123 6.1. Introduction 123 6.2. Hill-farmers’ attitudes towards Molinia 124 6.2.1.
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