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Local Authorities and Sustainable Peatland Management: Current Opportunities and Future Possibilities for Local Approaches
local designated sites such as Local Nature Reserves and Country Parks that are popular recreation areas.
The significance of natural heritage and landscape to the cultural heritage policy of local authorities, is not always obvious because the core responsibilities of local authorities focus on the protection of built heritage, i.e., listed buildings and scheduled monuments. Local authorities are responsible for protecting this built heritage through the land use planning regime and specific powers for consent to building works. However, scheduled monuments often exist in more rural environments and the law recognises the significance of the ‘setting’ of listed buildings. More generally planning policies refer to the significance of all kinds of heritage assets that include natural heritage, for example, historic battle fields and historic parks and gardens. Local authorities also have powers to designate wider parts of their area as ‘conservation areas’ which might take in the broader historic interest of the wider landscape. Most importantly local authorities can develop culture and heritage policies that adopt a wider perspective given their discretionary powers.
Local Authorities and Partnership Working for SPM
Nature doesn’t recognise administrative boundaries and peatlands may cover a wide area. Effective governance for SPM will also rely on multi-level governance approaches, involving a range of organisations operating at different spatial scales and with different forms of knowledge to bring to the table. This means it is essential to consider how local authorities might work with other actors to pursue SPM (see Figure 10). This can involve all or any of the following: • Influencing or supporting other landowners to take action on their land. • Working in partnership with other public sector and third sector organisations to develop polices and actions for SPM. There already a number of mechanisms, statutory and otherwise, in place to support partnership working between local authorities and other organisations focused on Welsh Government’s goals in terms of wellbeing and nature recovery. Peatlands play an important part in meeting these objectives and so these vehicles may be used to further the aims of SPM (see Figure 11). Funding is essential to much of this work especially where it involves peat restoration. The NPAP has dedicated funding for SPM but by recognising the multiple benefits of peatlands it is possible to identify other sources of potential funding to support SPM (see Figure 12). Working with Other Actors to Support SPM. There are several organisations at national and local levels that can work with or assist local authorities in supporting SPM at a local level. These include NRW, Dwr Cymru, National Parks, third sector organisations and private landowners.
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