The goal is to enable people, from all backgrounds and of all abilities, to discover, explore and connect meaningfully with the North Pennines National Landscape, its nature and its heritage.
This engagement can lead to a lasting, positive impact on people - finding joy, inspiration or solace in this landscape, experiencing improved health and wellbeing and, ultimately, having a deeper understanding and practicing a renewed care for the North Pennines, nature and heritage.
Rationale
The benefits to us all of being in or connected with the natural environment are now well-documented. They include improving physical conditions such as chronic pain and hypertension, enhancing emotional wellbeing, alleviating feelings of social isolation, and helping individuals suffering from attention disorders, mood disorders and forms of anxiety [81].
In an attempt to put numbers on this, research by the University of York in 2018 showed that every £1 invested the North York Moors National Park generated over £7 in health and wellbeing benefits for visitors and volunteers. [82].
At the same time there is a massive inequality in access to nature and heritage, and the associated health and wellbeing benefits.
Public Health England's 2020 review [83] found that the groups who most infrequently access green spaces were people who were older; those in poor health; people of lower socioeconomic status; those with a physical disability; ethnic minorities; and people living in deprived areas, among others. These groups are referred to throughout as 'marginalised.'
Natural England’s People and Nature survey [84] has shown that households with the lowest incomes are the least likely to have a garden, the most likely to have no outdoor space at all, and the least likely to live close to publicly accessible natural green space.
In 2022 after the Covid epidemic had highlighted so clearly both the value of accessible green space and its highly inequitable distribution, the North Pennines National Landscape team led an action research project to find out what might contribute to change. From this work with people who had never visited this landscape before, a number of valuable lessons were learned and a set of principles was developed which inform this plan.
Nature connectedness is also a key factor in people taking conservation action [85]. Nature is in crisis and needs our help everywhere, and although much of the change needed to reverse the crisis and recover nature in this landscape and elsewhere will come from the actions of farmers and land managers (see Nature Recovery section), all of us can and do make a difference through our advocacy for nature, through citizen science and through actions which reduce environmental damage and which help wildlife.