A Climate Emergency was declared in the autumn of 2019 by many groups, including local government bodies. A year on, North Craven Heritage Trust and Friends of the Dales thought it would be helpful to look at climate change and associated environmental issues across the Yorkshire Dales as a whole. Whilst the area falls within the purview of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, we were conscious that, as a predominantly upland area, it is also served by several other local and county councils. The focus of these other councils must be primarily on their main, lowland, population centres, which lie outside the park.

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What is true for local government is also true for most voluntary sector groups of conservation and environmental activists.

Our two charities therefore planned for a day conference in Grassington in October, until Covid-19 arrived. This forced us to move the conference on to a Zoom platform and, as an aid to concentration, to split it into two half-day sessions, held on October 3 and October 17.

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In particular, we were looking for answers to:

• What have we achieved?

• What are the challenges?

• What are the next goals?

 

This page forms a record of the conference, starting with the programme and continuing with each talk. The items are in the form of PDFs of the slides, which can be downloaded, and links to videos of the talks.

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Programme

To download the challenges facing the Conference, click here

To download the programme, click here

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Session 1: Saturday 3 October 2020 – A New Dales Politics

Chair Julie Martin (Secretary of State appointee, Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority)

Talk 1: “Everything but the Carbon Sink: a Net-zero National Park” (Gary Smith, Director of Conservation and Community, Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority)

To download the slides for this talk, click here

To view a video of the introduction to the conference and this talk, click here

Talk 2: “Craven District Council’s Plans for Carbon Neutrality” (Rob Atkins, Craven District Council)

To download the slides for this talk, click here

To view a video of this talk, click here

Talk 3: “The Future is Bright, the Future is Circular” (Catherine Weetman, Circular Economy Business Advisor, Rethink Global)

To download the slides for this talk, click here

To view a video of this talk, click here

To view a video of the panel discussion, click here

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Session 2: Saturday 17 October 2020 – A New Dales Landscape

Chair: Mark Corner (Secretary of State appointee, Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority)

Talk 4: “New thinking behind the design and establishment of tree planting in The Dales” (Professor Alan Simson, Leeds Beckett University)

To download the slides for this talk, click here

To view a video of this talk, click here

Talk 5: “Distinctly Westmorland Dales” (David Evans, Westmorland Dales Landscape Partnership)

To download the slides for this talk, click here

To view a video of this talk, click here

Talk 6: “Less is More in Farming” (Neil Heseltine, Farmer and Chair Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority)

To download the slides for this talk, click here

To view a video of this talk, click here

Talk 7: “Water in the Dales: Are We Keeping Up With Climate Change?” (Professor Rick Battarbee FRS)

To download the slides for this talk, click here

To view a video of this talk, click here

To view a video of the panel discussion and conclusion, click here