The Lake District is one of England’s most culturally and ecologically important landscapes, but this landscape has been significantly altered as a result of a number of intensive land-management practices. Lee Schofield, Danny Teasdale, David Hampson, and Malcolm Ausden discuss the influence of sheep-grazing in the Lake District, and two case studies of land-management approaches.
The English Lake District is arguably the UK’s most cherished landscape, receiving more visitors each year than any other UK National Park (National Parks UK 2020). The high cultural value of the Lake District has been recognised by its designation in 2017 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, this being based largely on the area’s sheep-farming traditions and landscape (UNESCO 2017).