European National Parks:

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European National Parks

• Being focused in largest part on
• The United Kingdom
• and
• The Czech Republic

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Review of some things about England

• Legal disputes settled by reference to common
  procedures or practiced--the common law.
  
• Common law can be overridden by statute
• King owns the land, all of it, from whom all
  private land ownership derives and to whom all
  land returns.
  
• King can operate land for his own pleasure or
  for the public good.
  
• King owns the wildlife and is not accountable for
  its actions.
  
• Sovereign, the highest Lord in the land is a
  commoner. The commons have the right to appeal
  to the sovereign for equity and application of
  the common law.

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Space in the United Kingdom

• The UK and its component parts, Scotland, and
  England with Wales
  
• are small places
• and awfully crowded
• Open space is at a premium

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Important termsthat will be developed over the
next several daysmake certain you know them

• Forest-area under the forest law, with or without
  trees
  
• Park-walled area for the keeping of deer
• Chase-a hunting area reserved by a member of the
  aristocracy.
  
• Open Field System-a field owned in distinct units
  by several people and farmed by custom as a
  single unit
  
• Common Fields-a field owned in its totality by
  several people for a purpose determined by custom
  
  
• Enclosure-termination of customary use of common
  or open fields and concentration of their
  ownership into the hands of the one or more
  owners.

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Two kinds of English Parks

• Chases tended to become parks. Some chases and
  some parks have been owned by the King,
  particularly between Windsor and London.
  Remained the personal property of the king even
  after he stopped using them to produce deer but
  tended to be used as space.
• Hence royal parks, for example, Hyde Park,
  Regents Park.
  
• Enclosure of open fields was easy but enclosure
  of common fields was difficult. Many survived and
  are owned as open space by villages to this
  day--as commons parks. Examples Hampstead Heath
  or Trent Park, High Barnet

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The Saga of the Epping Forest
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Administration of the Forests

• William I designated 69 forests reserved to
  himself.
  
• Generate their own laws and rules (Forest Law)
  and its own bureaucracy.
  
• Forest Law had its own judiciary and court
  system.
  
• Three levels
• Dealt mostly with civil cases (for example breach
  of contract)
  
• notoriously slow
• might get away with all kinds of evil doing since
  witness and judges were likely to die before
  anyone got around to sentencing Except
  
• In the case of criminal cases, namely poaching
  the Kings critters
  
• In which case, justice was swift, certain and
  final
  
• Just ask Robin Hood what happens when you kill
  the Kings Deer
  

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• However, different Kings treated their forests
  differently
  
• Some were adamantly serious about the things
• Others, sometime for a century or more, seemed
  unaware that there were other forests.
  
• Or portions might be given away. Typically
• To a mistress whose presence at court had started
  to get on the Queens nerves.
  
• To an offended husband.
• To the Church as a way of buying time out of
  Purgatory
  
• Or for peculiarly important service to the king
  by a commoner or an aristocrat
  
• Among commoners, giving offices in the forest
  bureaucracy, was the usual reward which often
  elevated the family to the minor aristocracy.

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Some Strange Terms

• Preambulation-bunch of folks get together every
  century or so and walk the boundaries to make
  sure it has moved.
  
• Purlieu-a place where preambulators find the
  forest, as trees, once was but is no more.
  Important, as the Common Law, not the Forest Law
  now applies but the King can hunt still as if the
  purlieu were forest.
• Ranger-a guy who guards to kings interests in a
  purlieu.
  
• Note we start getting something like are modern
  terms for these things from the English

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Family Names

• Since many forest offices were purchased and
  there after inherited, many of the offices become
  English family names
  
• Steward or Warden-highest administrator of a
  forest
  
• Verderers-elected freemen who protect Kings
  interests in the forest (curious arrangement and
  not a family name since the post is elected not
  inherited).
• Foresters-practical work in forest, lowest
  nobility work a walk or bailiwick (make a living
  extorting money from travellers).
  
• Woodwards-protect the trees for the King or its
  owner.
  
• Reeves-police the cattle grazing and administer
  the branding.

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Some English Forest Terms that Dont Mean What
You Think They Do

• Disafforest or Deforest-to remove an area from
  the Forest Law. The term has nothing to do with
  the presence or absence of trees.
  
• Reforest or Reafforest-to put a place that was
  under the forest law and was disafforested back
  under the Forest Law.
  
• Therefore, by the way, a forest is a place under
  the jurisdiction of the forest law. The term,
  per se, has nothing to do with trees.

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Rights of Commoners in the Forest

• The right to graze livestock except for geese and
  goats. Why where these excepted. Note Pannage
  is specifically what pigs graze on.
  
• The right of gleaning. In this case the right to
  take dead or fallen wood for your own use, a
  right which in general you still have.
  
• The right of lopping pollards and that done long
  enough will give you a staghorn like the Fairlop
  Oak.
  
• Lopping, pollards? So what is that all about.

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Now with that as background, lets turn to the
Epping Forest

• But it is to the Essex (45) we wish to turn.
• Essex, the land of the East Saxons, is the entire
  area immediately to the northeast of London
  
• Early in its history the forest of Essex was
  divided into several units, each with its own
  history, one of which is the (or was) the Forest
  of Waltham.
• In its turn, the Forest of Waltham had four
  subdivisions
  
• Wintry
• Hainault
• Havering
• Epping--7000 acres extending on a moraine north
  to south and just northeast of London

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• 1812--Long Wellesley (as he was then), later Lord
  Mornington becomes the Warden of Waltham and sets
  about to enclose the forest.
  
• 1851--Only Epping is left (why would this be).
• 1860s--process of enclosing Epping begins.
• Nov. 11, 1868--Thomas Willingale, commoner, began
  lopping the trees of Epping, and it is to jail
  with him (a sobering experience)

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• Enter, our heroes, the Commons Preservation
  Society (a group of intellectuals--today called
  an NGO).
  
• W. R. Fisher--Cambridge Historian--demonstrates
  that
  
• Lopping right extend throughout the forest,
  rather than just the manor or perish of
  residence. Probably not too relevant to the run
  of the mill commoner, but Fish found two very
  interesting commoners,
• Queen Victoria
• Corporation of London.

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• Queen--generally favored industry and thereby
  enclosure but when it came to her own hunting
  cabin in Epping, that is a different matter.
  
• Coorporation of London--starting to get nervous
  about open space.
  
• 1878 Epping Forest Act
• placed Epping under Coporation of London which
  was instructed to purchase lopping rights but
  keep grazing
  
• maintain conditions as in 1878 (impossible)
• Reason for the recreation and enjoyment of the
  Commoner.

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The National Trust

• Commons Preservation Society reorganizes itself
  as the National Trust in 1895. Still an NGO
  
• National Trust Act of 1907-
• National Trust Becomes a charter organization of
  Parliament
  
• Its lands can only be taken from it by Parliament
  (Police Power of State dont apply)
  
• Holdings
• 550,000 buildings on national register (compared
  with 38,000 in USA)
  
• 51 villages
• 140,000 acres of ecological land
• Other function Oversight of Countryside
  Commission and other government organizations.

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National Trust, cont

• Exported to other countries
• National Trust for Scotland (the conservation
  organization for Scotland)
  
• National Trust for Barbados
• Nature Conservancy (for USA)
• Royal Oak Society (directly represents the
  interests of the National Trust for England in
  the USA)
  
• Scottish Heritage USA (directly represents the
  interests of the National Trust for Scotland in
  the USA)
  
• Forms an international scholarly branch which
  becomes known as the Ecological Union.
  
• Applied branch of the Ecological Union evolves
  into the IUCN.

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Englands National Parks
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Englands National ParksA Few Generalizations

• They are in upland, cold, deforested areas
• They are anthropogenic landscapes that took much
  of their present form during the Iron Age.
  
• Therefore much of the landscape appearance was
  established prior to Roman settlement
  
• Very emotional landscapes, preserving a glimpse
  of rock-solid traditional England and its values.
  
  
• Lake District-William Wordsworth called for its
  preservation in 1812.

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Creation of the Parks

• WWII England suffered tremendous bomb damage
• Reconstruction led to fears of an Americanized
  landscape
  
• Realization that the England, a fortress and a
  world power, was a thing of the past.
  
• Certain landscapes, those that were to become
  national parks, embraced a nostalgia for the
  England of Victoria and Edward
  
• Hence we might conclude that a political
  objective was the most important goal for the
  national parks.

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• Action comes in 1945 with the John Dower Report
• John Dower was then director of the Countryside
  Commission
  
• Report calls for parks
• preserve characteristic landscape beauty
• amply provide for public open-air access and
  enjoyment
  
• protect wildlife, buildings and places of
  architectural and historic interest
  
• effectively maintain established farming (ok, so
  how is this to be done)
  
• National Parks and Access Act of 1949 (parks
  established in England between 1951 and 1957)
  
• Welsh National Park Act established parks in
  Wales between 1965 and 1973
  
• Oh notice that stuff about access. We need to
  talk about that a little.
  

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Governing the Things

• Peak District and Lake District are governed by a
  autonomous planning commission.
  
• The rest by a combined board drawn from the
  County Commission and the Secretary of State (bad
  arrangement).
  
• Actual operation by the Countryside Commission
• With oversight by the National Trust

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But they do have a few problems

• No more than 5 of the land in any park under
  national or trust control
  
• Parks are protected largely by zoning land use
• and as with a lot of zoning folks can get by with
  a lot
  
• park administrators spending most of their time
  trying to get along with the local folks
  
• Budgets
• Tax support about .25/person to operate about
  10 of the country
  
• Arts council, 10X
• Urban Parks Open Space, 30X
• Sports and Recreation, 55X
• Heavy, heavy, heavy use
• few places in the USA experience these kinds of
  use rates.
  
• Govt policies that that to erode zoning and
  regulatory policy--reservoir construction and
  forest planting
  

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And more problems

• Regulation of established farming is in fact not
  so easy.
  
• Continuance of military training--
• 91 of military training operations are in parks
• 9 in Scotland (which Scotland says is 9 too
  much)
  
• Different policies in different parks. Well, ok,
  that is listed as a problem but I dont see it.
  
  
• Given their problems their future is by no means
  assured
  
• but
• To their advantage, the Brits loveem
• and
• They provide something of a futuristic role model
  for both American and African parks
  

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Some Little Notes on Scotland

• So far Scotland has utterly rejected creation of
  national parks (though there are proposals for
  two).
  
• So far 100 of conservation in the hands of the
  National Trust for Scotland
  
• Conservation is aimed mostly at buildings and
  monuments
  

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Some Reasons for this Approach

• Strong national dislike of forests.
• Naturally a forested land but deforested during
  Roman times.
  
• Scots have come to see heather and moorlands as
  natural
  
• forests are row crop of exotics to supply England
  with pulp and timber
  
• heather, however, produce grouse and hunting
  rights to grouse go for as much as
  3000/acre/week. Timber seen as poor land use
  compared to heather
• National parks to not allow hunting (it isnt the
  Scots that are doing the hunting or keeping the
  bounty).
  
• National Parks seen as a English land grab
• Everything north of the Lothian Plain, with a
  smaller population than in 1600, seen as a
  national park in the sense of playground anyway.
  

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And

• Building preservation seen as the major problem
  anyway
  
• Scotland is full of castles family homes.
• Dont think everyone in Scotland lived in a
  castles
  
• Lord or chief occupied castle which became a
  defensive site and surrounding territory occupied
  by the rest of the clan that lived in various
  states of prosperity, poverty and depravity
• Today, there is nobody that can afford to keep
  these thing up.
  

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Except Foreigners

• Operational budget of the National Trust for
  Scotland is 2X the total budget for English
  National Parks.
  
• Fully a third raised directly from foreign
  sources--memberships, subscriptions, donations,
  legacies, admissions and profits of the trading
  company
• does not include indirect donations most of
  which come from USA, Canada, Australia and New
  Zealand.
  
• Crathes Castle and Forest of Drum
• An Example

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Crathes Castle and the Forest of Drum

• Along the north bank of the Dee River
• Cattle breeding area and the family involved has
  a history of dealing in and breeding cattle.
  
• Family emerges in Bedford, England prior to
  1066.
  
• Hence they are Anglo-Saxon
• By 1200 they are in the service of the Norman
  kings in the Scottish Border counties. Service
  probably means they were stealing cattle.
  
• 1323 awarded the Forest of Drum for service to
  Robert the Bruce at the the Battle of Bannockburn
  in 1309.
  
• Services were in the area of logistics--hence
  commerce
  
• Drum elevated the family to the minor
  aristocrary
  
• Drum permitted the family to a minor pilfering to
  cattle dealing

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• Work begun in 1525 on Crathes Castle--will become
  the last and best example of Scottish domestic
  military architecture.
  
• During the Reformation, one Alexander marries
  Janet Hamilton, bastard daughter of the
  Archbishop of Aberdeen who bring to the marriage
  about half the church lands of eastern Scotland.
  Upon death of the Archbishop, Alexander and Janet
  wise become Presbyterians literally at the side
  of dads deathbed.
• By 1635, chief sons are deported to the New
  World. Virginia (business factors), Barbados
  (sugar planters),New York (clergyman), and Nova
  Scotia (clergyman). Virginia and Barbados line
  brings in poorer members of the family as
  indentured servants.
• By 1750s, enclosure and many of the poorer end of
  family deported in chains to Australia.

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• 1926-12th Baron dies. In WWI Sir Thomas was one
  of four British officers to survive four years of
  trench warfare. Came out of it not exactly sane
  and devoted the rest of his life to the gardens
  at Crathes. Bankrupts the estate.
• 1959-14th Baron dies. A drunken Australian sheep
  farmer, this is the end of the baronage line.
  
• Crathes and the Forest of Drum taken over by
  National Trust.
  
• Lord C. A. (Jamie) Burnett of Leys is a school
  teacher at the family village of Banchory and has
  a life estate for ritual purposes in one room in
  Crathes
• House of Burnett, USA, and House of Burnett,
  Australia, provide 4 horticultural gardens
  scholarships/year and are negotiating to assume
  full financial management of the house which
  would, however, remain a part of the National
  Trust Estate.

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Characteristic of Crathes and Drum

• Crathes
• last and finest example of Scottish domestic
  military architecture
  
• 595 acres
• 6 marked trails from . 25 miles to 6.25 miles
• famous for its gardens
• habitat for several rare and endangered species
• green woodpecker
• great spotted woodpecker
• several kinds of fungi
• Drum
• 117 acres
• rookery for the rook

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Two Other Important Places in Scotland

• Glenco
• 14,190 acres (largest unit in National Trust for
  Scotland and the nearest thing to a national
  park).
  
• On A82 between Glasgow and Ft. Williams
• Site of 1692 massacre of McDonalds by the
  Campbells
  
• eagle, ptarmigan, grouse, red deer, fox,
  wildcat,l ferral mink
  
• Culloudan Field
• 1754, last battle between the British and
  highland clans
  
• clans defeated, utterly. British mutilate
  bodies.
  
• Enclosure and massive deportation mostly to North
  Carolina
  
• Get their revenge at Kings Mountain and Cow
  Pens.

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The Czech Republic

• Communism Reformed

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Czech Republic--some observations

• Two basins surrounded by mountains
• Bohemia
• containing the Labe and Vlatav rivers joining at
  Prague
  
• Continues as Labe into Germany where it is known
  as the Elba
  
• Moravia
• Morava River which flows into the Danube
• Some minor differences in language and culture
  between the two basins
  
• Headwaters area, very important to conservation.
  The Switzerland of Central Europe.
  
• Homeland of the Celtic
• But abandoned by the time the Czech start moving
  in
  
• About 900 A.D., Western Slavs occupy Prague and
  begin to spread into the Bohemian and Moravian
  Basins.
  
• Compete with Germans who tend to mountains and
  forests
  

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Czech Republic, cont

• Strongly tribal people
• But small group quickly absorbed into larger,
  generally German speaking, groups.
  
• By 1800s Czech Nationalism begins to develop
• romanticism
• language defined and stabilized
• 1914-Czechs an unwilling part of the
  Austro-Hungarian Empire and less than
  enthusiastic about WWI
  
• 1918-combined with Slovaks (also more or less
  Czech speakers) to become independent and
  democratic Czechoslovakia
  
• 1938-Nazi Germany takes German speaking portions
  of Czechland
  
• 1939-Rest made a protectorate of Nazi Germany.
  Slovaks elect Nazi government.
  

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Czech Republic, Cont

• May 9-12, 1945. Czechs liberated by Russians
• Liberal democracy re-established
• 1949-by a coup, communists take power. Establish
  the most Stalinist government in the eastern
  block.
  
• 1966-Prague Spring. While Russia isnt looking,
  Czech attempt to establish a liberal democratic
  communist government. Ends with Warsaw Pact
  (Russia and Poland) invasion.
• Nov 17, 1989-Dec 29, 1989. Velvet Revolution
  in which the communists are thrown out
  (literally).
  
• January 1, 1993-Czechs and Slovaks split.

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And so, what is communism anyway?

• The madness of idealism

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• In theory anyway, communism is an economic
  system
  
• whereby the means of production are taken over by
  the works
  
• who establish a form of democracy called a class
  dictatorship
  
• and run production for their class benefit on the
  dictum from each according to his ability to
  each according to his needs (a way of doing
  things that is un-American).
• Tended to be a highly centralized, planned
  economy, very dictatorial and obsessed with
  theory.

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• Worst term a communist can call you is
• Bourgeois
• (which is exactly what you are)
• Bourgeois is middle class, small-time
  capitalists, pretentious, given to appearances,
  possessions
  
• And here is the kick on it
• Nature is Bourgeois
• and
• Biology is a Bourgeois Science
• The Darwinist idea of the survival of the fittest
  explains why the capitalist middle class has
  things and the poor working class hasnt

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• According to communists
• nature just has to learn to do things our way
• doctrine known as humanistic materialism
• humans are the center of creation and material
  world must conform to human expectations
  
• Communists
• reject Darwinism
• accept Lamarkian Biology (the inheritance of
  acquired characteristics)
  
• worked as a policy--corn can learn to be raised
  in Siberia
  
• results in one environmental disaster after
  another

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• Communists have been an urban, industrial people
• little or no experience with nature
• Marx never writes about nature or farming
• Communists dont understand farming
• Farming is innately bourgeois (farmers invest
  labor in the land and expect a return and that is
  capitalism)
  
• Russians seek to treat food production as simply
  another industrial, factory operation
  
• collective or state farm
• Communists are very poor cost accountants
• Real cost of things not known
• No attempt to internalize environmental costs
• In West, environmental costs tend to be passed on
  to the consumer so that in the end clean
  producers are more profitable
  

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• Results of the approach to nature were food
  shortages and environmental disaster
  
• Environmental calamity is the single major factor
  leading to the fall of communism
  
• Communists so indifferent to the environment that
  they believed it incredible that environmental
  problems would bring down governments--but they
  did.

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• Fall of communism has been accompanied by
• Social demoralization high death rates,
  shortened life span, increased alcoholism,
  increased abortion, increased suicide
  
• exception to this pattern is Czech Republic
• Increase in prices as commodities find their
  proper level
  
• 1st 5 years, 10 of Czech, 226 for Russians
• Drop in GDP and Industrial Production
• Czech Republic stable
• Environmental situation tended to improve simply
  because these circumstances drove the worst
  polluters out of business.
  

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So how are the former commies doing?

• In general, the more western a former communist
  country was and the faster is leapt into the
  capitalist economy, the better off it is.
  
• In general, then, Poland, Czech Republic and
  Hungry should be doing fairly well just because
  they are the western most of the former communist
  block.
• Czech Republic claims to be western European
  anyway
  
• Czech Republic had all the former already printed
  for breaking up state monopolies and did it about
  over night, a frightful shock, but one that has
  paid off.

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Conservation in Czech Republic

• Many areas of primitive forests set aside on
  family estates.
  
• For example Boubin, a small forest area in Sumava
  NP, officially conserved in 1850 but an
  argument can be made that it has been under
  conservation management since 1580
• 1992, after fall of communism, Protected
  Territories Law was reformed.
  
• 6 classes
• Large scale are National Parks, and protected
  landscape areas.
  
• 3 national parks and 24 protected total 11,534
  km2 (14.6 of country)
  
• other 1623 areas674.3 km2. These are known as
  small scale areas
  
• total is 1650 acres.

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Some important reserves

• National parks
• Sumava
• in southern Bohemia
• former soviet tank base
• Areas within areas, typical of the European
  patter. For example, Sumava National Park, a
  UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, is within the Sumava
  Landscape Area, and both contain small scale
  areas. For example Boubin is within the Sumava
  Landscape Area but not the national park
• Krkonose
• contains winter sports areas and former labor
  resort areas, much damaged by acid rain
  
• Podyji
• contains memorialized part of Iron Curtain.

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And some more reserves

• Trebonsko Protected Landscape
• totally manmade landscape described as having
  achieved secondary balance
  
• vast area of fishponds (for carp of all things)
  completed in 1500. Well an inland Catholic
  population had to get fish from somewhere.
  
• Krivoklatsko Protected Landscape.
• Intended to protect last stands of European mixed
  riverine forests
  
• the end