Andrew Bell: What does the future hold for North Devon?

THE UNESCO Biosphere Reserve is a designation or accolade awarded to the area North Devon for being a leader in sustainable development in a wonderful environmental setting. It stretches from the high points of Dartmoor and Exmoor through the river basins and out to Lundy; a total of 3,500sq km.

Being designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve is a great achievement for our unique North Devon. We have a terrific environment and the aim for all the authorities and businesses associated with the Biosphere Reserve is to ensure that the quality of life (and that environment) we have will persist for generations into the future. The future can be a scary place, there is no certainty of what might happen, and we certainly have some challenges to deal with… but do we have to be so scared? In this brief essay I hope to share a few possibilities for the future and what we can do to keep life so good.

The world is changing at a huge pace in terms of environment, socially and economically. There are now companies with more wealth than nations. More information is being pushed in our direction than ever before along with some incredibly fantastic technology. Mixed in with all of this is a breakdown of the systems that support life on earth. North Devon is not exempt from this.

Climate change is one of those uncertainties to consider. The science of the causes is clear; the smoking gun of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases and associated temperature change is a very unambiguous signal from thousands of years ago. Our emissions from the onset of the industrial revolution are jump-starting another great warming.

The impacts of this warming are less certain for many good reasons. We know the direction of change but the range of possible outcomes span from the locally "possibly pleasant" to the globally catastrophic. Not that this type of uncertainty should give us any less faith in the basic science, just that there are so many variables to include in the equation of the models: including our own response. In this equation is not just how we reduce the greenhouse gasses through energy efficiency, renewable energy production, and actively locking carbon dioxide into our soils and trees, but how our own lifestyles and the planning within the community adapt to the changes that are coming over the next 40 years regardless of what we do now. It sounds like a statement of the obvious, but despite the massive global changes that might go on; the actions of communities at a local scale can alter the changes we experience.

Clearly it's not a good thing to "do nothing" even in the face of this deep uncertainty. For example, the frequency of storm events especially flooding is getting perceptively more frequent especially in the winter. If these intense storms increase as predicted in almost all of the model results, then we can significantly reduce the impact that they have by the type of land-use we encourage. Increasing woodland and permanent grassland will slow down the overland flows of water and the reaction time of the rivers and therefore the number and frequency of flood events in the river valleys. These "natural" options are often more cost effective than the artificially engineered options. It is already proven that saltmarshes and mudflats in estuaries are the best cost effective flood and coastal defence system. In the river catchments we have carried out hydrological modelling that suggests we can halve the risk of serious floods (2% to 1% and 1% to 0.5%) by these land-use changes. Consider how much that might reduce your insurance premium. Consider a different option of the insurance companies paying the farmers to change their practices; this happens in the Panama Canal catchment.

We now start to enter the realms of interesting alternative futures of our farmers being paid to provide more services than simply food production. If we apply this type of thinking, a new image of a rural economy starts to emerge where food and natural services are the drivers of the economy.

The protection of our natural systems and reaping the benefits they bring, only demands that we re-establish our connections with that environment. The idea of living with nature conjures up images of reversion back to pre-industrial ages, but that is not necessarily the case. On an economy level, the Ford Motor Company saved $35 million when their production plant at Rouge River was renovated using environmentally sound principles that saved energy and reduced pollutants. On an individual level, you can simply take a visit to your local wildlife area and reflect on how good that can make you feel. Isn't it about time that we insisted that our planning system took these services into account and built these lessons into the new developments we expect in the area?

So what might this approach to economics mean for our area in meeting the challenge of reducing the causes of climate change?

To reduce our emissions by 80% by 2050 and about 34% by 2020 is a serious challenge. The 10:10 campaign calls for us to take action to reduce our emissions by 10% during 2010. The campaign shows how we as individuals can make that crucial start very painlessly. (www.1010uk.org/people#how_can_we). It needs bigger action too. A great book, Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air by David MacKay (www.sewtha.com) is available free on the internet.

MacKay sets the challenge that not just "every bit counts" in terms of people's domestic actions but "every BIG counts" and neatly presents the comparable figures on the different options from nuclear to energy reduction, wind, solar and bio-fuels. His most interesting proposition is the use of solar furnaces based in desert countries transmitting the power to the UK. The caveat being that Spain and France do not mind a 1.5 km wide swathe of pylons passing through their landscape to the UK and that we all remain good friends so that our energy supply is not compromised. What is evident from MacKay's work is that there is no one single solution, we will require wind power, nuclear, biofuels, wood and clean coal. These are consistent in each of his proposed energy mixes for the UK.

The recently announced approval from Crown Estates for the development of the Atlantic Array is something to help make it a great example to the rest of the world in terms of its impact on sustainability.

Here in North Devon, we can not dodge the need to produce energy and rely on nuclear based electricity being produced elsewhere and piped in. This means within the Biosphere Reserve, even after energy efficiency measures, we are going to have to look at wind power, wood, bio-fuel and top it up with marine current and hydropower; no mean feat with protected landscapes and National Parks. On a domestic scale, we could extend our experience from our recent "Carbon Clinic" work in Winkleigh to the rest of the area.

If I were to present a vision, it would be that each community owned and operated its own local energy facility, be it wind, bio-gas or bio-mass; each reaped the income for re-investment in the community and safeguarded those services that stopped greenhouse gases leaking from the soils. The wood for the energy would be from the same sustainable woodlands that slowed the flood response of the rivers.

A recent survey of people in North Devon showed that people were evenly divided about landscape conservation and climate change. Theoretically, 50% would not mind more wind turbines as a temporary measure to bridge our energy gap until other technologies come on-line. If we ask France and Spain to suffer our pylons for an indefinite period, would it be so bad to have turbines in our area for 20 or 30 years? The same public survey showed that the issues about limited resources, global population and climate change were people's top three environmental and social concerns. Clearly the three are inter-related. Even if you do not believe in green energy for climate reasons, you might for the simple wise use of our resources and the creation of a stronger local economy.

To summarise, I have aired some ideas about how our economy and the way we link with our environment can change; some of these ideas are on the horizon already. We have major decisions to make about our responses to global change and how to build in our own resilience both economically and environmentally. It is time we started with the action at home and took on these larger energy questions. So take this as a call for action for the people of North Devon to shape their future. The Biosphere Reserve is all about grass roots action, forward thinking and scientific evidence, all of these skills are within our community and other expertise we can draw on; after all, we are an internationally important area recognised for our approach to sustainability. The Biosphere Reserve needs your ideas and action so we can keep this quality for generations to come.

Feel free to add to the discussion on our website at www.northdevonbiosphere.org.uk