Paul Rutter’s Presentation – The Importance of Creating Land Use Maps

Yesterday evening at the open WCCT meeting Geckoella was pleased to support Paul Rutter with his presentation of his work to date on a detailed map of West Somerset showing land use.

Paul has a wealth of experience and has been working in countryside management for 50 years and is passionate about the condition and future of the countryside in our part of the country. Paul has been working on a landscape scale map based on field studies surveying the countryside on foot in a labour of love for many years and has created by hand an extraordinarily detailed map documenting the land use between the protected areas of the Quantocks and Exmoor. The area he and many others believe is at risk from land use changes including agricultural intensification, development, and energy production, that will have a massive impact on nature, pollution levels, flood risk and quality of life. It’s Paul’s ambition to work with the map and land owners particularly farmers to encourage more environmentally friendly landscape change practices; including regenerative farming techniques that enable food security and profitable farming alongside environmental benefits.

A particular emphasis on future mapping was given to Watchet as there is little collated and verified data of Watchet as a whole with regard to green and blue spaces. Paul discussed the idea of a community effort to get the town and surrounding area mapped not just in terms of current environments but historical ones as well.

Geckoella Director Kate Jeffreys gave a complimentary talk about how the map can be used for sympathetic development and how communities can use the important data collected to help with their plans for the future. She also highlighted the importance of gathering information about our green spaces and how ordinary members of the public and community groups/organisations can link up to collate any green information they have gathered. The overriding message is NO DATA NO NATURE. The concern is that if green spaces aren’t documented then they can’t be protected or enhanced for the community.

This proved to be a fascinating and informative evening, well attended with a lively and positive debate after the presentation. It was amazing to see Paul’s map. Thank you to WCCT for hosting.