Reflections from the sessions

The Landscapes Wales seminar for 2026 was held in the uplands of the Taff catchment on 13 and 14 October, and as the new Chair of the Taff Catchment Partnership I was very grateful to receive an invitation courtesy of the organisers, Tirweddau Cymru.

To tell you the truth, I felt a bit of an imposter as I signed up; clearly landscape management is fundamental to how the Taff catchment operates, and my experience doesn’t follow a traditional career path in this sector. However, when I turned up and saw many familiar faces, it reminded me that my many years working in onshore wind, as well as several projects I’ve delivered engaging local communities with National Landscape strategy development, qualify me in ways that are both unconventional and relevant. I came away with a lot to think about, but one thread kept coming back: how often good people work in spite of the systems they sit within, rather than because of them.

The Taff catchment benefits from a diverse range of landscapes and landscape managers. These include private landowners, local authorities, Dŵr Cymru, the National Trust and the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority. Several contributors work day to day within local communities outside designated landscapes, and their contribution kept discussions grounded in the impact ‘on the ground’, balancing the strategic with the operational while keeping in view the needs of people who ordinarily might not be regular visitors to the outdoors.

The first afternoon kicked off with a plenary panel and discussion on the value of landscapes in contemporary Wales. I’m gonna say it – how refreshing to have a panel made up of such a diverse group. We heard from Rebecca Falvey (Cardiff National Park City), Lowri Jones (National Trust – focusing on engaging valleys communities), Ismail Kholwadia (Focal Elements) and Helen Nelson (Future Generations), ably chaired by Naomi Jones of Eryri National Park.

Whilst all the speakers provided insight, I was particularly taken with Ismail’s challenge to designated landscape actors not to sit back and wait for people from diverse communities to just ‘discover’ the benefits of rurality and the outdoors. That challenge lands squarely on the Taff. Many of the communities at the heart of our catchment live outside its designated landscapes, and it’s the Partnership’s job to ensure that they are empowered to engage with us, not wait for them.

On a personal level I was delighted to see Rebecca Falvey representing the Cardiff National Park City, as I led the campaign for four years until 2023, and I remain convinced not only of the need for this concept, but of the value in connecting our urban populations to the nature on our doorstep. Connecting people deeply with nature in towns and cities will surely improve outcomes and support for nature in rural areas as well.

The second afternoon offered a choice of three sessions. My heart said the guide walk leader taster session, but given the summer we’ve just had, my head said the wildfire session. I always feel that, given two fantastic choices, there’s no such thing as a wrong one, but I did feel a tiny bit of regret on hearing the positive feedback from the guide walk!

Nonetheless, the wildfire session was both brilliant and concerning. As I’ve argued here previously, wildfire and flood are two sides of the same coin, and it seems that, whilst we are insufficiently prepared for both, wildfire exposes us particularly cruelly. Although the valleys have long been a ‘hotspot’ for wildfires, often started deliberately (highlighting the importance of social causes), the devastation this summer was of a whole different order. Numerous issues were raised, including a lack of institutional prioritisation, a lack of sufficient equipment of the right type, and insufficient collaboration between the relevant organisations. A shout-out here to Becky Davies of Natural Resources Wales, the internal lead for the Taff Catchment Partnership, who spoke with considerable authority and passion on the topic. She is a showcase for the collaboration we’ll need if we are to build resilience to increasing cycles of destruction in the coming years and decades, through upland fire and lowland flood.

The day finished with a preview screening of a film entitled “who gives a **** about polar bears” by the BAFTA award-winning producer Gavin Porter. Honestly, I was blown away. It’s at least as much homage to Butetown as a documentary about climate change, and I can’t wait for the finished article. I think it would sit beautifully within a programme of local climate change engagement (such as this!), and we’re at the stage in the climate crisis where we probably need a Gavin in every town and city across Wales, investigating and interpreting grassroots reactions to the growing impact of climate change on our everyday lives.

A short clip of Gavin’s climate crisis documentary, as shared on LinkedIn

The second day focused on the social impact of designated landscapes, and on governance. Research presented by the University of Warwick suggested that people living in and near designated landscapes value that designation. But as Prof. Calvin Jones pointed out, we don’t know whether people in equally beautiful but undesignated parts of Wales – much of Powys, Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire, the upland valleys – would say much the same. Without that comparison, I struggle to see a direct link between designation itself and social benefit for residents.

Howard Davies brought that session to an end with a discussion about governance. He introduced it as a ‘dry’ topic, but for me nothing could be further from the truth! Governance sits at the heart of decision-making in Wales, and improving it is probably one of the quickest ways to improve outcomes across a whole swathe of organisations delivering a myriad of services to Wales’ citizens. With the Taff Catchment Partnership designing its own governance right now, the session couldn’t have been more timely. Anyway, the discussion was lively, and I think it bodes extremely well for designated landscapes that this sort of internal scrutiny is happening. Governance must be continuously challenged and refreshed if it’s to remain relevant and valuable.

Links to Future Generations?

As a general theme (and not just from this session!), I’m often struck by how often people operate in spite of, rather than supported by, their various bureaucracies. My day job is at a university, so I’m no stranger to finding routes within systems. As somebody who’s worked in organisations both large and micro, the trade-off for me is very clear: large institutions bring large resources and potentially huge impact, but the acknowledged silos within them are inherent barriers to information flow and activity.

The Future Generations Act mandates five Ways of Working on public bodies in Wales and, I’d argue, they’re good practice for any organisation. Yet I see far too few examples of these Ways of Working done well, particularly integration and collaboration. It’s not the fault of individuals, but of the systems that govern the modern workplace. KPIs and annual appraisals almost always relate to things you have the budget to deliver. So a change that saves a local authority money but pushes demand onto the NHS can count as a win on one balance sheet and a cost on another, and nobody’s appraisal captures both.

In the Taff, this could take the form of pooled resources between the three local authorities, Dŵr Cymru and Bannau Brycheiniog, delivering more ambitious and wide-ranging habitat restoration than any single body working alone. Some of this may already be happening; if so, I’d love to hear about it, and the Partnership should be the place where we do more of it.

So here’s my suggestion. We need a more enlightened view of line management, risk management and corporate governance – one that embeds 10% of staff time in integration and collaboration, even where the direct benefit to the organisation isn’t immediately obvious. Or perhaps it becomes something assessed each year for every member of staff. Something for audit and risk committees to chew on in the coming years, perhaps.

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Cover video courtesy of the author. The views expressed here are of David Clubb, Independent Chair of the Taff Catchment Partnership.