Multiple capitals account: Hows Wood, Eskdale

Mansfield, Lois ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0707-2467 (2025) Multiple capitals account: Hows Wood, Eskdale. Friends of the Lake District.

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Abstract

Friends of the Lake District (FLD) are a charity who campaign for the landscapes of Cumbria. Owning twelve distinct blocks of land across the county, including Little Asby Common in east Cumbria, and How’s Wood in west Cumbria, FLD’s work includes commenting on policy proposals and plans, from national to local, demonstrating best practice on its land, feeding this experience back into its policy work, and engaging the public in the outdoors and landscape issues. Recently, FLD has become interested in the application of a multiple capitals approach as a mechanism to value all the benefits a landscape provides for society. In 2022, it commissioned a Natural Capitals Account for all its land holdings and while worthwhile, it was felt that the results did not reflect the full financial value and benefits their land brings to society. Instead, a multiple capitals account could do this – looking at all the benefits which land provides. A multiple capitals approach had been previously conceptually explored on behalf of the national Landscapes team at Natural England. This culminated in the production of the first attempt nationally (and believed to be internationally) to calculate a landscape multiple capital account for a rural landscape. The Multiple Capitals Account for Little Asby Common calculated the following total economic value for 2022/23: £61.2m (public perception dominated) to £20.2m (Benefits Transfer dominated). This was broken down into: Cultural Capital (£55.2m to £17.3m); Natural Capital (£2.93m to £1.19m); Human Capital (£1.92m to £726K)’ Social Capital (£1.15m to £1.12m) and Financial Capital (£876K all scenarios).

This work and its results generated substantial debate and discussion amongst stakeholders interested in landscape management at the regional and national level, particularly related to natural capital accounting and its relationship with other capitals. Additionally, the work revealed the report had four particular weaknesses:
• Length of time of visitor survey
• Explanation of Willingness to Pay (WTP - how much someone is willing to pay to maintain significant tangible and intangible characteristics of a landscape.
• Limited non-FLD membership surveyed creating ‘organisational’ bias
• WTP sample size of survey did not hit the standard 300 threshold (244 responses).

This report, therefore, is FLD’s response to the increased interest and weaknesses raised to help develop the methodology further, through calculating a second Multiple Capitals Account using another of their sites, Hows Wood in Eskdale. The exercise also provides an opportunity to include any new accounting tools to help reduce reliance on WTP and to apply other accounting techniques used for Natural Capital such as:
• One year and fifty-year extrapolation of value
• Inclusion of a discounting rate of 3.5% or alternative accepted rate
• Division into stocks and flows
• Closer inspection of double accounting between capitals.

Finally, this second Multiple Capitals Account allows comparison of results between:
• FLD members and non-members
• Between LAC and How’s Wood.

Item Type:	Report
Publisher:	Friends of the Lake District
Departments:	Institute of Science and Environment > Forestry and Conservation Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas (CNPPA)
Additional Information:	Research commissioned by Friends of the Lake District. Professor Lois Mansfield, PhD, Professor of Upland Landscapes, and Director of Centre for National Parks & Protected Areas (CNPPA), University of Cumbria, UK and Environmentors.
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	12 Sep 2025 09:30
Last Modified:	13 Sep 2025 08:15
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/9036

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